Albion village goes on record against landfill expansion

ALBION – The Albion Village Board wants the record to show the current board opposes efforts to reopen a landfill in Albion.

A new landfill would hurt the community in many ways, from heavy truck traffic that would pose safety risks to other motorists and pedestrians to the stigma of having an operating landfill in the community, village officials said.

The recently approved village and town comprehensive plan, a map for the community’s future, opposes an operating landfill in Albion, Mayor Dean Theodorakos said on Wednesday.

Theodorakos is a member of Stop Polluting Orleans County, a citizens group against the landfill.

“I’m very much in favor of preventing further landfilling in the town,” he said.

The Village Board voted to send a letter to the Albion Town Board, urging the town to resist a new landfill. The Village Board may pass a formal resolution in an upcoming meeting, opposing the landfill.

Richard Penfold, a former landfill operator in Erie County, wants to reopen the landfill. Waste Management sought to operate an 80-acre landfill in Albion. It secured a permit from the state on Nov. 20, 2003, but Waste Management never could secure local support or a permit from the Town Board.

Penfold has sought to obtain Waste Management’s permit through an application with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The agency told Penfold in June it wouldn’t transfer Waste Management’s permit. Penfold would have to apply for his own permit to operate at the site.

The Town Board in the mid-1990s passed laws against landfills in the town. Penfold believes the new landfill proposal could be considered an expansion of the existing Orleans Sanitary Landfill, and wouldn’t necessarily be a new landfill. That was how Waste Management’s plan was presented a decade ago.

Penfold would need town and DEC support for the project. All of the current Town Board members, plus the new ones elected last week, all have stated they are against reopening landfills in Albion.

Penfold has promised a host community benefits package for Albion. He also said he would care for the OSL and McKenna landfills at the site between Densmore and Transit roads, which currently aren’t being pumped of leachate.