Mid Hudson Times Jul. 25 2018

T IMES MID HUDSON Vol. 30, No. 30 3 JULY 25 - 31, 2018 3 ONE DOLLAR Business profiles LEGO program Special section Page 28 SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR NW fuel plant plan raises concerns By WAYNE A. HALL Citing possible “significant adverse impacts on the environment” by a proposed $35-million BioHiTech America’s garbage to fuel processing plant planned for 12 acres of New Windsor land, the New Windsor Planning Board voted July 17 to require an in-depth project study. The study under the state New York State Environmental Quality Review Act requirements will be an in depth look at the project’s environmental impacts, including air emissions and the proposed plant’s truck traffic using Stewart International Airport roads whose traffic counts are growing from increasing numbers of passengers to Stewart International Airport. BioHiTech has proposed a 69,000-square-foot building on 12 acres of town-owned land on Avenue of the Americas. Two of the planning board’s key concerns about the proposed garbage to fuel plant, said planning board chairman Jerry Argenio are “that odor thing” and the BioHiTech’s truck traffic possible conflicts with airport interior traffic and traffic on Route 207. BioHiTech’s project’s proposal estimates truck traffic at 40 daily incoming trucks and 15 leaving the proposed 69,000-square-foot BioHiTech processing plant at Stewart. That would amount to eight trucks an hour in and out on a five or six-day operation. He described the trucks as “normal collection trucks like those running on your street.” As for the proposed plant’s emissions they are insignificant, says the company’s literature. “It’s like enhanced composting, a completely biological process with no combustion and there’s no burning, no additives. It’s a pretty simple process,” company spokesman Dennis Soriano told planning board members Continued on page 3 M ovie N ight Brian Wolfe A crowd gathered on the Safe Harbors Green last week for the children’s film festival. The film Coco will be shown there this Thursday at dusk. WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM