Ulster County Comptroller March Gallagher and County Legislator Manna Jo Greene are elated that the New York State Supreme Court has ruled that the county comptroller’s office has authority to audit the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency’s (RRA) composting operation. But RRA officials say they were already set to turn over the requested information.
State Supreme Court Justice Lisa Fisher recently handed down the decision in favor of the Comptroller’s Office last week.
Gallagher said the Comptroller’s office is asking the agency, which has a $15 million budget, for documents related to the composting program for 2019, 2020 and a portion of 2021. Gallagher said the county first provided a grant for the program back in 2017. “I’m thrilled with the judge’s decision,” Gallagher said. Judge Fisher ruled that while the agency contends it is a separate leadership public authority, a provision in the agency’s 30-year solid waste contract with the county makes the agency subject to regular audits.
Fisher said there are a number of reasons to audit the composting program, including a change in leadership resulting in elevated risk, complaints from neighbors and elected officials.
But Timothy DeGraff, the agency’s executive director and a CPA said the RRA is already taking steps to deal with each of these issues including hiring an auditor to examine the composting operation and implementing tighter financial controls on the operation.
Gallagher said she’d been notified by the RRA’s attorney that it plans to appeal the decision and that leaves her pondering what to do next. She noted if a stay is granted, the agency wouldn’t have to turn over anything until the appeal is decided and they have six months to file papers on the appeals. “That’s too long of a time frame, our office is concerned there,” Gallagher said.
She can’t understand why the agency is challenging the audit and added it’s nothing but a waste of taxpayer money on the cost of lawsuits by RRA and the Comptroller’s office.
“We’ve already expended $10,000 in litigation costs on our side,” Gallagher said. “I’m sure it’s the same on their side, so that’s at least $20,000.” On top of that there’s the time wasted, she said.
DeGraff said the agency was ready to turn over the documents, but they just needed more time as there was much turmoil at the agency at the time among employees, particularly between a former employee and RRA composting supervisor Willie Wittaker. “I was worried about workplace violence,” he said.
Gallagher said her office wants to understand how the RRA used funds earmarked for the composting operations for things such as purchasing equipment, some of which she alleges is not even in use and buying a parcel of land to house the operation which they now have no plans to use.
DeGraff said that’s not the case as the project was funded with state Department of Environmental Conservation monies with Ulster County only serving as a pass-through.
Gallagher said her office has fielded complaints that material created during the composting program was not been made available to the general public.
County Legislator Manna Jo Greene, who is also Environmental Director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and was the Recycling Coordinator/Educator for Ulster County for ten years said she also got calls from people asking if the compost was being made available.
DeGraff said the agency instituted a two-ton limit on compost purchases in April 2020 after tractor-trailers taking upwards of 30 tons at a time cleared the place out. He cited one instance where a staffer took out more than two tons because a larger front loader with a five-ton bucket instead of a two-ton was accidentally used.
He said during the pandemic the agency saw the amount of food waste taken in plummet as dining in restaurants declined last year due to shutdowns and lockdowns. He said they have still only moved about half the 2600 tons of compost the agency did in 2019.
But even with the decline the agency still processes far more compost than five years ago when it was only processing about 500 tons a year.
DeGraff said the agency is working to improve processes such as working with their scale software to more accurately track inventory of compost. This would avoid instances of the public coming out only to find the compost is out of stock. Gallagher said more recently steps have been made to make the compost more readily available to the public.
Greene pointed out that there is now a compost distribution policy on the books where there wasn’t one before and she feels that’s a step in the right direction. “We think it’s being done fairly now,” she said.
A post on the UCRRA’s website notes that “compost is available while supplies last. “Compost is sold on a first-come, first-served basis,” the post says. The public is told to call the office on Mondays to Fridays, from 7:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. for the availability of the compost.
Red flags
Gallagher said she’s received a good deal of resistance from the program’s Director Charles Wittaker and his brother Willie Wittaker whom he supervises, an arrangement she said raises serious red flags in light of the revelation of the policy of material being sold to agency staff.
Gallagher said records her office obtained showed that one buyer who worked for the agency had received the majority of the material.
DeGraff contends there was never preference given to agency staff and he said allegations that Willie was passing the scales with the material he purchased for his business, Affordable Dump Trailers, are false. He said he used a scale closer to the composting operation than the main scale where most other trucks are weighed. He said agency officials knew of the potential conflict of interest involving the business and it was not kept a secret
Greene said she still wholeheartedly supports the composting operation because it has huge environmental benefits by preventing the rotting of food waste in the typical anaerobic conditions found in landfills which releases large quantities of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas.
