Gordy, Just Show Us the Data

The Sunday (June 7th) edition of the local paper featured a guest appearance by Geneva City Director of Public Works, Gordy Eddington, presumably prompted by all the talk around town about leachate. However, Eddington’s piece was really not about leachate at all, but, rather, the reported performance of the City’s wastewater treatment plant. The City’s plant and our water, he says, are in compliance with various regulatory requirements.

While that’s an important subject, it’s not what everyone has been talking about. Sure, we operate a treatment system that discharges effluent in accordance with our operating permits. But Eddington’s article leaves the impression he is answering the question, “Does leachate exceed the City’s regulatory permit requirements?” That’s not a question anyone has been asking.

It seems that the public has taken it for granted that the City plant is doing its job, that its job is only compliance, and not a more prudential approach to sustainability. However, as this EPA primer for municipal wastewater treatment systems states: “Progress on abating pollution has barely kept ahead of population growth, changes in industrial processes, technological developments, changes in land use, business innovations, and several other factors….[that] can greatly alter the amount and complexity of industrial wastes and challenge traditional treatment technology.” (click here to read it yourself)

This gets the crux of the question that Councilor Cosentino asked at the most recent Council meeting: “What’s in it [the leachate]?” The real question, if we may expand on Cosentino’s blunt inquiry, is what is the complete chemical composition of the leachate and what chemicals may be going untreated, or minimally treated, into our lake—the source of our drinking water. It may be the case that the ‘complexity’ of the waste, as the EPA points out, is far beyond our system’s capacity and we may not realize that we’ve failed to abate significant pollutants from our drinking water.

Unfortunately, Council discussion has not brought about much clarity about the leachate treatment issue. According to the Mayor, Council will convene a special work session in the coming weeks to discuss the issue in more detail, but first he asked each Councilor to submit questions that s/he would like answered about the topic. We hope that Council is moving toward a decision based on those gathered facts, but the first order of business might be getting a clear statement of what is really being asked of the City Council.

Last month, Council was considering a resolution to authorize the City Manager to renegotiate a contract with Casella. Council had a preexisting agreement with Casella to potentially stop the practice of trucking in the leachate in favor of the more controlled and, in the long run, less expensive, dump-to-plant pipeline for delivery. However, that agreement required Casella to foot the bill for the pipeline. That’s why Casella was seeking to have Ontario County do the financing through the creation of a new municipal sewer district.

But Ontario County Supervisors were (rightly) concerned about incurring almost $10 million of debt simply to facilitate Casella’s compliance with a requirement to treat the leachate. Instead, the County desired to create a standard residential-commercial sewer district where Casella would be just one of many ‘tie ins’ along the route between the landfill and the City line. To do this, the existing City-Casella agreement needed to be modified to both: (a) allow a third party (the County) to finance the construction of the line; and (b) abandon the commitment to a ‘dedicated’ flow system in favor of a standard sewer line.

In the course of those discussions members of the public, and Councilors, began to wonder why we have to take any leachate via any transportation method, and suddenly the contract resurfaced. It showed that not only had the former City Manager negotiated the leachate line, but he had also obligated the City to receive leachate from Casella for at least 10 years.

Although we recommended in our post on the issue, that Council table the resolution, it quickly became clear during the Council meeting that there was no good argument for agreeing to the contract modification. Not one. But Council agreed to table the motion pending “more information.” In an upcoming post, we would like to attempt to sort out what questions are actually before Council and how those questions about what to do should shape the public understanding of what we should know.

We don’t fault Eddington for publishing his piece, presumably with the OK from Matt Horn, the City Manager. It is perfectly appropriate for public officials to reassure citizens about such matters—if reassurance is warranted. Problem is, reassurance given regarding one aspect can easily lead folks to believe that all is well, everywhere, now and for the future. That is not necessarily the case.

There is lots more work to be done on leachate. In the mean time, Eddington should post all the data he has on the composition of the leachate on the City’s website, and let the sun shine in on it.

