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Conservancy asks for traffic review at proposed facility

By Dollie Gull

NEW BALTIMORE — Members of the New Baltimore Conservancy are spreading the word to anyone interested in making comments to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).

They are supporting Town Supervisor David Louis’ stance that more public input and comment from surrounding towns should be allowed on the matter of the Port Coeymans’ proposed solid waste facility.

In a letter from the New Baltimore Town Board to Angelo A. Marcuccio, DEC environmental analyst, Louis wrote that “the coordinated review under SEQR conducted” by his department “has not involved the town of New Baltimore as an interested party.”

The letter continued, “We find this curious, as the site is in very close proximity to the Coeymans-New Baltimore town line.”

Citing the fact that the applicant, ANSWERS of Albany, “plans to operate this facility around the clock,” Louis notes that the board interprets that as “truck traffic operating on a seven days a week, 24 hours a day basis.”

Noting that the “Construction and Demolition Debris Processing Facility will be accessed from state Route 144,” Louis states, “Trucks accessing the facility from the north will travel either from Albany or Selkirk via New York State Thruway Exit 22, or may possibly use state routes 9W south and 143 east through Ravena,” citing that these routes would not involve New Baltimore.

However, he explained, “Any trucks that have a need to access the facility from the south may choose to use NYS Thruway Exit 21B and/or Route 9W and then travel north on Route 144 to the facility.”

This, he says, will take them right through the town of New Baltimore and the hamlet, including through a National Historic District.

The speed limit on this latter route has a “reduced speed limit (as low as 30 miles per hour) and includes one turn that is greater than 90 degrees at the site of the New Baltimore Reformed Church” posing substantial safety risks for other drivers and pedestrians.

Louis asked the DEC to “carefully review this application” and “if said permit is granted,” see that strict conditions regulating the traffic route are put in place ... so that “truck traffic is not allowed to and from the south through the town of New Baltimore.”

Conservancy President Susan O’Rorke, in her statement in support of Louis’ stance, notes that the public comment period has been extended until Aug. 29.

She urges interested parties to send their comments to Marcuccio at DEC’s Region 4 Headquarters, 1130 N. Wescott Rd., Schenectady, NY 12306. O’Rorke’s telephone number is 518-357-2069 and his e-mail address is r4dep@gw.dec.state.ny.us.

O’Rorke adds that it was only by happenstance that Louis found out about this in a newspaper article.

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