Sullivan County fends off trash incinerator — at least for now

By Rebekah Creshkoff, Sustainable Sullivan

With 100 people in the crowd, it was standing room only at a town hall in Sullivan County late last September.

The goal of the meeting was to alert citizens to the looming danger of a “waste to energy” incinerator proposed by some legislators as the silver-bullet solution to the county’s waste-management woes.

Mike Ewall, founder and executive director of Energy Justice Network, traveled from Philadelphia to deliver the keynote presentation and made a compelling case against incineration. Audience members came away thoroughly persuaded that burning trash is the wrong course for Sullivan. Among them was a county legislator who had been noncommittal before, but came out against the facility a couple of weeks later.

Local media provided comprehensive and accurate coverage of the event. And when audience members took speakers’ advice and brought up the incinerator at town meetings, the press covered that, too.

In the weeks leading up to the event, members of Sustainable Sullivan, which formed early in the year to fight the incinerator, had repeatedly canvassed the surrounding community, handing out flyers and encouraging people to attend. To advertise the event, they drafted a press release, which was picked up by the local press.

They also worked with community members to organize the town hall, which was held at the Black Library in Monticello. The event featured several local speakers, including Cat Scott, the legislator for District 5; Alasha Santiago, vice president of the Sullivan County NAACP; and Dr. Steven Goldstein, a pediatrician with extensive experience in environmental health issues and advocacy.

And even before the town hall was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, Sustainable Sullivan had rallied the community to submit comments on the county’s draft Request For Proposal (RFP) soliciting potential bidders for the incinerator contract. (Mike Ewall also contributed an in-depth and thoroughly scathing comment.) The county’s Purchasing Department was overwhelmed with well over 100 submissions from residents who don’t want an incinerator in the county.

But the incinerator’s fate is far from sealed. In early February, the county issued its final RFP. While colleagues closer to the process are confident the project will soon die on the vine, Sustainable Sullivan isn’t taking any chances. The group is launching a campaign to reinvigorate the troops to once again make their feelings known to elected officials.Rebekah Creshkoff is a co-founder of Sustainable Sullivan. She can be reached at rcreshkoff @ gmail.com.