Future of Sullivan County’s Trash in Limbo

At the Sullivan County Transfer Station in Monticello, dozens of trucks drive in and out of Landfill Drive to unload tons of trash. Inside the main warehouse, garbage bags, construction debris, and boxes pile onto the tipping floor. Once trucks are loaded, drivers bring between 300 to 800 tons of trash three hours away from Monticello to Seneca Meadows Landfill in Waterloo, N.Y.

But this daily routine could soon change. With Sullivan County’s contract with Seneca Meadows, New York State’s largest landfill, set to expire at the end of 2025, the landfill’s future remains uncertain.

Waste Connections, the Texas-based company that runs Seneca Meadows, has requested to expand in size and height, but the state Department of Environmental Conservation is still reviewing its permit application. For years, environmental advocates in the Finger Lakes region have fought to close the 350-acre landfill and opposed its expansion.

“We don’t know at this point,” said Sullivan County District 7 Legislator Joe Perrello about the county’s future waste plans.

Perrello, who leads Sullivan County’s Public Works Committee, said the county is considering other alternatives, such as contracting with a new waste management company to ship trash out of state and building a waste-to-energy facility locally, which some advocates warn could have detrimental public health impacts.

Sullivan County is also planning for its future beyond a new waste vendor. In July 2024, the county unveiled its first solid waste management plan in more than 30 years – a 10-year plan outlining how the county hopes to manage its garbage.

The plan relies on full cooperation from community members, contract vendors, local officials, and waste haulers moving garbage within and out of the county – but so far, there’s much disagreement on the best path forward.

Tensions rise over waste-to-energy facility

For months, community members and representatives from Sustainable Sullivan, a local grassroots environmental group, have pushed back against the waste-to-energy facility proposal at the county’s legislative meetings.

“[Waste-to-energy] is not an efficient system. You actually use more energy to process [waste] than you do to create it, and the pollutants it gives our area are really not worth considering,” said Caroline Baillie, a materials scientist and engineering professor, at the April 10 Public Works Committee meeting.

Waste-to-energy facilities use a form of incineration that creates energy by mass burning waste and converting it into heat and electricity, and it’s something Sullivan County is seriously considering, according to Perrello.

“I think that’s an alternative that’s for us and for other counties to utilize this process to help with the garbage situation,” said Perrello.

Rebekah Creshkoff, an organizer with Sustainable Sullivan, worries that Sullivan County does not produce enough waste to build the facility and would put the county in further financial troubles.

“Sullivan doesn’t have enough waste to feed the beast,” said Creshkoff, adding that such facilities often come with what is referred to as ‘put or pay’ clauses, a contract obligation that a city must provide an agreed amount of waste or pay the difference.

In 2011, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy after building a waste-to-energy facility that left the city with more than $280 million in debt.

Waste-to-energy facilities have also historically been built in predominantly communities of color, according to the Energy Justice Network. Environmental health experts from the Natural Resources Defense Council have also warned that these facilities are “greenwashing” efforts disguised as environmental advances that would release toxic chemicals like residual ash waste and air pollution into the region’s air, water, and food supply.

Legislator Perrello said he’s not buying it.

“This is one stack that’s gonna put out so minimal of pollutions,” said Perrello. “I can’t see that it’s worse than seeing a hundred tractor trailers a week, traveling up and down the highway.”

Eric Feinblatt, an organizer with Sustainable Sullivan, says that building a waste-to-energy facility would transform the community’s relationship to waste.

“What the incinerator does it steer us towards maximizing our waste,” said Feinblatt. “The less you shove in, the less economically viable it is, so it’s putting us on a trajectory where we’re just gonna create more and more and more waste.”

Waste compliance issues persist

As Sullivan County plans for its future, Scott Mace, Operations Manager at Thompson Sanitation Company, warns that the county’s current waste compliance has proved challenging for years. Garbage haulers have not abided by flow control, a county law that says trash from Sullivan County must be dumped within the county, according to Mace.

“[Thompson Sanitation is] the only ones doing that exclusively. Most of the other haulers, when the price went up 25%, started taking it out of the county because it’s cheaper,” said Mace.

Tipping fees for trash haulers will increase on July 1 from $136.50 to $150 for municipal solid waste.

Since Mace has raised these concerns at legislative meetings, Sullivan County legislators have said they will enforce stricter flow control – but Mace says the county has done little, making it harder for Sullivan County to meet its required waste tonnage of 50,000 tons at Seneca Meadows.

“If all these guys are going somewhere else to dump it, it’s gonna be much more difficult for the county to meet those commitments and they’re gonna have to find that shortfall somewhere,” said Mace.

As the county continues looking for solutions, Feinblatt and Creshkoff hope it will start seeing waste not as a problem, but as a resource. Recovering organic material from landfills and building resource recovery parks for community reuse are creative solutions that communities have utilized, according to the Sustainable Sullivan organizers.

The next Public Works Committee meeting will be held on June 12 at the Government Center in Monticello.

Correction: An earlier version of the story included an incorrect contract requirement for Sullivan County’s contract with Seneca Meadows. The county’s contract requires a minimum of 50,000 tons per year, not 100,000 tons.

Image: Monticello Transfer Station sign on Landfill Drive in Monticello, N.Y. (Photo Credit: Kimberly Izar)