by Tom Ellis

HUDSON FALLS, NY: Residents of the Village of Hudson Falls are making huge strides to close the 35-year-old Wheelabrator trash incinerator that has plagued their community 45 miles north of Albany. Organizing began in earnest following a June 10, 2024 two-a-half-hour incinerator fire that no fire trucks responded to. Nine days later there was enormous incinerator noise. Breathe Free Hudson Falls was soon established.

Rosemary Madona who lives a few hundred yards from the trash burner says her neighborhood has declined enormously and the noise and stench are horrible. She believes many lives were and are being ruined and shortened by the burner.

Residents attend each village board meeting and work with local environmental-health advocate Tracy Frisch and Earth Justice who have drafted a local law the board will likely soon enact. The law will require continuous air monitoring of eighteen air contaminants including dioxins and furans, PAHs, PCBs, PFAS, zinc, selenium, nickel, mercury, lead, chromium, arsenic, and VOCs); and mandate installation of latest equipment at the incinerator. The hope is that Wheelabrator will close the old incinerator rather than incur the additional expenses and oversight.

Many Albany residents remember the infamous state-owned ANSWERS trash incinerator that polluted Sheridan Hollow from 1982-1994 until a malfunction coated newly-fallen snow with black soot and led to its quick closure. While it operated, local residents and public health advocates including me were faced with the challenge of how do we force the state environmental conservation and health departments to rein in the poisonous behavior of the state Office of General Services. When it was closed 32 years ago, nearby children could breathe much cleaner air for the first time in their lives. The children of Hudson Falls deserve the same.

Seeing as the federal and state governments refuse to protect Hudson Falls residents, it is the duty of village residents and their local government to step in and protect public health. It is great to see a village exercise its power to control a large corporation.