‘Mount Trashmore’ Could Give the Visitor’s Center a Run for its Money:Recapping Our Recent WGVA Appearances with Ted Baker

For those of you who missed our last two regular appearances on WGVA radio with Ted Baker, we thought we might re-visit what we covered by connecting two seemingly disparate issues in one post: the Visitors’ Center and leachate. Our purpose is to keep our readers thinking about the public policy priorities of our region, and, more importantly, how they ought to be determined.

Back in April, Ted talked with us about the realignment of Geneva’s elementary schools, which we viewed as a done deal, following from a flawed process, with a pre-ordained outcome orchestrated by school district officials. We had run a series of posts concerned with the objective research on the likely negative educational outcomes of realignment and the rapidly eroding public trust in the wake of shaky, shifting arguments given by the district in support of its decision.

At the close of the interview, Ted asked us about the $4 million member item that Senator Nozzolio earmarked for some as-yet-to-be-determined destination project on Geneva’s lakefront. It appeared that the project had shifted from the Chamber of Commerce’s initial proposal for enhanced offices and Visitors Center-- unveiled to the public as Building 12 of the infamous Bergmann Report-- to a true regional attraction with a direct tie-in to the lake.

Despite word from the Senator’s staff that the money had been ‘frozen’ in the midst of the State’s fiscal crisis, the City Council named a community-based planning committee to review the project ideas and bring their recommendations back to the public. What emerged was a proposed partnership with the Finger Lakes Boating Museum, a group dedicated to showcasing and in many cases, reviving the art of boatbuilding in the Finger Lakes tradition. In taking this step, the committee has clearly endorsed the policy (recommended in the Bergmann plan) of promoting Geneva as a hub of regional tourism.
While we still expect the Council to exercise due diligence in examining the feasibility, financials, and visitor projections of the Museum as proposed, we find it at least conceptually, to be a major improvement over the idea of an exclusive tower of condos. on the lakefront.

In our May appearance, we talked with Ted about the proposal of Ontario County and Casella (who leases and operates the County landfill) to construct a direct sewer line from the City’s system, through the Town of Seneca, to the landfill to pipe in leachate. Once again, concerns about transparency and accountability arose when a long lost contract between the City and Casella to treat leachate mysteriously appeared just hours before a vote on the project.

On air, we pointed out the inherent tension, if not an outright contradiction, in pursuing leachate treatment, and thus promoting the waste management industry which threatens the perception and the reality of the Finger Lakes as a major tourist region. To put it another way: promoting the growth of the County landfill would seem to inhibit the growth of tourism. Will Geneva be seen as a ‘Gateway’ to the Finger Lakes, or to the landfills?

(By the way, we believe Geneva should retire the ‘Gateway to the Finger Lakes’ slogan anyway, because it suggests that one should only pass through Geneva on the way to some other destination, but we’d prefer that it be given up in favor of something more flattering, not less!)

But, wait—maybe there’s an angle we’ve been missing here! In Virginia, the State Tourism Board does an excellent job of promoting “Mount Trashmore” as a premier destination. According to their website, “World-renowned Mount Trashmore Park is 165 acres, 60 feet high, over 800 feet long, and was created by compacting layers of solid waste and clean soil. Recognized for its environmental feat, the park features the Water Wise demonstration garden that boasts xeriscaping where you can learn how to create a beautiful garden with minimal water requirements.” There’s a picnic area, playground for the kids, basketball court, and more. They even allow fishing in the ponds!

Now perhaps we’re being unfair to Virginia. After all, you may say that they’re just making the best of a bad situation. That may be true, but there is a lesson to be learned here: A failure to set and maintain community priorities and standards can lead to the pursuit of mutually exclusive endeavors.

Either we want to protect our water, our vistas, and the wine/tourism industry they support or, we want to pursue any and all revenue sources, even if they are linked to industries that are inconsistent with our community vision. Either we want to be known as the community that understands and promotes sustainability, or we want to be the place where people send their waste so they don’t have to deal with it themselves. Either we want to be Geneva, a community that invests in its downtown-lakefront amenities, or we want to be Mount Trashmore, inviting people to fish on the land where their garbage is buried.

It’s all about good public policy and transparent, accountable decision-making. Take a listen to the radio interviews and take a moment to think about it.