Woodstock News

If anyone is wondering what was known and when regarding the Shady Dump, a report from August, 2020 by HydroQuest, a top environmental consulting firm, may answer a few questions.

The following are quotes from the report:

"A significant portion of this fill is construction and demolition (C&D) waste material brought in from outside of Ulster County, New York".

"Clearly, much of the mound core material is from an out-of-county source area that remains to be identified by Conigliaro."

"Assuming that the C&D source area is in the general New York City region, some 100 miles and two hours to the south, this raises the question as to why it was economically viable to transport large fill volumes in large number of dump trucks loads such a great distance."

"The particle size distribution and waste composition report provided to Woodstock Town Supervisor Bill McKenna by NYSDEC of June 16, 2020 may well not be representative of the C&D mound core material buried beneath jute mat underlayment and overlying clean fill, but may instead be mostly representative of clean fill probably brought in from a more local source to cover out-of-county C&D waste material."

 

"Placement of C&D fill nearly to the western Eighmey property line degrades their quality of life, their property value, jeopardizes the quality of their water supply, and may also degrade the quality of water of other down gradient homeowners' wells and nearby creeks."

"The NYSDEC C&D Waste Composition Report documents fly ash as a component of the buried contaminated waste material, and especially note the potential health risks noted."

So why have Supervisor McKenna and Board member Laura Ricci voted not to advance two resolutions by Board member Bennet Ratcliff, which were seconded by Board member Maria-Elena Conte, to enforce the stricter Town of Woodstock laws?

Why has Board member Anula Courtis voted, in lockstep once again with McKenna and Ricci, to not advance the above noted resolutions? After all, it was Board member Courtis that wrote those most damning communications about the potential risk the Shady Dump poses to the Town's drinking water to the Attorney General?