The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has renewed operating permits for a notorious construction landfill in Rensselaer.
The SA Dunn Landfill has been the subject of a decade of community complaints for odors, dust, and truck traffic. Sitting next to Rensselaer City Schools, the dump, operated by Texas company Waste Connections, serves as a receptacle for construction waste trucked in from various states.
The Department of Environmental Conservation announced Monday that Dunn's permits, which expired in July 2022, have been renewed.
The Christmas week announcement was a surprise. Judith Enck, a former regional administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency who now heads Bennington College's Beyond Plastics, says concerns Rensselaer residents have raised over the years appear to have fallen on deaf ears.
"The decision was a bad one, but it's also very telling that the DEC announced the decision very late in the day on December 23, as if they didn't want the public to notice what had just happened," said Enck. "This is not over there continues to be significant community concerns just because the DEC tried to sneak this out on Christmas Eve eve doesn't mean that people are gonna stop noticing the problem and stop working on this."
The renewed permit cuts daily truck traffic from 100 to 70 round trips per day and adjusts hours trucks can enter the facility.
Rensselaer Mayor Mike Stammel wonders if the decision was made by a "reasonable person."
"I'm really disappointed in it for a number of reasons. We already know that the legislature, the Senators, have passed legislation that no future landfill should operate within 500 yards of a school or a playground, and here we got one in the city of Rensselaer that's been in existence, and they failed to put that boundary in place for our school, which is just 50 yards away from a landfill, which makes it a terrible decision. The thing is, is that, you know, obviously nobody wanted to hear from the public, and the public's concerns were not taken into consideration in this whole matter. We're still going to have the trucks beating our public roadways, we're going to have the smell from the dump itself. We're going to have the diesel fuel from these trucks riding through our communities and just tying up our traffic like it does all the time, and it just disturbs the quality of life in our city. We want it to go," Stammel said
DEC stood by its decision in an email statement, saying it came after “completing the finalization of the 3 year permit terms and a rigorous review process that included public involvement, multiple public hearings, and careful consideration of the more than 250 comments received from the community as part of an extensive public comment period."
DEC says odor complaints have been reduced following the installation of a flare and gas collection system. The department says it did not receive any complaints about dust related to on-site operations in 2023 or 2024.
Bob Welton, treasurer of the Rensselaer Environmental Coalition, contends DEC's decision was rushed in a move he characterizes as "politics at the highest level."
"On December 30, what's called the cumulative impact law takes effect, which would have required a complete review of all the details of that operation. And so this was just to avoid that. And I think Waste Connections really does have a connection at the highest levels of government," Welton said.
Democratic state Assemblymember John McDonald of the 108th district and Republican state Senator Jake Ashby of the 43rd district sent a letter to state officials regarding the community concerns related to the Dunn Landfill. Here's Ashby:
"I think the timing of the decision to come out with that was absolutely horrible, and I don't agree with the decision. Myself and Assemblyman John McDonald have raised numerous concerns with this. We've been meeting with local leaders, DOH and DEC and I understand that there are new restrictions coming down on this, but I think there are still a lot of unanswered questions, and we're going to get to the bottom of that," Ashby said.
SA Dunn Landfill declined to comment when contacted by WAMC.
