Furthermore, as a condition for approval, Woodbury Commons was required
to build a septic system to handle its raw sewage. Only six months after
the project was completed its septic system failed. The county then allowed
Woodbury Commons an emergency hook-up to the already overtaxed Harriman
Sewer Plant. The hook-up was supposed to be for only six months but it
has been on for over four years now.
Were the taxpayers, residents and elected officials not concerned then?
The millenium natural gas pipeline link, 36 inches
in diameter, is currently snaking its way across 22 miles of Orange
County ’s unspoiled
open space. Orange County found no need to hire a consulting group to
review this SEQRA process.
Were the taxpayers, residents and elected officials not concerned then?
Sullivan County has recently legalized gambling casinos. A huge portion
of the traffic to and from will pass through Orange County . The traffic
will overwhelm county roads and heavily tax its infrastructure. The county
did not find the need to hire consultants and lawyers to review this
SEQRA process either.
Are the taxpayers, residents and elected officials not concerned?
In 1998-99, when the entire North East was in
the grips of a thirty-year drought Orange County taxpayers, residents
and elected officials did express their concern over the water shortage.
Kiryas Joel was blamed for drying up everyone’s wells. The County then proposed a water
sharing system between municipalities in Southern Orange County but did
not follow through. Instead it shifted the onus of solving Southern Orange
County’s water problems on Kiryas Joel. Kiryas Joel accepted the
challenge and implemented the plan that the county has adopted 11 years
previous but dropped, as it is wont to do.
How did the county deal with the taxpayers, residents and elected officials
when they DID express their concerns?
County Executive Diana, in a prepared statement
wrote: “I still
have many questions and grave concerns about an individual municipality
running a 13-mile pipeline to tap the New York City Aqueduct. I firmly
believe that a project of this magnitude must be able to serve the water
needs of the entire region, not one municipality alone."
Excuse me Mr. County Executive but wasn’t it Orange County that
passed a unanimous resolution, in 1988, to build a water-loop, only to
drop the idea? Wasn’t it Orange County that proposed, in 1999,
a regional water sharing system, only to drop that one too? And wasn’t
it Orange County that proposed, in 1999, that Kiryas Joel find a new
source of water? Kiryas Joel not only accepted Orange County’s
suggestion it even adopted Orange County’s own plan! So why is
it that the same county that was so quick to blame Kiryas Joel for the
water shortage and in whose lap it dropped the problem, is so unhappy
when a solution is found, not just any solution but the county’s
very own solution? And, last but not least, how can you in good conscience
say that this pipeline will serve only one municipality? Did it not occur
to you that on an annual basis 400 million gallons will remain in the
local aquifer if Kiryas Joel stops using its wells? Will this not raise
the overall water table of the entire local aquifer? And will that not
help prevent local wells from ever going dry again? If this isn’t
a regional solution what is?
Since the county’s current actions are unprecedented and in light
of the questions raised in the above paragraph, it behooves the County
Executive to explain what the concerns of the taxpayers, residents and
elected officials are. He should explain which taxpayers, residents and
elected officials he is looking out for. Is it the taxpayers, residents
and elected officials of Kiryas Joel who have lived under severe water
restrictions for the past six years? Is it the taxpayers, residents and
elected officials of Kiryas Joel’s neighboring communities whose
wells have run dry in the past? Or is it the taxpayers, residents and
elected officials who, for political gain, shamelessly portrayed an entire
law abiding community as parasites?
The Village of Kiryas Joel had asked Legislative
Chairman A. Alan Seidman for an opportunity to present its side of
the story before the legislators voted on the pipeline issue on July
1. Legislative Chairman Seidman refused. He explained that their vote
would only memorialize the legislators’ feelings
and as such they did not need to hear from Kiryas Joel before they expressed
their feelings.
Ladies and gentlemen, behold your democracy in action!
With their feelings memorialized the legislators changed their minds.
They began demanding that the county take legal action to enforce their
memorialization.
The blatant nature of Orange County ’s underhanded
ways along with the obvious double standard that it applies to the Village
of Kiryas Joel flies in the face of fairness, justice and equality.
