Ultimately, when a landfill company volunteers such vast sums of money (hands out checks) to their local population and townships, it’s not an act of altruism; it’s an investment.
This investment is something much more valuable to them than the sum they offer because they’re investing in leverage over you and the decisions you make; they are “buying” support.
(Note: Currently, Seneca Meadows landfill pays Seneca Falls, NY and Waterloo, NY, collectively, millions of dollars annually under CBAs.)
It’s bad enough that, for both Waterloo and Seneca Falls, NY townships, the CBAs they negotiated with the Seneca Meadows landfill have been secretive and exclusive, with little or no communication with local residents and organizations.
But what’s worse is that these CBAs are the landfill company’s open admission that it will have negative effects on these communities, with the agreements themselves being a way to mitigate or “make up for” that impact.
Otherwise, what is the justification for having these CBAs at all?
These CBAs are a form of advance damage control, an admission that the landfill will cause harm, and they therefore require assigning a cost to your community for this harm.
So questions arise:
And your safety? Your personal safety, the safety of your children—should not be for sale. The future of your family, your legacy, is not something that should be bargained away for convenience or profit.
The environmental degradation and health risks associated with landfills can last for hundreds of years, well beyond the term of any CBA or municipal agreement.
The short-term focus on financial gain in these agreements disregards the lasting moral responsibility to future generations who will bear the burden of the environmental damage.
Anything truly vital to a person or a community—land, water, air, safety, heritage—should not be commodified or treated as a mere resource to be exploited.
To assign a price tag to these things is to dishonor them, to treat them as expendable.
They are not.
They are irreplaceable, and they deserve to be protected with every ounce of your strength.