Published: August 08, 2007 07:35 pm      

LEWISTON: Residents ban together against landfill plans

Modern Landfill CEO says company’s trucks make up a small percentage of traffic on the road

More than 20 people at a Lewiston Town Hall meeting on Wednesday made their feelings clear: They don’t want any more garbage going to Modern Landfill.

The meeting, organized by Lewiston resident Kathleen Skooj, was in response to a proposal submitted to the town board to increase the rate at which the landfill accepts garbage.

“There are kids all over the neighborhood at all times of day and it’s an accident waiting to happen,” said Skooj, referring to the landfill’s close proximity to Lewiston-Porter school campus.

A number of concerns were brought up at the meeting, including the landfill’s risk to nearby property values, prior conversations with Modern employees which were characterized as threatening and requests for expansion of the landfill. But by far the most attention centered on traffic problems from the increased number of trucks.

One resident said the expected three more trucks per hour would create approximately 144,000 more tons of truck traffic per day on local roads. Others discussed the noise factor of jake braking — a process outlawed in some local communities but allowed in Lewiston — and the increased danger of accidents near the schools and heavily trafficked Route 104.

The town board has yet to act on the motion, and won’t until a board member moves it into action, said Supervisor Fred Newlin, who attended the meeting.

“I’m against this proposal,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good fit for Lewiston.”

One of the reasons for his stance is that the town can afford it. The town will soon be receiving about $1.4 million a year as a result of its settlement agreement with the New York Power Authority, Newlin said. Modern pays the town $500,000 each year under its current contract.

Under the original contract, the landfill would be closed by 2011, Newlin said. But the current agreement stretched that out to 2040.

No representatives from Modern attended the meeting even though Gary Smith, the company’s chief executive officer, said he was made aware of it several days before. Instead, a stenographer hired by Smith attended the meeting to take down what was said — another thing for which Modern took fire at the meeting.

At one point, nearly every person in the room raised their hand when someone asked whether they thought the stenographer was inappropriate.

In an interview later, Smith said that he was personally unable to attend the meeting and that sending a stenographer was more reliable than someone to relay things back to him third-person.

“I’ve never backed away from any kind of meeting or request,” he said.

Smith also said he understands traffic concerns, but asserted that trucks from the landfill make up a small percentage of traffic on the road.

“People don’t enjoy trucks, but that’s the way commerce works,” he said. “I appreciate their concerns, but the way we increase our business is to put more trucks on the road per hour.”

Modern’s contracts with the town were debated publicly and with the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Smith said. He pointed out that increased traffic will mean the landfill will close about seven years earlier.

“For them to be surprised by (the landfill’s expansion), they’d have to have their head in a hole,” he said. “These things didn’t happen overnight.”

Wednesday’s gathering comes nearly a month and a half after about 60 people packed the town hall to complain about the proposal. Another meeting on the subject on a much bigger scale is imminent, but will come after Aug. 17 — the latest date that Gov. Eliot Spitzer is expected to weigh in on another bill which could affect CWM Chemical Services’ plans for expansion at its nearby hazardous waste landfill, Skooj said.

That bill, passed by both houses of the state legislature, could prohibit the DEC from siting any hazardous waste landfill in a location with potential to discharge into the Great Lakes system, according to a release from Residents for Responsible Government, the group fighting CWM’s expansion. The bill could be a major stumbling block to the expansion, according to a release.