MCKOWNVILLE — Smells from Albany’s landfill have caused vomiting, forced children at day care to stay inside, and sent local workers home early.

Officials who run the Rapp Road landfill say they’re making improvements but local residents say they’ve heard that for years.

Residents of the village of Colonie, the town of Guilderland, and the city of Albany have all complained about an awful smell that comes from the Rapp Road landfill in Albany, bordering the Pine Bush Preserve.

The landfill is a major revenue source for Albany, which collects a large portion of its annual budget from the local municipalities and private contractors who dump there. The landfill sits on the border of three municipalities and is surrounded by both residential and commercial areas, including Crossgates Commons.
The smell, which some have described as a "fog" that rolls through the neighborhood on chilly evenings and damp humid days, usually comes around dinner time.
"My grown children and their friends say they always know they are at the correct Thruway exit because they recognize the awful smell," said Martha Harausz, a McKownville resident. "The smell from it is awful and for a long time I didn’t know who to contact about it."

City officials say the reason why the landfill smells so bad has nothing to with methane gas, which is odorless or with the tower off of the Thruway burning that gas. City officials also say the smell is not due to worker incompetence. Both health experts and the Albany city officials agree there is no health risk to the communities surrounding the city’s landfill as long as it is properly maintained.
However, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is levying a hefty fine because of the odors and stated that the landfill did not "effectively control odors so that they do not constitute a nuisance or hazard to health, safety, or property," and that blown litter was observed on the ground and trees surrounding the landfill.

Albany was fined $100,000 but only has to pay half that if it complies with requirements.

In the order of consent to fine the Rapp Road landfill, the DEC named complainants from the village of Colonie and the city of Albany, travelers and toll booth workers on the Thruway, and businesses along Washington Avenue Extension. Guilderland residents were not named.
"The complaints range from people being offended, roused from their sleep, one person vomiting, workers being sent home from local businesses, and children at a day care center not being allowed to go outside," said the complaint filed by the DEC.

If a DEC fine is not paid, the case could wind up in the state attorney general’s office, said Rick Georgeson, spokesman for Region IV of the DEC, but added that Albany was in good standing and had been making its monthly $10,000 payments.

Why does the dump smell so bad"

Because of all of the rotting garbage — literally tons of it.

Over a thousand tons of trash a day get buried at the Rapp Road landfill, according to Albany’s Department of General Services Commissioner William Bruce, who told The Enterprise that the smell will get better.

Weather is also a culprit with wind direction dictating which town or village is affected the most by the odor, he said.
Bruce blamed the recent smells to mandated renovations and new maintenance and because of "poor coordination." Two-and-a-half years ago, when the smells from the landfill became particularly unbearable, the city’s corporate counsel blamed the problem on improvements to gas-line systems being installed at the time.

Bruce said that the DEC has required new gas wells and infrastructure improvements.

However, some McKownville residents aren’t convinced. A town councilman has spoken out on the issue and so has the neighborhood association president.

Residents who live in the area say they are sick of the stink they endure year in and year out.
"On certain nights, it smells like there’s garbage rotting right in your own backyard," said Donald Reeb, president of the McKownville Neighborhood Improvement Association. "It’s kind of like a fog that comes into the neighborhood"I think it gets worse around dinner time or evening."

Reeb said he is looking to hire an expert to run air quality tests in the area and that the state’s Department of Health may do the same.

He also said that his association has been routinely stonewalled by both the mayor’s office in Albany and the landfill’s management.
The smell is clearly present inside of vehicles as they enter and leave the Thruway’s Exit 24 ramp where a tower is also visible that "flares" off surplus methane gas from the landfill. The obnoxious odor is highly acrid with a sulfuric content that is instantly noticeable whether in a car, a backyard, or near an open window of a home.

Neighbors put up a stink
"I’ve heard some pretty animated conversations about the smell at neighborhood association meetings," said Guilderland town councilman, David Bosworth. "I think it’s gotten worse in the last couple of years"It just kind of creeps into the neighborhood."
Bosworth, who lives behind Stuyvesant Plaza off of Fuller Road, said that the landfill had recently hired a new operator, but that "the new operator didn’t fix the problem."

