Company could add to landfill, depending on economic impact
Loophole may let CWM expand
Published: November 22, 2009, 12:30 am
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The bid to expand the Northeast’s only hazardous waste landfill may come down to how green it is — in terms of dollars.
State environmental regulators have left an opening for CWM Chemical Services in the company’s long-delayed bid to expand its facility, located on Balmer Road in the towns of Porter and Lewiston.
And with the recent release of an “economic impact study” it funded, critics say the company already is trying to take advantage of that opening.
The debate over the future of the facility heated up last week, with public hearings in Niagara Falls and Lewiston on the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s draft plan for the future development of hazardous waste facilities in New York.
The state, in the proposed guidance document, has said New York doesn’t need any more landfill capacity. That sounds like a strike against CWM, except that the state has also given CWM a loophole in its draft plan — a facility that’s not needed may be considered if it’s “otherwise necessary” or “in the public interest.”
Regulators leave the door open to the economic argument in Chapter Nine of the draft plan. According to the document, a review panel with the power to permit expansion, known as a facility siting board, can consider “whether approving the facility will result in significant economic benefits to New York State, New York industry or the community where the proposed facility will be located, or, alternatively, whether the denial of an application will cause significant economic harm . . .”
Earlier this month, CWM released an economic study by Bonadio & Co., an accounting firm with offices across the state. Among the report’s assertions:
• CWM has averaged $5 million in
annual wages, salaries and benefits for its roughly 80 employees over the past five years.
• The company has spent about $4.4 million per year in purchases from vendors.
• Permission to expand would bring about $56 million in construction costs for the new landfill.
CWM’s report is premised on a new landfill being built, and that the landfill will have a life span of 32 years. However, in its application to the state for a new landfill permit, CWM itself said the site life would be “at least 11.2 years,” or, “based on the current rate of waste receipts, the active life could be approximately 20 [to] 25 years.”
When asked about that difference, CWM spokeswoman Lori Caso said in an e-mail that 25 to 32 years is “more realistic,” but she did not say why the 32-year figure was not included in its application.
The $4.4 million figure includes payments to construction and engineering firms, as well as material purchases. The company also makes purchases from landscaping, janitorial, gas, oil and security companies, Caso noted.
Critics say the economic analysis fails to include the costs of hosting the site here.
Amy Witryol, a Lewiston resident and former bank credit officer, characterized the report as “a projection,” which lacks material to back up its claims and contains several misleading premises aimed at inflating CWM’s own impact.
In the report, CWM claims it will bring in about 165,000 tons of waste annually — a level that would affect how long it can stay open — though the facility has never dropped to that level, even with a self-imposed slowdown in intake over the past several years, Witryol said.
Also, if the company is not allowed to expand, CWM will still spend significant money maintaining the site, she said. CWM has not released any specifics about what closure would mean to employment levels, though it said there would be “minimum staffing.”
Operations at CWM account for costs to regulators for oversight, though the company does not pay application fees, which, as in this case, take years of agency staff time to review, Witryol said.
If CWM were not operating, and state and federal regulators were allowed to clean it up, they could be spending millions annually on such activities, she said.
Any losses that come about if CWM doesn’t expand could easily be made up, she added.
“Building homes and businesses, instead, will create hundreds and eventually thousands of jobs here over the next 30 years without CWM,” she told the Niagara County Legislature last week. “The important point is, CWM could close, and we could do better with little or no effort.”
Hazardous waste operations have been occurring on the CWM site since the early 1970s.
Bart A. Klettke, of GZA GeoEnvironmental of New York, a firm with a Buffalo office that performs environmental remediation work, said there is a benefit to local business of having a nearby waste depository.
Klettke also questions what other options there are for the land on which CWM wants to expand.
“CWM, to me, offers a valued service,” he said.
In October, the County Legislature passed a resolution stating that expanding the landfill at CWM is “contrary and damaging” to economic development.
During hearings last year on the siting plan, the Buffalo-Niagara Association of Realtors was among several groups to oppose an expansion at CWM.
The Niagara USA Chamber of Commerce, the Niagara County-based business organization, has not taken a position on CWM’s expansion, said Deanna Alterio Brennen, Niagara USA president and CEO. The organization’s members haven’t been able to reach a consensus on the issue, she said.
In addition to salaries and payments to vendors, the company pays a 6 percent tax on its gross revenues, an amount distributed among the towns of Porter and Lewiston, as well as the Lewiston-Porter, Niagara Wheatfield and Wilson school districts, based on their enrollments of town residents. Revenues from that tax would no longer exist once the landfill closes.
The accountant’s report also asserts “Waste Management [CWM’s parent company] is a conscientious steward of the environment and the lands which they inhabit.”
When asked whether “conscientious stewards” get fined by the state $175,000 for years of permit violations, as CWM did last November, company spokeswoman Caso replied, “Do good drivers ever get parking tickets?”
R. Nils Olsen Jr., a member of the CWM Community Advisory Committee and a Youngstown resident, said viewing CWM as an economic engine is “misplaced.”
Olsen said things like increases in property value, people moving into the community from outside the area and an increased quality of life would all result if CWM does not expand.
“To me, those are the issues,” he said, “not, ‘Do they spend money here?’ ”
abesecker@buffnews.com
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