Push and Shove are getting to know each other up in Dairyland, the far western corner of Wawarsing and Ulster County. That’s where the Ulster County Resource Recover Agency is looking to place a landfill.

According to Marc Rider, CEO of the UCRRA, they will need at least 100 acres of land for the projected county landfill. That includes the actual landfill and the buffer zones around it. One problem in Ulster County is that half of it is protected land in the Catskill State Park, the Minnewaska Preserve, and beneath the Rondout Reservoir.

UCRRA narrowed in on five potential sites in Ulster. Three were knocked out quickly, and the two remaining options are both in Wawarsing. One is on Brown Road, fairly close to the reservoir and the NYC DEP protected buffer zone. The other is in Dairyland, off Milk Road.

Naturally enough property owners in the affected areas, and, indeed, some neighbors close by are very upset with the decision to target Dairyland. The area is already home to a number of controversial summer camps, but along with the rest of Ulster County has been on an upswing in reputation and property values. Those qualities may well be early victims of the process of selecting land for a landfill.

Marc Brubaker and his wife appear to be in “ground zero” for the potential landfill. And while Marc Rider has been “nice and cordial” to Brubaker, he says “UCRRA has never reached out to me. They have not done anything to earn respect or build a relationship.”

Brubaker owns about 400 acres in Dairyland, mostly woodland.

“The purpose is to improve the land for wildlife and enjoy it that way with our family,” he said. “When we first came here there were no turkeys, now I see flocks of twenty or thirty birds in several areas.”

That environmental question looms large over the landfill. Landfills are basically piles of stuff laid atop a protective liner, which is meant to shield the groundwater and the soil from contamination by chemicals in the trash. Liners are supposed to last for decades to centuries, but, historically, they have a habit of breaking down. Approximately 19 former New York landfills are Superfund sites, including Cortese Landfill in Narrowsburg and Hertel Landfill in Plattekill.

Dairyland is partially bounded by wetlands, and encompasses waterways like the West Branch Beer Kill. Rider has said at many meetings that modern landfill design is much better at preventing leaks. But some are skeptical of the claim, including Andrew Faust of the Democratic Committee, who opined that “all future landfills run the very real risk of permanently polluting our drinking water sources.”

Brubaker, for his part, also laments what he sees as a blow to our area, something that others have noted as well. He was not that surprised to learn that eminent domain, in which private land can be taken by government entities for the public good, is a weapon in the UCRRA’s quiver.

However, the real “bomb” in the most recent presentation by Marc Rider, as far as Brubaker was concerned, was that he “announced that they don’t need landowners’ approval to get access to the land to do studies” – meaning that UCRRA staff can walk his property whenever they want. Brubaker is mulling what legal avenues are available to him.

“This is the same old thing,” former town supervisor Scott Carlsen said of the plan. “Dump on Wawarsing, again. About a dozen years ago, when I was supervisor, I remember I caught wind of something like this. It was early in their planning and it wasn’t as far along as this one, but it was similar. So, I got on that and I squashed it.”

Carlsen was also indignant both with the possibility of eminent domain and the waiving of landowner approval for land studies. “This idea that contractors and engineers can just come out and go on your property to survey things for an RFP for the RRA, that’s crazy.”

For Carlsen, the message is clear: “We’re the furthest township away from Kingston and so they want to send Kingston’s garbage here. I cannot believe that the only places they could find in the whole county are here in Wawarsing.”

Zachary Kortright, a part-time resident, is upset about how this might affect Wawarsing’s slow journey to economic recovery.

“We love being up here,” he said. “We want to be here full time and we want to be part of the regeneration we can see that’s getting going here. But this community has struggled so much and it just feels that every time something good is getting started, there’s a roadblock to progress.”

“I understand that Marc Rider has a difficult job, but I’m not convinced that he has exhausted all the other options,” Brubaker said.

When it comes to the waste stream in Ulster County, Brubaker wonders why the UCRRA is restricting things to the county. Currently the waste is being trucked a long way away to another county. “Why can’t they look at the operation in Montgomery, Orange County?” That operation is Taylor-Montgomery, who have begun to loom large in this conversation.

Kortright had the same thought: “Why not try Taylor waste management in Montgomery?” he asked. “They say they can take all of Ulster County’s waste. The decision to put a landfill in this beautiful area feels slightly political and unchecked.”

And then there’s Poppy Cannon-Reese, who owns a large parcel alongside Route 52, across from the potential landfill site. She is also asking the same question: “Why is UCRRA so adamant about having a landfill in Ulster County. Why not look outside the county?”

Wawarsing Councilman Johnny Frost asked that same question to Rider in July, and was met again with statistics about the imminent closure of New York’s existing landfills, but some are not impressed with that answer.

“There’s a lot of options down the road,” Carlsen said. “The technology is changing. Maybe we won’t need any disgusting landfills at all.”

Cannon-Reese has another question, too.

“UCRRA,” she said, “is already experimenting with gasification. With that and other measures, like the removal of everything compostable from the waste stream, couldn’t the solid waste remnants be reduced enough that a smaller site could be used?”

The separation of compostable and recyclable components of the waste stream is a key pillar of what the county is trying to do, and Cannon suggests the implications of that decision haven’t been fully considered.

“If UCRRA could break away from the 100 acres things, then a lot of sites might be usable.”

One asset Dairyland has is time. The sheer complexity of the approval process for a landfill in Ulster County means, according to Rider, it will take ten years to open one. Still, the process has begun, and the dismissal of the other sites means Wawarsing is already forced into a defensive posture.

Marc Rider was away at a conference this week and did not respond to our inquiries.