He also said that he heard some residents talking about relocating because the smell had become so bad in recent years.
"It’s pretty disgusting," Reeb told The Enterprise. "It’s bad, there’s no question about it"It does stink."

Reeb said that he has called Albany Mayor Gerald Jennings and administrators at the landfill, but has gotten very little response.
"It’s been pretty much one of those one-sided conversations," Reeb said. "Actually, it’s not really like a conversation as much as it’s like talking to an answering machine."

Martha Harausz said for years she did not know who to call about the problem until she got the phone numbers at the landfill from members of the McKownville neighborhood association. But without a cellular telephone, she said, she is unable to call when the smell is bad because she is usually out and tends to forget the incident by the time she gets home.

Towns response

Guilderland Supervisor Kenneth Runion said that he has not received any complaints about landfill smells recently, but that it has been a consistent problems during the last few years.
"I had received a couple of complainants and that’s when I made the telephone call to Mayor Jennings," said Runion. "We were advised of a malfunction at the landfill."

The town can regulate odors from area businesses and transfer stations, but is unable to legally challenge the city over the Rapp Road landfill because it is located outside of the town’s borders and owned by another municipality, according to Runion.
"We don’t have the jurisdiction or civil authority to do anything about it," he said. "It would have to be handled by a state agency."

Runion said the bulk of the odors drift over to the residents in the village of Colonie because of the wind direction, but that, when there is a wind shift, the odor can be noticeable in Guilderland communities.
Colonie Supervisor Mary Brizzell said, "We have periodically gotten complaints about the smell." But she added that the mayor of the village is more directly affected in the Route 155 area.
"I’m very familiar with the mayor [of Albany]," said Brizzell. "We’ve had a number of dialogues in the past about it, but nothing recently."

The mayor of Colonie could not be reached for comment but has been very vocal in the past in complaining about the bad odors coming from the Rapp Road landfill.

Guilderland’s director of economic development, who is also a McKownville resident, thinks the landfill stinks, too.
"As an affected resident, I find this objectionable. I have a small but pleasant and quiet backyard, and I never know if it’s ‘safe’ to eat dinner on the back patio on any given summer evening," said Donald Csaposs. "I never know if it’s going to stink out there."

Csaposs said he is also unhappy that Mayor Jennings made a deal with a national waste management company to dump more garbage at Rapp Road with a discounted tipping fee. All of the surrounding municipalities and local garbage haulers pay about $18 more per ton than the discounted price.
"I find it objectionable when the city of Albany uses landfill revenue to Band-Aid a multimillion-dollar structural deficit in its operating budget," said Csaposs. "I am particularly incensed by the fact that most of the trash being processed at Rapp Road comes from out-of-area sources that are paying less than the town of Guilderland and other area communities are to process their trash."
Csaposs said there are plenty of technological remedies to the dump’s odor problem, citing the Seneca Meadows landfill near the Finger Lakes, which is the largest in New York State. Csaposs said there is no trash blowing around at Senecca Meadows as it is covered everyday and that that landfill uses "state-of-the-art technology to keep smells down."
He added that Albany needs to break the "money Jones" that the city has enslaved itself to.

Reeb agrees with Csaposs.
"The city of Albany is getting an enormous amount of money from that dump," Reeb said. "You would think they would use some of that money on some of the neighboring areas affected, even if they are only mildly affected."

Reeb also said that the excess methane being burned off should be used as an energy resource.
"I think Mayor Jennings is aware of it," said Reeb. "I don’t think there’s any dispute that the stink is there and that the stink has to be dealt with."

Runion told The Enterprise earlier that Guilderland’s tipping fees, around $52 a ton, are "pretty good" compared to the average around the state and he did not have a problem paying them. He did say, however, that he has been mulling over the idea of sending Guilderland’s trash elsewhere, even before he heard about the contractor price disparity.

