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Eco-logue is published bimonthly by the Rochester Regional Group of the Sierra Club * Join the Rochester Group by Printing out our Brochure & sending it to us.
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Rochester & Syracuse Sierra Club Groups Visit Seneca Meadows Landfill by Hugh Mitchell
Seneca Meadows, the largest landfill in New York (currently 1550 active acres), is seeking to expand by 75 more acres. This requires a new license from DEC. The landfill owner, Innovative Energy Systems (IES), has hired the Nixon Peabody law firm to pursue this difficult objective. The firm invited the Sierra Club to visit the scientifically designed landfill located in Seneca Falls in hopes that we would endorse or speak favorably about the project. Although the Atlantic Chapter policy on solid waste makes such an endorsement unlikely, we were impressed with their efforts to make Seneca Meadows as environmentally benign and non-toxic as possible. Further, IES is using a number of positive and economically useful techniques, such as collecting methane from the rotting wastes. Instead of burning off the gas, the methane is used to drive nine electric generators to meet all the electricity needs of running the landfill. They are also in the process of doubling this capacity to produce enough electricity to meet the electric needs equivalent to 8,000 to 10,000 homes. Another interesting environmental development is the used tire chipping facility which can even chop up steel belted radials. The rubber pellets produced are used for landfill liners and in road building. Questions remain about the Seneca Land fill, such as the plan to move the appropriately named Black Creek so it may or may not produce new wetlands. Further, there is a question about the adequacy of treating wastewater collected from the hills of garbage. Currently it is shipped off-site to four different public treatment facilities. The larger question our group raised concerns the broader issue behind Seneca Meadows which is about our excessively wasteful society. It is amazing that we can produce such a huge mountain of garbage that the landfill could easily be used as a ski center. We are, indeed, a gigantic throw-away society, but the bill for this
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