By contrast, Greene said, composting in aerobic conditions prevents the creation of methane while providing a material that can be used for landscaping, arboretums and as a very high-quality fertilizer that can be used to enrich soils both at farms and people’s gardens. “It helps to improve the tilth of the soil.”
Returning to the issues with the audit, Gallagher said the resistance to the audit of the composting program makes her concerned about the integrity of other parts of the organization.
As for the smell from the operation that has garnered numerous complaints from neighbors and motorists driving on the nearby Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge, Greene pinned it on a decision to use an aerated wind-driven process where oxygen moves the through the pile into the atmosphere which sometimes creates an odor.
She said the agency originally planned to run the composting operation as an in-vessel operation where the composting is done in a building, with a bio-filter of woodchips and compost that takes out any odors. Greene said that’s why the agency purchased the piece of land at a lower elevation than the bridge. But she later found the RRA never implemented that system and instead expanded the aerated wind-driven operation.
“I’m clear why they changed their mind,” Greene said, adding she suspects cost was the reason.
DeGraff said the agency has listened to constituent concerns and has added new equipment to help mitigate odors related to the present operation. He showed off a number of pieces of equipment that help process the material on a recent morning including a blower housed inside a dog house that cycles on and off to blow air on the piles to help mitigate odors. The material ranging from food waste to taken deer carcasses is combined with wood chips, he said.
A “screening” machine larger than a standard tractor-trailer truck, that looked more at home at a quarry or mine, was handling the final processing of the material. He said this machine helps the crew process as much material in one hour as used to take a whole eight-hour day.
Creating compost is a long process. DeGraff said it takes 30 days for a pile to cure then another 60 days before it can be screened into the final product.
He said before the whole site was paved with concrete, the runoff would go into muddy areas creating smelly standing water. DeGraff said all that work was done in-house saving taxpayers money.
DeGraff, who lives in Red Hook said he himself noticed a strong odor when crossing the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge and he immediately worked with staff to change processes to mitigate it.
No confidence in landfill siting process
Still, Greene admits she doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the RRA as officials face a big decision to make in regards to siting a landfill when the Seneca Meadows landfill, to which the agency has been trucking solid waste, closes in 2025.
“We need to hired consultants to find landfill sites, they don’t want that to be public,” Gallagher said. “The RRA is going to have to make a very big decision for the people of Ulster County. Do they send solid waste out of county at a great expense, build an in county facility or come to a regional decision with other area counties? Time is of the essence.”
She said she doubts the RRA has the governance or leadership to make such a big decision.
Greene agrees. She notes that the dispute over information requested about the RRA’s composting transactions doesn’t bode well for a collaborative landfill siting process. She said the resistance serves to hurt the public and public officials’ trust and confidence in the agency. “One way to restore that trust is to provide the info requested and move on,” she said.
Greene wants to make sure all stakeholders have a voice as officials hash out the future of solid waste management in the county including siting a landfill within county lines to avoid the carbon emissions from transporting solid waste to faraway landfills. “We need to focus on solutions, model solutions other admire, reduce negative climate impacts and implement climate solutions,” Greene said.
DeGraff said the UCRRA isn’t trying to keep anything secret in siting a landfill and the agency is presently only doing an $8,000 GIS study he believes will save taxpayers money before they decide on an environmental impact study that costs $500,000. He said if such a study were to happen it would be discussed openly at public meetings
He admitted officials’ hands are tied in siting a landfill in Ulster County with its wide expanses of agricultural lands, protected lands in the New York City Watershed and the Hudson River, a strong environmental justice movement and community opposition.
He said the only site he could imagine working is on U.S. Route 209 in the town of Rochester.
Gallagher said her office has been able to uncover things about the RRA, such as a requirement in the contract that their budget comes to the legislature for approval. “That wasn’t happening…Sometimes just even daylighting the problem can work towards solutions,” Gallagher said.
DeGraff contends he just wants to stay away from politics and run the agency in a way that best serves taxpayers and focuses on removing organics from the waste stream.
“Our agency is low-hanging fruit for politicians, why don’t they audit the Highway Department or DSS,” he said.
He takes great pride in the composting program and he said it’s well-revered outside of Ulster County.
“The DEC had visitors from China looking at our composting program,” he said.
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