Guest Column: Leslie Danks Burke

“Home”

WATKINS GLEN, April 21, 2020 -- Earth Day marks its 50th anniversary on Wednesday, and the people of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes have lots to celebrate in our natural resources. Even as we are social distancing, we can still enjoy our rolling hills and bright green fields, our gorges and our lakes. We can breathe in our clean air and walk in our forests, temporarily relieved of the worries that dominate the world today. Our region is one of the most beautiful in the world and I’m thankful every day that I get to live amid these natural wonders.

Often, when I’m climbing the gorge path at Watkins Glen, visiting Tanglewood Nature Center, catching my breath at the vista atop the hill at Greek Peak, or swimming in the lake, thoughts creep in, of what this region stands to lose to environmental degradation and climate change. We’ve done lots to advance environmental protection here, but we can’t go backwards. We, as proud residents of this region, should demand that we continuously strive for more.

Following a health study showing the significant health risks from hydraulic fracking, the process was banned in New York State in 2015. Yet between 2011 and 2019, New York still accepted over 500,000 tons of fracking waste into seven upstate dumps, with three in the Southern Tier towns of Chemung, Angelica, and Erwin.

So even though we aren’t fracking here, our communities get the environmental and health risks anyway. When our region is the dumping ground for downstate and out-of-state waste, our natural resources -- the very things we rely on for food, farms, tourism and our families’ health -- are in jeopardy. It doesn’t seem fair that communities here should accept someone else’s waste when the people making these decisions aren’t held accountable.

Two "superfund" sites in Chemung County hold significant levels of hazardous waste. Often, a company polluting land bears no responsibility to manage clean up. So, when the sites are vacated, only a few options exist: clean up the site (a long, difficult, and expensive process); abandon the property; or sell and build on the land with crossed fingers that the contamination doesn’t cause problems for future inhabitants. Houses built on toxic sites are sold for cheap, causing dangerous health problems for inhabitants.

One Chemung superfund site is the land where Elmira High School sits, purchased for one dollar in 1977. Nearly 6,800 tons of soil under the school is contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, left over from the Remington Rand plant that operated there many decades ago. There have been efforts to rid the soil of PCBs, but it’s hard to complete a comprehensive cleanup after the compounds have sat for so long. Past students point to health issues now, including birth defects and cancer. It’s unclear if this land will ever truly be safe again, which isn’t something I’m okay with, especially when our children’s future is directly at risk.

This Earth Day, let’s take time to applaud our beautiful region, and consider how we best conserve it. We deserve better than dumps full of out-of-state waste and schools sitting on superfund sites. We should have access to clean energy jobs, fight to protect our drinking water, and bring long-overdue sustainable infrastructure investment here.

Especially now, when so many of us are turning to the outdoors as an escape from the isolation of life during COVID-19, we should expect to have safe places to go with our families and loved ones. If we don’t act now to conserve our own resources and instead let the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes get used as a dumping ground, the beauty we see today -- and our very livelihood -- won’t be there for future generations. I know we can do better.

Photo: Leslie Danks Burke

Top row (from left): Carl Blowers, Jim Howell, Michael Lausell, Van Harp

Bottom row: Gary Gray, David Reed, Phil Barnes, Mark Rondinaro

Legislature Chairman

Carl Blowers, 535-6174 or 237-5469

Legislature Members:

Gary Gray, 292-9922

Van Harp, 329-2160

Jim Howell, 535-7266 or 227-1141

David M. Reed, 796-9558

Michael Lausell, 227- 9226

Phil Barnes, Watkins Glen, 481-0482

Mark Rondinaro, 398-0648

County Clerk: Theresa Philbin, 535-8133

Sheriff: William Yessman, 535-8222

Undersheriff: Breck Spaulding, 535-8222

County Treasurer: Holley Sokolowski, 535-8181

District Attorney: Joseph Fazzary, 535-8383

State, Federal Officials for Schuyler County

Sen. Charles E. Schumer

United States Senate
313 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-3201
DC Phone: 202-224-6542
DC Fax: 202-228-3027
Email Address: http://schumer.senate.gov/webform.html

Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand

United States Senate
478 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
DC Phone: 202-224-4451
Website: http://gillibrand.senate.gov/

State Senator Tom O'Mara -- Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, Yates, western Tompkins, Enfield, Ithaca (Town and City), Newfield, Ulysses(Trumansburg)

Room 812, Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: (518) 455-2091
Fax: (518) 426-6976
www.omara.nysenate.gov

Assemblyman Phil Palmesano-- Steuben, Schuyler, Yates
Room 723, Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12248
Phone: (518) 455-5791
Website: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/Phillip-A-Palmesano