By Dave Lucas
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-845047.mp3
Albany, NY – Bearing placards with the message "Conservation Not Extirpation" members of Save The Pine Bush protested Monday afternoon outside Department of Environmental Conservation headquarters in downtown Albany. The group is calling on the DEC NOT to approve a proposed 13-acre expansion of the Rapp Road Landfill. The $41 million dollar expansion would lengthen the dump's life by about 7 years. Capital District Bureau Chief Dave Lucas reports.
Upwards of 220,000 Capital Region residents use the dump, from Albany and its hill towns, East Greenbush, Rensselaer, Bethlehem, Guilderland, Green Island and Watervliet. It was last expanded in 2000 under a state-approved plan that was supposed to extend the dump's life by 15 years. But it's nearly full NOW. Save The Pine Bush is dead set against landfill expansion for several reasons including the dwindling population of the Karner Blue Butterfly, down to just a thousand... well short of its minimum sustainable level of 7-thousand creatures.
The city of Albany HAS promised to restore 250 acres of Pine Bush in exchange for the expansion, which would be the fifth since 1990. But activists are concerned that water pollution, leachate from the landfill, is heading underground towards Rensselear Lake. They note the Landfill is over an aquifer and is already leaking--- there's also criticism of a $12 million dollar "Habitat Restoration Plan" calls sand to be trucked in from as far as Warren County to place it over a garbage dump to make habitat.
City officials conducted closed-door talks late this morning regarding landfill plans --- a spokesman for Jerry Jennings says the Albany Mayor's office make a public statement about the Pine Bush ---- but not until tomorrow --- DEC officials say the agency expects to issue a ruling within "the next several weeks".