NYS Legislators and Advocates Press DEC Acting Commissioner on Leachate Loophole During 2025 Budget Hearings
On Tuesday, January 28, a Joint Legislative Public Hearing of the New York State Assembly and Senate gathered during the 2025 Executive Budget Proposal related to Environmental Conservation and Energy.
During the hearings, Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick (District 66), Senator Michelle Hinchey (District 41), and Hudson Riverkeeper all raised critical questions to Acting Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Sean Mahar regarding the leachate loophole.
Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick regarding emerging contaminants and landfill leachate.
Assemblymember Glick asked if municipal wastewater treatment plants were aware of what’s in the raw leachate that they were accepting. DEC Mahar responded that there were permit requirements for municipal wastewater treatment plants before discharging, ensuring the treatment process complies with those conditions. But WWTPs are neither required nor equipped to remove the pollutants that are present in landfill leachate. This is a key issue in the leachate loophole, especially concerning emerging contaminants.
An excerpt from our report The Leachate Loophole and Emerging Contaminants:
“In theory, the Clean Water Act (CWA) aims to stop pollution into waterways. In reality, pollution is controlled and monitored through permits. In New York State (NYS), facilities that discharge waste into surface or groundwater are regulated under the State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (SPDES) permit program, part of the CWA. The purpose of SPDES permits is to limit the amount of polluting substances that facilities discharge. The CWA sets minimum baseline requirements according to the facility type (a state may apply more stringent standards), and requires SPDES permits to be renewed every five years. Originally, Congress intended this renewal process to provide an opportunity for state agencies to require new water pollution control technology in SPDES permits as it developed. In turn, pollution discharges would be eliminated as technological capacity increased.
Under the CWA, a WWTP permit renewal should include a full review of information about the facility, including industrial operations that discharge to it, expanded effluent monitoring data, and an opportunity for public comment. The administrative burden of this review cycle has led to large backlogs of expired permits in many states, including New York. In response, DEC’s policy is to administratively renew or extend permits as is, until a “full technical review” can be conducted. At the time of this report and based on available information, of the 14 WWTPs in the project area that accept leachate, nine have expired SPDES permits. Only five of these permits have been updated in the past five years.”
Senator Michelle Hinchey: “What is the DEC doing to help communities right now with onsite treatment of leachate at landfills?”
Later, Senator Michelle Hinchey, concerned about a landfill in her town (Town of Hurley), which was recently reported on in the Times Union, asked what the DEC was doing to support communities with onsite storage tanks and treatment solutions now. She emphasized that this issue will only grow in magnitude, and communities needed funding available for mitigation efforts. She urged her colleagues to consider this pressing problem as they review the budget in 2025.
Jeremy Cherson of Hudson Riverkeeper: “89 million gallons of untreated landfill leachate that is released into the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers Annually”
Hudson Riverkeeper referenced our report and called on the legislature to increase funding for the Clean Water Infrastructure Act to $600 million, in order to address the ongoing issues of diluting and dumping landfill leachate into our rivers, and other critical water quality concerns.
We are deeply grateful to our representatives and advocates for highlighting this issue during the budget hearing and pushing for meaningful solutions.
Want to learn more? Watch our webinar from January 6, 2025.
For more information, visit: https://leachateloophole.org/