By JOSEPH KELLARD
Responding last week to this and other claims lodged by the legislator and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi, the supervisor's spokesman, Mike Deery, issued a second statement reiterating the town's charge that Toback's actions are "cynical."
The issue at hand is odors deemed offensive by residents who live on or nearby Lawson and Daly boulevards, Oceanside's industrial area. Following a Toback-led rally on June 4 outside the town's waste transfer station on Long Beach Road in Oceanside, when the legislator and residents called for the facility to be closed due to rotten-egg-like smells, the town released a statement in response that began, "[The] call for the closing of the Oceanside Dump is a cynical and shameless attempt, by lawmakers seeking re-election, to mislead residents as to the current status of this facility."
At a subsequent rally on June 21, Toback responded to the statement. "What Kate Murray did through her spokespeople is essentially call the good people of Oceanside liars," he said. "If what I'm doing is cynical and shameless, then I equate that with saying that I'm lying. And if I'm lying, then all of these people are lying because they smell it. They're not my political cronies; they're people who can't stand the smell anymore."
The substance of the town's first statement was that the rotten-egg smell is not produced significantly by yard waste, the type of refuse permitted at the facility, but is possibly generated by other nearby recycling facilities and local Nassau County sewage transmission stations. These claims were "totally fabricated" in order to discredit him, Toback shot back at the second rally, adding that the town is responsible for regulating the recycling facilities it referred to on Lawson Boulevard.
Asked to respond to Toback's claims, the town issued a statement beginning with the charge that the legislator "demonstrates a profound lack of understanding concerning jurisdictional authority," and that he refused to provide the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) with important data needed to pinpoint the source of the odors. "This lack of cooperation exposes a cynical lack of regard for area residents," the statement reads.
The statement quotes from a June 7 DEC report on the town's Oceanside transfer station, which determined that no offsite odor emanated from this facility, but that the smell was evident on Lawson Boulevard and on Brown Court, near a privately run sanitation facility where some 50,000 cubic yards of waste material was seen stockpiled outdoors.
Although the Town of Hempstead released statements regarding Toback's claims and the Oceanside transfer facility, Town Supervisor Kate Murray failed to address the issue. Murray chose instead to address the people of Oceanside through a press release, and did not attempt to explain the town's actions or lack thereof.
A second DEC report, dated June 20, stated that no offsite odor that residents smelled originated from the transfer station, but noted that the inspector did detect odors near Hampton Road that he believed might come from privately run solid waste facilities.
At an economic and development meeting Suozzi hosted at Oceanside Middle School on June 25, resident Lois Anthor told the county executive he hadn't done enough to correct problems like excessive noise, dust and dangerous traffic that residents say come from recycling and waste facilities in Oceanside's industrial area.
Suozzi told Anthor that zoning issues were the town's jurisdiction, to which Anthor replied that the county executive should nevertheless put more pressure on town officials to correct the problems. "You've got to take your anger out at the right people, the people who are at the planning board and the Town of Hempstead, who have been screwing this place for years, OK?" Suozzi told Anthor.
Toback and Suozzi's claims that the town is responsible for zoning business in these areas "ignores the fact that they operate under a New York State DEC permit," the town's statement claimed. DEC experts identified the source of problems in the area, temporarily closing two privately run facilities, it continued.
Elaborating on its charge that Toback failed to pinpoint the source of the odor, the town suggested that the legislator could have provided the DEC with names, dates and times relative to odor complaints regarding solid waste facilities, adding that other than Toback's complaints, the DEC had received only one relevant complaint on the matter.
The statement concluded by asserting that the town aggressively monitors the area to ensure that recyclers conform with its building codes, and invited Toback to join the town and DEC in "taking positive steps in addressing concerns rather than engaging in political finger-pointing."
