Solid waste disposal has reached a crossroads

Setting policy on solid waste is not something many of us dwell on, yet how society disposes of its trash has many ramifications to the environment, public health, wildlife and the quality of life of our communities.As a child growing up in the 1980s, I recall family vacations in the Adirondack Mountains where my parents would take us to visit the town dump (landfill) to observe black bears feeding on human garbage. Then one year the town dump was replaced with a transfer station. A similar policy shift in solid waste management was occurring in Dutchess County around this time as landfills around the county were similarly replaced with transfer stations. Henceforth the county garbage stream would be exported to out-of-county landfills while trash generated in a select few western towns would be burned at the new waste-to-energy plant in Poughkeepsie. That’s how the county Resource Recovery Agency (RRA) came into being.A few years later in the early 1990s, Dutchess County also adopted a policy on recycling, including mandatory curbside collection (although full implementation of recycling practices has always fallen short).Today, Dutchess County is at a solid-waste crossroads. At least that’s the message of the independent consultant that the Legislature hired to advise us. After 25 years and more than $32 million in government subsidiaries to the Resource Recovery Agency, the consultant’s report asks whether the future of solid waste in Dutchess County should continue to be under public ownership or privatized.The route of public ownership is outlined in the RRA-produced and December 2010-adopted Solid Waste Management Plan. This calls for an expanded RRA scope via a reimposition of flow control (government control of the waste-stream), imposition of a user fee revenue source (garbage tax), costly upgrades to the turbines, renovations to the recycling plant, construction of a new transfer station in southern Dutchess and possibly the development of an ash landfill. This would cost $80 to $110 million.State law requires that “planning, regulation and management” of solid waste governance resides in public hands, but whether the planning unit should remain with the RRA (a public authority) or be transferred back to the county is a question raised by the consultant’s report.The chief alternative to the expensive waste-to-energy practices as advanced by the consultant’s report is to disband the RRA, sell or renovate the waste-to-energy plant to a large-scale transfer station, and ultimately shift to waste export system to out-of-county landfills as practiced by 70 percent of New York state counties. This route is calculated to save $60 million over 16 years for which some of the savings can be spent to further develop recycling and organics diversion. Their plan seeks to enlarge recycling through strict new recycling laws and a new county recycling department at a cost of $666,000.The Legislature will be briefed by MidAtlantic Solid Waste Consultants at a special meeting of the Legislature on Monday, May 16. Then it will be up to us to determine the planning unit, mode and manner of county solid-waste collection for the years to come.Dutchess County has a heritage in which we can all be justly proud. From the county’s role in the American War for Independence to the Federalist/Anti-Federalist debates leading to the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, to the election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the 1944 Presidential election with Dutchess County at the center that pitted FDR versus New York’s governor from Pawling, Thomas Dewey, Dutchess County’s history is one in which we can be proud. Thanks to a resolution passed this month in the County Legislature, which I authored, the achievements and milestones of our legacy will be remembered annually.My resolution declares a 10-day period each fall to be commemorated as Dutchess County Heritage Days with hopes that school groups and the arts community will embrace this annual celebration with appropriate activities that foster pride and education. From the environmental movement spurred on by groups like Scenic Hudson, to industrial achievements like Wassaic’s condensed milk, IBM’s computer manufacturing, Smith Brothers cough drops or Robert Livingston’s steamboat, Dutchess County has had quite an impact on the American landscape.The 10-day heritage commemoration period is sandwiched between two significant dates: Oct. 23 and Nov. 1. On the first day of November in 1683, the Province of New York was carved into 12 counties, including Dutchess. At the time, title to property was in transition from having been transferred from Native Americans to Europeans settlers into eight patents, including Oblong (1650), Rombout (1682), Schuyler (1688), Nine Partners and Poughkeepsie (both in 1697), Rhinebeck and Beekman (both 1703) and Upper Nine Partners (1706).Much deserves to be remembered about these settlements, as well as the preceding use of the land by the Iroquois, Delaware, Mahicans and the Wappinger “Indians.”Forty years after the lands of Dutchess were so named (which at the time included Putnam County and Clermont and Germantown of Columbia County), the population had grown so much that the decision was made that Dutchess “should have officers of their own.” In this first act of democracy, in that the people were to elect their own representatives, the New York Provincial Assembly voted to allow Dutchess to elect a supervisor, treasurer, assessor and a tax collector on Oct. 23, 1713.This month the Dutchess County Legislature voted to celebrate the 300th anniversary of democracy in Dutchess County with an Oct. 23, 2013, milestone celebration, as we did Nov. 1, 1983. The chairman of the Legislature will be setting up an ad hoc committee of historians and interested citizens to help plan appropriate activities.From the first slain general in the Revolutionary War (Richard Montgomery) to the first black female judge (Jane Bolin) to the 22nd U.S. vice president (also New York governor), Levi Morton (Red Hook), and the Beekman Arms tavern to the Stanford birthplace of the game of Scrabble or the Beacon-foundry’s molding of the National Korean War monument to our leadership in psychiatric developments, including the birth of suicide hotlines on bridges, Dutchess County’s contributions have been significant to the American way of life. Beginning this year, during the 10-day period from Sunday, Oct. 23 to Tuesday, Nov. 1 — and with special recognition in 2013 — Dutchess County will take time to remember and focus on our historic past and our proud legacy. Michael Kelsey represents Amenia, Washington, Stanford, Pleasant Valley and Millbrook in the Dutchess County Legislature. Write him at KelseyESQ@yahoo.com.