04/28/2022
Buffalo News Editorial Board
Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos is facing one of the easiest decisions in his career: whether to grant CWM Chemical Services’ request to dig a new hazardous waste landfill in the Town of Porter.
The answer should be a resounding “no.”
The commissioner and public that cares about health and environment should be insulted by the request. Moreover, CWM should be presenting a plan to mitigate the hazardous waste landfill, certainly not dreaming up ways to worsen the situation.
CWM officials feel emboldened not only to make the request but also to present preposterous arguments centering on economic impact of allowing such an abomination to proceed. It’s like touting the economic benefits of putting a ma*****na dispensary next to a high school. Who wants it?
In addition, opponents correctly argue that any economic benefit ignores the impact of hauling another 6 million tons of toxic waste to a region already burdened with “a long and notorious toxic legacy.”
The battle over the proposed new landfill has lasted two decades. A hearing that began April 11 could lead to a resolution this year.
Opponents of the proposal include Niagara County, the town and village of Lewiston, the Village of Youngstown, the Niagara County Farm Bureau, the Lewiston-Porter School District, the citizen group Residents for Responsible Government and former State Senate candidate Amy H. Witryol of Lewiston.
In 2001, the Town of Porter agreed not to participate in the opposition, but for a price: $3 million from CWM plus $3 for every ton of waste a new landfill accepts. Two years later, CWM formally applied to the DEC for a new landfill, called RMU-2 on Balmer Road in the Town of Porter. The application has since been pending.
The gross receipts tax paid to the towns of Lewiston and Porter and the Lewiston-Porter, Niagara-Wheatfield and Wilson school districts ended in 2015. That marked the time that CWM’s old 47-acre landfill, RMU-1, ran out of space after 21 years of use and approximately 5 million tons of toxic waste. It was the only licensed hazardous waste landfill in the Northeast.
An eight-member board – three local residents and five representatives of state agencies, must vote on whether CWM’s expansion plan is necessary and in the public interest but its vote will be a recommendation. Seggos, the DEC commissioner, has the final decision on whether to allow additional hazardous waste landfilling at what is known as the Model City site.
Given that in 2010, a DEC siting plan concluded New York did not need any more toxic waste disposal sites, the matter should be moot. But it is not because of the insistence of CWM, a company that should take its economic development opportunity elsewhere.
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The commissioner and public that cares about health and environment should be insulted by the request.
