The time has come for Salina residents to start paying back the debts incurred for remediation of the town landfill.
The Salina Landfill was built in the flood-prone 3.7-acre wetland next to Ley Creek in the early 1950s. From the time of its construction until 1975, the landfill received commercial, residential and industrial waste, as well as hazardous materials from nearby General Motors’ Fisher Guide Division, including 640 tons of paint sludge and 22 tons of waste paint thinner and reducer. The town stopped officially receiving waste at the landfill in 1975, but it wasn’t capped until 1982.
Because of the hazardous wastes dumped in the landfill, Ley Creek, a tributary of Onondaga Lake, and the surrounding waterways were contaminated. The lower portion of the creek was designated a Superfund site by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which means it’s an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly impacting local people or ecosystems. Sites designated as Superfund sites receive federal guidance in order to eliminate the hazardous waste. The town worked with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the EPA to create a remediation plan in 2007. Work actually began to clean up the area in 2012 and has continued to the present. The total cost of the remediation is somewhere between $18 million and $35.5 million. The town is responsible for 25 percent.
“As we all knew, 2015 was going to be a difficult year with the landing of the debt for the landfill,” said Supervisor Mark Nicotra. “We’ll be adding another $200,000 for that, with another couple hundred thousand to monitor the wastewater treatment center being constructed now.”
The wastewater treatment plant is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Nicotra said the amount included in the 2015 budget for monitoring is $243,000, in addition to $187,000 in bond payments.
As a result of payment on the debt incurred for the landfill, as well as regular increases in personnel and retirement costs and revenue losses totaling more than $500,000, taxes will go up in the town. For a $100,000 house in the town outside of the village of Liverpool, taxes will increase by $1.60 per month, or $19.20 a year. Within the village, taxes on a $100,000 house will go up by $2.11 per month or $25.32 per year.
“It’s a small impact, but it’s one we can’t avoid,” Nicotra said. “Fortunately, we’ve been pretty fiscally responsible for the last seven years, so in general, we’re in good shape.”
Nicotra said the town will likely have to pass a local law to exceed the tax cap, given Salina’s growth index and the rate of inflation.
“We can only increase the budget by 1.5 percent,” he said. “I’m going to recommend that we override the tax cap as we have in the past. It’s not something we want to do, but we do it as a safeguard for unforeseen things that come up during the budget process.”
Town officials will meet with department heads to continue working on the budget. The public hearing on the proposed budget will take place at 6:33 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27. The final budget must be adopted by Nov. 20 under state law.