Last summer, Guilderland was the only municipality out of 11, including Albany, in the Solid Waste Planning Unit to oppose expanding the landfill into the Pine Bush Preserve.

No health risks in ambient air

One area expert said there are no health risks involved with the Rapp Road landfill as long as it is properly managed. But timing, weather, the amount of garbage, and how workers bury the garbage may contribute to the smell, he said.

Robert Rynk, associate professor in the agricultural engineering department at the State University of New York College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill, has ruled out methane or other gases as the culprit of the bad smell.

Rynk used to write for Bio Cycle, a national magazine on recycling technology and bio energies, and he will be teaching his first class on waste management in the spring at Cobleskill.
"Methane is completely odorless," he said. "Certainly the methane is not causing the odor."
As for other gases, Rynk said, "It’s pretty much a mixture of a lot of gases, some of which has sulfur material." The gas mixtures that are not being used for energy are flared off, including any sulfur gases mixed in with the methane.
"The presence of odor does not mean there is a presence of methane," said Rynk. "Odor rarely has a health risk in of itself. I can’t think of any compound at any concentration where it could harm you just from the smell.
"When you mix trash together, there is a mixture of different smells. More than likely, it has something to do with the weather conditions," Rynk said. "They cover the material immediately with soil, that usually does the trick," he said of typical landfill practices.

If the trash is not properly covered by soil or is improperly covered, it could lead to increased smells, he said.

The only health risk from methane is when it is present in an enclosed area, not outdoors, said Rynk.
"The risk of methane is that a concentration gets so high it displaces oxygen and could cause suffocation," Rynk said. "You wouldn’t get that in ambient air."

Rynk used the example of being in a manhole and added that methane’s explosive characteristic in high concentrations also make it dangerous.

Methane is, however, environmentally dangerous as a greenhouse gas, he said.
"Methane is a major greenhouse gas along with carbon dioxide," said Rynk.

He added that methane is 20 times stronger in its capability to trap heat than carbon dioxide, making it a more harmful gas when it comes to global warming.
"That’s why they’re flaring it off," he said. "When methane is burned off, it turns into carbon dioxide"There’s no hazards associated with this."

Rynk did say there could be a problem if a liner at the landfill were to break, but Georgeson, DEC spokesman, said the liner is inspected regularly for leaks as is any leachate water runoff from the landfill.

Rynk conceded that it is possible that methane could seep out of the cover, along with other pollutants.
"How good are landfills at controlling escaping gases"" Rynk asked rhetorically. "I think it’s a big unknown."

What’s next"

Bruce told The Enterprise that the landfill is complying with all of the DEC regulations pursuant to the landfill’s permit with that agency. He said the city is working on making the smell go away for good.
"We just installed a few new wells," Bruce said, "but coordination was not as good as it could have been."
The wells are dug directly down into the "waste bed," creating vertical walls and are used for extracting gases which contain roughly half methane.

There is currently an electrical generating station at the landfill which is run by NEO-Minnesota Methane, a company involved in legal battles with the city in the past over operating problems and disputes over profits.

Bruce said some of the problems with the odor stemmed from Minnesota Methane.
"The company’s parent corporation went bankrupt a few years ago," Bruce said. "They stopped investing money to properly upkeep their facilities. We actually started an eviction process against them."

Now, after a dispute restitution was decided in court, Minnesota Methane has the power plant up and operating after a shaky past and the excess methane is being flared off.

The flared-off methane will soon be used to power converted trucks for the Siemens corporation, a $100 billion electronics company, if everything goes as planned, according to Bruce. The deal is still in the works, but, if it goes through, a facility will be built in 2007 to turn the methane into compressed gas to power trucks at the landfill.

Bruce said residents should call the landfill at 869-3651 if they continue to smell bad odor.
"We encourage people to call so we know there’s a problem and can fix them as soon as possible," he said.

Reeb said he isn’t so sure.
"We keep hearing, ‘Well, we’re trying,’ but that only works for the first two or three years," Reeb responded through The Enterprise. "You must not be trying very hard," he concluded.