By Adam Blanchard
Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Amanda Lefton brought her department’s statewide environmental justice listening tour to Plattsburgh on Wednesday, with North Country residents voicing concerns about lake water quality, road salt runoff and e-cigarette disposal.
Touting the state’s commitment to climate investment, Lefton said the governor had recently earmarked more than $1 billion to environmental programs for the first time in the state’s history.
“New York State’s leadership in protecting the environment and more importantly protecting the communities in which we serve is now more important than ever, especially in the face of unprecedented challenges that we’re seeing: Attacks on environmental progress, on environmental regulations, on environmental funding,” Lefton said to a small crowd in the Warren Ballroom of SUNY Plattsburgh.
This was the sixth installment of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s listening session series since 2024, and the only session that will be held in the North Country. While previous sessions have been held in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA’s absence on Wednesday night underscored the federal government’s pullback on environmental issues over the past year.
Lefton said New York remains committed to working to help low-income and minority communities achieve environmental health.
“What environmental justice is, is really a recognition that certain communities have been overburdened by pollution. Those communities often tend to be communities of color, low-income communities, and we want to make sure that we do not stand for having communities bear the disproportionate burden of pollution,” Lefton said.
Alanah Keddell-Tuckey, director for the DEC’s Office of Environmental Justice, said the state’s $4.2 billion Clean Water, Clean Air, and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act of 2022 mandated that $200 million go to projects in disadvantaged communities. Her office also provides $14 million in environmental justice grants for things such as community gardens, water testing and green jobs training.
After a brief presentation from DEC officials, Willsboro councilmember Vic Putman took to the mic and raised concern that the state’s definition of disadvantaged communities left out much of the Adirondack Park, where many communities face declining populations, school closures and unemployment.
“Communities in the park are in severe distress,” said Putman, who is also president of the Boquet River Association and advisory member to the Lake Champlain Basin Program. “How could you change the disadvantaged communities definition so that it’s more equitable for small, modern communities? They’re not only in the park, they’re all over the state.”
Keddell-Tuckey said the criteria for a disadvantaged community is reviewed annually by the department’s Climate Justice Working Group and the public can voice concerns to climatejusticeWG@dec.ny.gov.
“What I think we’re really talking about is changing or adjusting how we identify what falls into these categories, how do we identify a disadvantaged community, how do we identify a potential environmental justice area?” said Keddell-Tuckey.
Zooming in on Chazy Lake, Dannemora Town Supervisor Joey Varin raised concerns about half-century old camps with leaky septics. He said the town was powerless to enforce septic maintenance because the systems had been grandfathered in.
“I don’t know how you can grandfather a camp that’s actually polluting the lake with their old, outdated septic systems,” Varin said. “That pollution is feeding the millfoil that’s in my lake.”
Varin also added that road salt from Route 374 drains into the lake.
“So I have salinity, I have pollution, and I just don’t know what we can do,” Varin said.
Lefton responded that roads are ultimately under the purview of the Department of Transportation, but the DEC does have an Adirondack Road Salt Reduction Task Force and has pushed a “Don’t Be Salty, New York” education campaign on the issue. She also noted that Gov. Kathy Hochul has earmarked millions of dollars toward a septic system replacement program.
“Ultimately it is actually the property owner’s responsibility to maintain their infrastructure – it’s private property, it’s private infrastructure,” Lefton said. “But we have made grant funding available to help support communities.”
Speaking up from Plattsburgh, Deputy Town Supervisor Dana Isabella asked what the state was doing to crack down on waste from e-cigarettes that contain hazardous lithium-ion batteries. She said Americans throw away 5.7 disposable vapes per second and asked if the state could hold manufacturers responsible for collecting, recycling and safely disposing of the waste.
“As a mom and a grandmother, as a community member I’m incredibly concerned,” said Isabella, who is also program director for the Commercial Tobacco Usage Reduction Network (C-TURN). “As someone who’s spent a lot of time protecting the water system here in the town of Plattsburgh, I’m incredibly concerned over what’s going to happen to these. Nobody is really doing anything.”
Lefton said the DEC is drafting a plan to hold manufacturers responsible for waste from their products, including e-cigarettes.
“If manufacturers are responsible for having to deal with the waste that they create, then they will create less wasteful things,” Lefton said. “We think extended producer responsibility is of critical importance.”
“Waste reduction is the single most important thing we need to do across the board,” she added.
