Pushing back on supervisor Bill McKenna’s proposal to give Woodstock residents a tax cut, the Woodstock Environmental Commission wants the town to use some of its surplus to clean up the Shady dump instead.
“Some have proposed that, rather than a tax cut, it would be prudent to hold onto the surplus for a ‘rainy day’ fund. We insist that the ‘rainy day’ is here today, in the form of the environmental emergency posed by the illegal toxic waste dump at 10 Church Road,” reads the letter, signed by all seven WEC members.
In late 2019 and early 2020, Joseph Karolys, who is now in prison for manslaughter, delivered more than 200 truckloads of fill contaminated with construction debris to 10 Church Road.
“As you know, six environmental professionals have inspected the site, resulting in the following information: The dump, which has now been there for more than five years, contains a variety of highly toxic substances, including PFOS and heavy metals,” they wrote.
“It threatens to pollute — perhaps already has polluted — the town aquifer and the wells of neighboring residents, as well as the Sawkill Creek.”
The members said the only way to address the issue is to remove all the fill. The so-called Plan E, proposed by the property owner and approved by the town, involved removing some construction debris and leaving the rest of the fill.
“Such remediation will be costly — perhaps of the order of a million dollars. While it is likely that some of this money can be recovered by the legal process, that may take years, and every delay will increase the probability and extent of the harm,” they wrote.
Commission members called the short-term 17.5% tax cut “poor recompense for the likely sickness, the costs of installing private treatment plants, and endless litigation that will follow for further inaction.”
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