It’s tough to miss Seneca Meadows, New York state’s largest landfill: Rising nearly 300 feet tall, it’s almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty, including its pedestal.
A decades-old depository of millions of tons of garbage, sprawled over more than 350 acres, it’s an artificial overlook visible from miles away. For homes to the east, it causes an early sunset.
And then, of course, there’s its odor, an ever-shifting stench which has inspired comparisons to dumpsters and dirty diapers, rancid meat and rotting fruit, as well as online maps of where “it stinks.”
But for the past several years, it seemed as though the olfactory abuse might soon be ending: According to state permitting, the landfill was set to close at the end of 2025.
Now, however, the landfill’s owner, the Texas-based Waste Connections, has indicated in filings with the state that it wants approval to fill a 47-acre “valley” between two of the site’s gigantic mounds — enough to fill MetLife Stadium 10 times, at least — a project it estimates would last until 2040.
That project would raise the peak of Seneca Meadows by about 70 feet — roughly to the height of a 35-story building — making it one of the tallest man-made structures in upstate New York and an odoriferous outlier in the largely bucolic Finger Lakes region.
Residents in and around Seneca Falls have long complained about a bevy of problems related to the site, including truck traffic, choking dust and the potential for landfill runoff — known as leachate — to contaminate drinking water.
They recount tales of “trash blowouts” where an exterior wall of dirt collapses, resulting in a cascade of garbage. Flocks of pesky sea gulls, looking for free food, circle constantly, depositing their guano on roofs, cars and customers in nearby shopping centers.
Even supporters of the landfill, whose oldest sections date back to the 1950s, admit they’d love it if Seneca Meadows — and all its associated ills — wasn’t there.
“If we had to make a decision today, with what we know, then obviously there would be no landfill there,” said Michael J. Ferrara, the Seneca Falls town supervisor and a lifelong resident, who has backed the expansion plan. “But it’s been here a long time.”
Keeping the landfill open likely makes the company a better neighbor, he suggested.
“They’re not going to take the landfill with them: It will still be here, unfortunately,” said Mr. Ferrara. “If it’s open, they have to tend to it a lot more.”
Waste Connections representatives declined to comment on their critics or the “valley infill” project, which is currently being evaluated by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
The site’s district manager, Kyle Black, directed a reporter to the Seneca Meadows website for details on current operations and the expansion plan, which the company’s initial application says is needed “to provide critically needed solid waste disposal services locally and for the state.”
That stream of garbage is undeniable: More than two million tons arrives yearly via thousands of trucks roaring off the New York State Thruway. According to the company’s 2021 annual report — the most recent available — that deluge of trash includes solid waste, construction debris and a category known simply as “sludge.”
The refuse comes from all over the state, and farther afield, but its single biggest source is New York City, which sent about a quarter of the total haul in 2021, averaging about 1,500 tons daily.
The plan to expand has prompted an outcry from many environmentalists and business owners in the two neighboring communities: Seneca Falls, known as both the birthplace of the women’s rights movement and a supposed inspiration for “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and Waterloo, which claims to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.
In February, hundreds signed a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, pleading with her to stop the expansion, noting a range of problems with landfills, including ample emissions of “climate-destroying greenhouse gases” like methane.
Others accuse the company of buying off town board members in Seneca Falls via large campaign expenditures on behalf of landfill-friendly candidates by a group known as Responsible Solutions for New York. The group received at least $195,000 in donations from Waste Connections since the beginning of 2019, according to state election records.
One of those winning candidates in 2021, Kaitlyn Laskoski, a Republican, denied that she knew anything about the Responsible Solutions group, saying she was “just as surprised” when she received mailers paid for by the group supporting her campaign. She added she had not formed an opinion on the expansion yet, saying she wanted…
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