The ban on new development in parts of the county because of a major sanitary sewage problem was kicked around at a meeting Friday between the county executive and three developers.
"The DEC (state Department of Environmental Conservation) is literally shutting down development in this county," County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr. said after the session. "It’s handcuffing this county’s ability to grow."
The moratorium would be in affect while the situation is being corrected, and that’s not acceptable to Picente.
Mr. Picente seems to be confused about the chain of cause and effect here. The only roadblock to Oneida County's continued development is...Oneida County's refusal to take responsibility for it's continued development.
Friday’s meeting followed the county receiving a reply Wednesday from DEC in response to the county’s earlier comments to the state concerning its initial proposed consent order.
"They haven’t really budged on anything," Picente said when asked whether the state offered a new deadline for ending the discharge of raw sewage. He declined to give details about the state’s answer. The proposed order won’t be public until both sides sign it.
He has no interest in signing a consent order containing fines or an unrealistic timetable for a final solution, in addition to having to cope with the ban on new sanitary hook-ups in certain areas.
Picente hopes to set up a meeting of state and county officials early next month to talk face-to-face.
Hmmmm....the state won't budge on it's demands that Oneida County quit dumping billions of gallons of untreated sewage into the river. Mr. Picente won't budge on his demand that the state just ignore the whole thing.
Gosh, I wonder who's going to win this fight?
It's becoming increasingly obvious that Mr. Picente simply refuses to accept that contaminating surface water with human waste is a bad thing. Then again, from his viewpoint the problem may not exist. If the information in this NYS Board of Elections report is accurate Mr. Picente lives at 110 West Oak Street in Rome, which just happens to be miles upstream from the gushing fountain of filth flowing into the Mohawk River.
Does anyone think he'd be so cavalier about this issue if he lived downstream from all the crap?
Update: Perhaps Mr. Picente would be singing a different tune if billions of gallons of sewage were being dumped into Delta Lake. From this Google Maps view it appears his home is only 800 meters west of the Lake's primary outlet. The Mohawk River, the part of it that isn't filled with sewage from Oneida County, is over five kilometers directly south of his home.
That does kind of put things in perspective, doesn't it?
