I just got off the phone with the Post Star reporter who will be doing a story over the weekend about the whole Foster Brook saga. The reporter told me that the APA spokesman who they interviewed made the assertion that the APA went out of their way to accommodate us.
As the landowner of where the dredged material was going to be put, I can say that is completely untrue.
They weren’t cooperative on their site visit when they alleged the material was waste and both the LGA representative and I argued with them on the spot.
They weren’t cooperative when the DEC told them their interpretation was wrong and in conflict with theirs.
They weren’t cooperative when I wrote to them on August 18th and told them that if they continued their interpretation; “we doubt we would be able to file this permit and/or allow our property to be used for accepting the dredged materials.”
They weren’t cooperative when we asked to see a draft permit leading up to Labor Day so we could update the community on what was happening. They waited until Tuesday, September 8th, after everyone had left for the weekend.
They certainly weren’t cooperative when they issued the draft permit, which attempted to declared our property a “waste disposal area” and place other ridiculous conditions upon us. (Don’t be surprised by this, but they weren’t cooperative with the Post Star reporter either, refusing to release the draft permit to him, but don’t worry I did.)
If you want to know the truth, they weren’t cooperative at all. They hoped that by springing a permit on us at the last moment which we told them we wouldn’t accept, and which the DEC told them was wrong, they would blow up the deal entirely for at least another year and maybe permanently. They didn’t expect that the LGA would find another location to accept the materials. That’s the truth.
No where in this whole saga did they care about the environment.
They certainly didn’t care about the tiny smelts who can’t run up the stream anymore because they’re being blocked by the delta.
They didn’t care about 100 dump trucks going over the mountain to a site 10 miles away as opposed to our site less than a mile away.
The only thing they cared about was their extreme anti-people agenda which we just told you about. This is a perfect example of why a high level state official told me these radical environmentalists, “have no credibility left with anyone”.
