Update : NOW 450!!! emails sent! Keep sending and sharing !!!

Dear Friends,

Please take two seconds to complete this easy petition to send a message to the Seneca Falls Town Board before March 4th, and then share the link widely on social media and with your contacts. You do NOT need to be a resident of Seneca Falls to send a message: this has statewide implications and therefore concerns everyone.

The Board will be voting on whether or not to issue a local operating permit to the Seneca Meadows Landfill and enter into an agreement with the landfill to accept money, assuming that the landfill will continue operating through 2040 - and we must urge them to listen to the public, not make deals with this out of state Texas owned waste corporation with only one thing at heart: profit at our expense.

Then please mark your calendar to show up on March 4th to speak at the Seneca Falls Town Board meeting, 6:00 pm, Seneca Falls Community Center, 35 Water Street, Seneca Falls, NY.

We're here to make this easy for you to weigh in and share, and as always we appreciate your involvement: we're in this together.

@GovKathyHochul parents have to pick up their children from school because the odors from Seneca Meadows Landfill is making them nauseous. Protect our kids and shut it down now!
#GovernorHochul

The Finger Lakes are home to a sizable cohort of citizens dedicated to keeping the region clean, environmentally balanced, and, above all, a good place to live. I’ve been impressed with these community-minded folks since my earliest days writing this column.

After almost 15 years, I remain impressed.

I am constantly reminded how lucky we are to have this consistent cadre of alert citizen activists in our communities. Too often local governments, state agencies, and various elected representatives have been unable — or unwilling — to effectively deal with challenges to their authority launched by corporations with deep pockets that employ high-powered legal talent to bully their way to official approvals. Some of these companies also are willing to ignore the dictates of state regulatory agencies such as the Department of Environmental Conservation.

And they do.

Time and time again, citizens have jumped in to pressure governments and regulators to do the right thing: to keep the region clean, environmentally balanced, and a good place to live. Their persistence has paid off, continues to pay off, and benefits us all.

My first exposure to these dedicated citizens came during the early days of a scheme to fill unlined salt caverns with liquid propane gas near Watkins Glen. Texas-based Inergy did a slick sales job on local government officials, the public, and even DEC, promising jobs, economic growth, and a raft of ancillary benefits. But they failed to mention numerous dangers and serious potential issues that sharp-eyed citizens spotted at a glance. It took more than a decade of legal wrangling, protests, arrests, court trials, and a blizzard of media coverage before the project was scrapped.

It was a victory for the people.

Which brings us to “The people vs. Seneca Meadows Inc.”

This is not a real court case. It’s a phrase I use when pondering the consistent clashes between SMI along Route 414 in Seneca Falls and the public.

Citizens routinely go to town meetings to file complaints and demand action, hold protest marches, and publicly complain on these news pages and in letters to the editor about foul odors that trigger gagging, pollution, truck traffic, and potential threats to health that include cancer. If this was an actual legal case, it might rival Charles Dickens’ famous fictional case Jarndyce v. Jarndyce from his novel “Bleak House.”

In recent weeks, Syracuse added its official city council voice to the opposition. The Common Council said it is concerned about truck traffic and Skaneateles Lake, the source of unfiltered drinking water to more than 200,000 people in Skaneateles, surrounding communities, and Syracuse itself. The council also asked to be an official “interested party” in consideration of the permit application.

The court of public opinion’s verdict is clear. The massive landfill should shut down at the end of 2025. Its proposed 47-acre, seven-story-high expansion should be turned down without further adieu.

In a recent hearing before the town board of Seneca Falls, nearly every citizen who spoke asked the board to deny an operating permit for the landfill. The board listened but has yet to vote yay or nay.

SMI and its corporate parent understandably want to roll over public opposition and keep stacking 6,000 tons of detritus per day for 15 years to continue to making its profit. But the region should not have to suffer another decade-plus of landfill growth and negative impacts.

Town board members should listen and deny the permit.

The DEC should listen and tell SMI “no more.”

And, SMI should listen, too, and start the process of shutting down Seneca Meadows.

The court of public opinion has ruled.

Help save NOAA!

Billionaire Elon Musk’s DOGE staffers have reportedly entered the headquarters of NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. It looks entirely possible that NOAA is soon to follow in the footsteps of the shuttered USAID.

Call your NY reps to save NOAA
Schumer: (202) 224-6542
Gillibrand: (202) 224-4451
US House Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

⚠️ Daily weather and storm forecasts protect lives!

Now is the time to raise your voice!
📞 Call Your Member of Congress Today!

“Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent from [Your Town, NY].
I’m calling to urge [Name] to protect the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from any efforts to weaken, dismantle or privatize it. NOAA is essential to New York.”

Please stand up for NOAA and oppose any attempts to dismantle or defund it! Thank you.

An update on the state’s largest landfill, located in the heart of the FLX, and its Texas owned corporation that wants it to grow: