Seaford School Board Discusses DEC Clean-Up Fees for Former Rifle Range

The Seaford Board of Education and administration personnel offered up their thoughts at Thursday night's work session on the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) fee imposed on the district for disposing of hazardous waste while cleaning up the high school’s rifle range in the summer of 2009.

Director of School Facilities & Operations Andrew Ward said during the meeting held at that the waste was composed of 106.8 tons of lead sand, which caused the DEC to charge the district a fee of $30,000.

“The particular year, because we went over a certain amount of hazardous waste removal, we were considered a large quantity generator of hazardous waste,” he said. “It puts you up into a threshold where you are required to pay these fees on hazardous waste.”

State legislation, known as the Environmental Conservation Law, was amended in 2010, according to the Business Council of New York State. This change would have affected the school district if the clean-up had occurred before the effective date.

The district hasn’t paid the fee yet, and has incurred late charges, because they have been appealing the charge in relation to the legislation.

Seaford Superintendent of School Brian Conboy said that even if the district was to do the clean-up today, they “would have to make application to the DEC to make any relief from that fee for that type of disposal.”

He explained that Michael McAlvin, of the Board of Education's law firm Ingerman Smith LLP, recommended that the district needs to pay the $30,000. This would be done in order to avoid any further late fees on the money they currently owe.

Conboy reached out to State Sen. Charles Fuschillo, R-Merrick, for assistance and the local lawmaker helped waive an additional fee of $4,620 on the money owed. This fee “was averaged after the legislation was put into place.”

“Again, it is not money that we don’t have because the money can be attributed to our bond monies as a soft cost related to the bond," said Conboy in regards to paying the $30,000.

Chris Venator, the district’s legal counsel, said that they were hoping that they could convince the DEC that even though the exemption came into place after the cleanup, that – for “equitable” reasons – they would allow the district to fall into the exemption.

“We were hoping with the intervention of legislators, through appealing to the equity side of the DEC, that they would understand that we are a district on contingency, that it is difficult for us,” Venator said. “That is not working.”

He said that at this point it would be prudent to cut losses and pay the money owed.

Conboy said that it would be acceptable to wait until the next general Board of Education meeting – Dec. 1 – to make the final decision and officially write the check. He added that they will continue to have Sen. Fuschiilo and Assemblyman David McDonough fight the penalty since the issue is “multi-layered.”