In what has been described as "a process," New York State is moving forward with a lawsuit against ten large companies who dumped at the Babylon Town landfill from approximately 1947 through 1990. The state is charging them as polluters, and is outwardly promoting that they countersue everyone else who dumped there, including Villages, school districts, fire departments and other public entities supported by taxpayers. They’re hoping that faced with the legal precedent of the federal Superfund law, and millions of dollars in potential litigation costs, these entities will bend under the weight of the law, and instead of fighting, enter into a "process" together and negotiate with the state as a unit to reach a "fair and equitable" settlement.

The "process" is nothing more than a backhanded money grab by the state to replenish the fund established by the state’s environmental quality bond act, which voters approved more than a decade ago. It’s picking our pockets without having to come back to us as voters and ask our permission first.

Clearly, the state has the legal right to sue polluters under the federal Superfund laws. And, it has done so, with limited success. But this process, has tremendous implications for every municipal entity that owned and operated a landfill, its taxpayers, and those who paid to legally dump there over the past 50 years.

One of the state’s major problems in replenishing the fund is that the statue of limitations against the potentially responsible parties such as villages and school districts who dumped at the landfill has expired. The only parties they can legally sue are the few they notified of their intentions years ago. What the state is relying upon now is that as they lean on these ten for millions of dollars in damages, they will not sit back and assume the full responsibility, but instead countersue everyone else.

More than that, the state is greasing the way to make that happen, working through this Orwellian process in close concert with consulting firms they’re encouraging the polluters to hire. These firms are not defending the responsible parties but instead are simply "independent arbiters" who define and assess the liability of each of their clients.

It is important to remember that none of those who dumped at the landfill did anything illegal. The way in which the Superfund law is written, however, is that those who pollute pay, regardless of whether the they knew at the time that their actions were contaminating the environment.

That bold and undeniable fact is not new. What appears to be new, however, is the strong arm tactics the state is using to broaden the scope of its Superfund lawsuits by way of this so called process. And, despite having filed for information on where else in New York State, village, school districts, fire departments and other public entities are being drawn into similar Superfund litigation, the state has failed to produce the name of a single one. They continue to say, after more than a dozen phone calls, that they’re working on it.

It would seem to us that if, in fact, Babylon is not once again being singled out by the state, that it would be easy to come up with the names and places where the process is taking place. The state’s apparent inability to do that only adds to the stench of this whole thing—and the stench is not coming from the landfill, it’s coming from Albany.