City receives millions for project

By Patricia Fifield
The City of Plattsburgh has received $4.7 million from federal stimulus money to safely cap a landfill in the town of Beekmantown.
Funding for the project came from the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation. The project will seal the solid waste Akey landfill, located on Akey Road, in a safe and environmentally conscious manner. The landfill was closed in 1977 and was covered with sand and topsoil.
Mayor Donald Kasprzak said the city followed Department of Environmental Conservation guidelines in the 70s when sealing the landfill, but years later the DEC required updated procedures. The city was not able to address the new closure plan for financial reasons.
“Upon being elected mayor in 2007, I felt a responsibility to pursue the landfill closure,” said Kasprzak.
The Mayor said he met with DEC officials and was working with Governor Paterson to find a plan to successfully update the closure of the landfill. Out of the $4.7 million for the project, $2.7 million was provided to the city as a non-repayment grant. Kasprzak said the remaining portion will be payable over a 15 year period with no interest for the first three years and a low interest rate for the remainder.
“The $2.7 million does not have to be repaid and the savings from the remaining portion of the funding over 15 years from the EFC will amount to several hundred of thousands of dollars,” said Kasprzak.

The project is not only important to taxpayers, but also necessary to protect local groundwater.
Environmental Manager Jonathan Ruff said “Despite becoming overgrown and looking more like a forest than an old landfill, leachate was produced as rain and groundwater traveled through the old trash.”
Leachate is contaminated water that is created when rainwater comes into contact with waste materials on the area of the landfill. In older landfills, like the 30 acre Akey landfill, leachate can seep directly into the groundwater.
“There are low levels of different contaminants in the leachate plus enough iron to give it an orange coloring,” said Ruff.
New DEC regulations include an impermeable membrane liner and a groundwater interceptor trench, which will reduce leachate. The membrane liner will prevent rainwater from leaking through the landfill, which in turn will protect groundwater.
“The main expected environmental benefit is that the leachate production will be significantly reduced because the groundwater will be intercepted by the trench and rainwater will not be able to percolate through the membrane,” said Ruff.
In a press release New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Board Chairman Pete Grannis said, “When completed, the Plattsburgh landfill closure project will be more protective of the region’s natural resources and accomplished with financing that reduces the burden on local taxpayers.”
Mary Stetson of Akey Road said she was never concerned about the landfill. “I’ve never even heard of leachate,” she said.
Stetson is excited that the city will be upgrading the closure of the site with environmentally safer regulations. “Anything that can protect our health and our wallets will be helpful to everyone,” she said.
The Akey landfill project is one of seven clean water projects in the North Country region. The project is expected to be completed in November 2010 and could launch several jobs to the area.