By E.A. Crunden@eacrunden Waste Dive
Dive Brief:
- Waste Management of New York (WMNY) and plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit over the company’s High Acres Landfill in Fairport, New York have proposed a $2.3 million settlement, court documents show. Led by plaintiff James D’Amico, the original lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York in January 2018.
- Under the terms of the proposed July 14 settlement, WMNY will pay $1.3 million “into a fund for the benefit of the Class Members” from that date over a 30-month period and an additional $1 million into “improvement measures” at the landfill. Those measures include installing a gas collection system and waste mass dewatering pumps and control, along with synthetic alternate daily cover systems and “nearly 1 mile of an additional water- and vapor-based odor control misting system.”
- “High Acres has been part of the Perinton and Macedon communities for nearly 50 years and our relationships with our neighbors are very important to us,” Garrett Trierweiler, senior manager of public affairs for Waste Management, told Waste Dive in a statement. Trierweiler said the company is “pleased” by the tentative resolution, but could not offer further comment as the settlement is pending court review.
If approved by a judge, the 130-page proposed settlement would end an ongoing dispute brought by D’Amico and his neighbors over the landfill’s alleged impacts on their homes. The plaintiffs sued over claims of nuisance, negligence and gross negligence regarding odor effects stemming from the upstate New York site.
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