Exactly what the county is going to do with something as basic as municipal waste remains unclear except for four things: 1) We produce more than 150,000 tons of crap annually and 2) we can't count on shipping it away to distant landfills forever. Consequently, 3) we may end up with a landfill or landfills right here in Ulster County and 4) virtually no one wants a landfill next door.

The Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency, the body tasked with addressing that dilemma, met last week to consider the issue and hear updates from its executive director, Marc Rider. High on the agenda was the agency's 2025 Capital Plan, still in draft form.

Three of the plan's biggest-ticket items focus on waste reduction, cutting back the volume of material to dispose of and even salvaging something of value from the waste.

High on that list is the Reuse Innovation Center (RIC), a 50,000-square-foot warehouse and office complex which would be built to house a recycling program devised by the consultants at Rhinebeck non-profit Sustainable Hudson Valley and Washington State's Re-Use Consulting, a pioneer in the field. It’s budgeted at anywhere from $6 million to $17 million.

The RIC strategy is ambitious, the consultants have written, and relies on “a viable building deconstruction industry” whose “preparatory phase” could involve “an initial training and marketing of several projects to begin building inventory.” The county “could be exploring policy development such as an ordinance requiring deconstruction under certain conditions — and making sure supportive policies and training programs are in place for scaling the industry.”

Also under consideration is building a $1.2-3.5 million Secondary Diversion Building, a 10,000-square-foot structure where construction and demolition debris will be sorted and diverted from the waste stream.

Another $1.7-$2.5 million is devoted to expansion of the agency's composting program. The agency's Organics Recovery Facility is to be doubled in size, a network of collection and processing facilities will be created at the county's transfer stations, commercial composting facilities will be expanded and there will be a pilot program to implement food waste diversion at schools and other institutions.

The Big Enchilada, running anywhere from $105-$315 million, is set aside for construction of a countywide landfill, which could take seven to 10 years to complete. Two potential sites have been identified in the Town of Wawarsing, but Executive Director Rider won't be pinned down on the matter — even though circumstances point to an Ulster County landfill if present trends continue. The recycling efforts are geared to blunt those trends.

In an email, Rider explained that “Seneca Meadows [the Finger Lakes area landfill Ulster ships its waste to] is still waiting on their permit modification. Currently, their permit expires at the end of 2025. Even if they receive the modification this month, they will need time to construct the expansion, and they likely won't be able to continue accepting our waste without interruption beyond 2025.”

“If they have not constructed their expansion before the end of 2025, we will have to go back out to bid for 2026 and beyond. Our contract requires that they notify us in advance if that is going to happen, and we have until September 2025 to cancel our contract with them beyond 2025. If things don't happen very soon, we will likely be going back out to RFP in June/July.”

“I would not say that a landfill in Ulster County is inevitable,” Rider wrote. “We have to do our due diligence on the two sites we have identified in Wawarsing. If neither site is feasible, then I would say, there would not be a landfill sited in Ulster County, as those were the only two sites that make sense to site a landfill here.”

Whether that comforts area residents worried about a dump next door is an open question. On the one hand, a landfill in Wawarsing is not a done deal. On the other, if an Ulster landfill becomes necessary, it looks like Wawarsing or nothing.