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ACAL Continues Environmental Mission in 2008

 Adirondack Communities Advisory League (ACAL) will observe its 15^th year of environmental and community service in 2008.  ACAL’s work over the years has been quite remarkable, and despite the landfill outcome, there are many reasons to celebrate this milestone.  Not unlike the previous 14 years, we are off to a busy start, and we are looking forward to new challenges in 2008 that will help to further our mission. 

 In keeping with our commitment to public outreach, ACAL has prepared a three part series of articles to reflect on our past, present and future.  Stay tuned for an update on ACAL’s Clean Water Act citizens’ suit in Part 2. 

  Part 1 - Past 

If the measure of success is determined only by battles won, few people would ever dare to fight for the causes they believe in.  On the surface, it appears that ACAL lost all on October 24, 2006 at 8:01am when the Ava landfill accepted its first load of garbage.  But anyone willing to look deeper, will see that the last 15 years have been filled with countless successes as everyday citizens and Veterans set aside personal priorities to become advocates for wildlife, our natural resources, and a sacred Veterans’ Memorial Forest.  So yes, we should celebrate, and never forget, all the good deeds carried out so valiantly along the way. 

 Early on, ACAL was labeled as the “dump fighters”, more formally referred to as a NIMBY (not in my back yard) group.  People use the NIMBY label when they want to discredit the work of their adversary.  Citizens organize and fight landfills because they are harmful to the environment and to communities.  Because of citizen participation, the world continues to see fewer and fewer landfills.  ACAL’s environmental mission, carefully crafted in 1993, reflects every citizens’ desire to protect and preserve all that we hold sacred in this wonderful place called the “North Country”.

 For the record, no such NIMBY group exists anywhere, just citizen organizations fighting for better environmental policies, a fair process, and the constitutional rights of every citizen.

 Considering the many citizen mediated success stories, one might then ask the question, how does a site labeled as unfavorable hydrogeology, situated immediately adjacent to a Veterans’ Memorial Forest, become the “perfect” location for a landfill?  There is one solitary answer to this question.

The landfill exists because elected officials crafted a law that gave the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Authority (OHSWA) the power to take away citizens’ rights.  This is the single most important offense that occurred as a result of the landfill siting process.  Everyone needs to hear these words and understand the consequences of the precedent that is being set all across our nation.  When citizens’ rights get in the way of a project, lawmakers simply create a new law that removes the obstruction. 

Citizens’ rights are getting in the way of landfills.  In western New York, towns are successfully defeating major private landfill development by asserting their powers through New York State’s home-rule law, which allows towns to enact and enforce laws for the safety, health and well-being of their residents.  New York State (NYS) courts have consistently upheld these rights, recognized apart from any zoning laws. (See Concerned Citizens of Cattaraugus County website)

 Present Environmental Justice laws are based on the premise that all citizens have a right to live in a pollution free environment.  Apparently, equal protection under the law has another meaning for NYS lawmakers.  Or more precisely, it has no meaning at all. 

 As we ponder the constitutionality of NYS lawmakers’ actions, let us be reminded of the words of our fore fathers, found in the 14^th Amendment of the United States Constitution:

 “. . . No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Kathy Crofoot, Director of Research

Adirondack Communities Advisory League