The co-chairmen of Ulster County’s Solid Waste Disposal Improvement Commission were adamant Monday that the panel’s review of potential landfill sites is a due-diligence effort more than a high-priority option.
The commission met Monday, and the two chairman — county Legislator Hector Rodriguez of New Paltz and town of Rochester Supervisor Carl Chipman — said afterward that the body’s main focus is to reduce the county Resource Recovery Agency’s current cost of transporting solid waste to the Senaca Meadows landfill in Waterloo, west of Syracuse.
“The first thing is we realize we have to reduce the amount of waste that we have,” Chipman said. “By doing that, it’s going to shape whether we need a landfill or what size the landfill is going to be in the first place. If you do the right stuff in the middle, you are not going to have as much stuff in the end to worry about.”