NIAGARA FALLS
Public targets DEC over hazardous waste plan
Published: November 19, 2009, 12:30 am
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NIAGARA FALLS — For the second time in a year, state environmental regulators came to Niagara Falls to hear from the public about a draft of its plan to guide the future development of hazardous waste facilities.
And for the second time in a year, nearly to the day, the public told the state Department of Environmental Conservation it is wrong to assert Niagara County is treated fairly when it comes to the management of toxic waste on the state level.
Seven people spoke during an hourlong public hearing in Earl W. Bridges Library in Niagara Falls on Wednesday evening. The session, which was attended by about 50 people, many of whom were college students, comes as the state draws near the end of the second round of hearings being held across New York. The final hearing is scheduled for 6 p. m. today in Lewiston-Porter High School.
All but one of Wednesday’s speakers criticized the department’s plan, known as the “Hazardous Waste Facility Siting Plan.” They said the department’s assertion that there is an equitable distribution of waste sites around the state is wrong, since Niagara County hosts the only commercial landfill, which buries such things as PCBs and volatile organic compounds.
That landfill is run by CWM Chemical Services, a company located on Balmer Road in the Town of Porter which is looking for permission from the state to expand its capacity.
“The DEC has consistently attempted to understate the amount of waste that is stored here,” said Michael Colucci, a student in the University at Buffalo’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. “. . . While there may be an equitable distribution in the sheer number of facilities located across the state, it is absurd for the DEC to continue pretending that there is an equitable distribution of waste.”
The night’s overriding message was roughly the same one delivered during last year’s public hearings here.
Dennis Duling of Youngstown questioned the agency’s method of counting each type of facility—treatment, storage, recycling and landfill — as the same type in its plan.
“When the plan claims that there is relatively equitable distribution of hazardous waste facilities in New York state,” Duling said, “it falls far short of universal norms of fairness, environmental justice and its own stated guidelines.”
The latest draft differs from the last in that it asserts that no additional capacity is needed in the state, though facilities can receive approval if the are deemed “in the public interest” or “otherwise necessary.”
John Iannotti, of the state DEC, said the agency plans on finalizing the plan based on the comments received in the second round of public hearings, transmitting a final version of the plan by next summer.
abesecker@buffnews.com
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