ALBANY: In its pursuit of the proposed landfill expansion, the City of Albany is working on the Environmental review process required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act. The initial part of this process is preparation of scoping document to determine what topics should be included in this review. A public meeting was held at the Polish Community Center in February with scores of people speaking out against the landfill. The Draft Scope presented at the hearing begins, in paragraph one, with a significant omission in the very first paragraph under Description of Proposed Project.

According to this document the expansion is necessary- “in order to continue to meet the solid waste disposal needs of City residents and businesses as well as the communities that make up the Albany New York Solid Waste Recovery System (ANSWERS) Solid Waste Management Planning Unit, and the Capital Region as a whole. ANSWERS is comprised of a consortium of communities that include the cities of Albany, Rensselaer, and Watervliet, the towns of Berne, Bethlehem, Guilderland, Knox, New Scotland, Rensselaerville, and Westerlo, and the Villages of Green Island and Altamont” But . . . the Draft Scope forgot to mention the real reason: the City accepts trash from outside the ANSWERS Community and the Capital District in order to increase its income from the landfill. Trash which provides millions of dollars for the City of Albany – not the ANSWERS community, The expansion would not be needed so soon if only trash from Albany and the ANSWERS community was accepted. Omission or Oversight of this fact? – you decide!