Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle del Hudson
You don’t have to be a scientist to understand the issue of toxic liquid from garbage: leachate. You just have to be a human who drinks water. Do you drink water? I do. This issue affects all of us who live and drink water in New York and the Hudson Valley because it makes its way into our rivers and lakes.
In fact, it is a problem across the entire country. Well-known environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently wrote about toxic leachate seeping from landfills into rivers, streams, and other water sources: “The problem gets worse when the companies that own them shut down, go bankrupt, or disappear; neighbors, local governments, and ultimately taxpayers are left footing the bill.”
Rebecca Martin, from New York River Watch, joined me on my program La Voz con Mariel Fiori to explain leachate, or “garbage juice,” as she calls it, and what could be done about it. Leachate is a stream of toxic liquid waste generated when rainwater or snowmelt passes through landfill waste. It can contain PFAS, heavy metals, pesticides, and thousands of other chemicals, including toxins that were banned because of the risks they pose to human health and the environment but that continue to appear in waste buried decades ago.
This garbage water is poison for our waterways. A New York River Watch report found that, between 2019 and 2023, more than 500 million gallons (532,300,000) of landfill leachate from both New York and other states were sent annually to municipal wastewater treatment plants. But these facilities are designed to treat human wastewater, not the complex mixture of chemicals found in leachate. Nearly one-third of this leachate, about 167 million gallons, ended up in rivers and lakes officially designated as drinking water sources, including the Hudson, Mohawk, and Niagara rivers, as well as Lake Ontario.
Kingston, for example, receives 4 million gallons of this toxic liquid, Martin said. It passes through the city’s wastewater treatment plant and ends up in Rondout Creek on its way to the Hudson River. “We want the city to stop accepting leachate. It’s not the city’s fault. This is a practice that has existed for a generation,” Martin explained.
I also spoke on my program with Marc Rider, executive director of the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency (UCRRA). UCRRA operates two transfer stations, recycling and composting programs, and participates in the county’s solid waste management planning. Rider acknowledged that leachate, or “garbage tea,” as he calls it, can contain PFAS and other chemicals.
But the agency’s options for managing leachate are limited. Wastewater treatment plants have been one of the few available alternatives. UCRRA also has to deal with a part of the problem that goes much further back: old inactive landfills.
Active landfills have liners designed to collect leachate and prevent the toxic liquid from reaching groundwater. In Ulster County, for example, there are 20 inactive, unlined landfills, and the local agency, UCRRA, actually collects leachate from only two of them. This situation is not unique to Ulster County. Across New York State, there are hundreds of inactive landfills that continue accumulating their garbage juice, and, for now, there is no one cleaning them up.
This is what Martin and other water advocates call the “Leachate Loophole.”
For Rider, one of the challenges is that state regulations and funding programs focus primarily on active landfills. Both he and Martin agree that the rules––and the resources––should be expanded to include inactive landfills.
UCRRA is already studying a solution for two of the inactive landfills it manages, in Ulster and New Paltz. The agency hired an engineer to develop on-site pretreatment systems. Rider estimates that construction could cost around $3.5 million, in addition to operating and maintenance costs.
Now there may be a new opportunity to address the situation. The problem is that the new regulations proposed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, focus primarily on active landfills. New York River Watch is asking the DEC to close that gap and establish rules that include active, inactive, and closed landfills that continue to generate leachate. It is also calling for treatment to take place where the leachate is generated, before it is sent to a municipal treatment plant.
We have close to 700—more than 700––individual actions so far. There is also a coalition letter, containing our public comments in response to the regulations, that has been signed by more than 100 organizations.
It has been a truly extraordinary effort by many coalition partners. This is a long-term process, and it is connected to many other issues: our landfills, the concept of zero waste, sludge, and the precautionary principle, which means placing the burden on chemical companies to demonstrate that their chemicals are safe before they are incorporated into products. We want these chemical companies to pay. We want landfills to manage their waste, especially those operated by companies that make billions of dollars a year managing waste, rather than simply passing the responsibility on to the end user, to drinking water, and to the people who depend on that water. And we want them to support municipalities that are trying to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, consumers can also reduce the amount of garbage we produce. One of the simplest measures is composting food waste. Rider notes that, according to audits conducted by UCRRA, approximately one-quarter of the waste stream may consist of food waste. Keeping that waste out of the garbage bag directly reduces the amount that ends up in a landfill.
We can also buy fewer disposable products, reuse what we can, repair before replacing, recycle properly, and avoid unnecessarily packaged products.
But reducing our garbage alone will not solve the problem of the tons of waste that have already been buried for decades. That garbage is still there. And as long as it remains there, the rain will continue to pass through it.
Mariel Fiori
Director
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COPYRIGHT 2026
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
In fact, it is a problem across the entire country. Well-known environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently wrote about toxic leachate seeping from landfills into rivers, streams, and other water sources: “The problem gets worse when the companies that own them shut down, go bankrupt, or disappear; neighbors, local governments, and ultimately taxpayers are left footing the bill.”
Rebecca Martin, from New York River Watch, joined me on my program La Voz con Mariel Fiori to explain leachate, or “garbage juice,” as she calls it, and what could be done about it. Leachate is a stream of toxic liquid waste generated when rainwater or snowmelt passes through landfill waste. It can contain PFAS, heavy metals, pesticides, and thousands of other chemicals, including toxins that were banned because of the risks they pose to human health and the environment but that continue to appear in waste buried decades ago.
This garbage water is poison for our waterways. A New York River Watch report found that, between 2019 and 2023, more than 500 million gallons (532,300,000) of landfill leachate from both New York and other states were sent annually to municipal wastewater treatment plants. But these facilities are designed to treat human wastewater, not the complex mixture of chemicals found in leachate. Nearly one-third of this leachate, about 167 million gallons, ended up in rivers and lakes officially designated as drinking water sources, including the Hudson, Mohawk, and Niagara rivers, as well as Lake Ontario.
Kingston, for example, receives 4 million gallons of this toxic liquid, Martin said. It passes through the city’s wastewater treatment plant and ends up in Rondout Creek on its way to the Hudson River. “We want the city to stop accepting leachate. It’s not the city’s fault. This is a practice that has existed for a generation,” Martin explained.
I also spoke on my program with Marc Rider, executive director of the Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency (UCRRA). UCRRA operates two transfer stations, recycling and composting programs, and participates in the county’s solid waste management planning. Rider acknowledged that leachate, or “garbage tea,” as he calls it, can contain PFAS and other chemicals.
But the agency’s options for managing leachate are limited. Wastewater treatment plants have been one of the few available alternatives. UCRRA also has to deal with a part of the problem that goes much further back: old inactive landfills.
Active landfills have liners designed to collect leachate and prevent the toxic liquid from reaching groundwater. In Ulster County, for example, there are 20 inactive, unlined landfills, and the local agency, UCRRA, actually collects leachate from only two of them. This situation is not unique to Ulster County. Across New York State, there are hundreds of inactive landfills that continue accumulating their garbage juice, and, for now, there is no one cleaning them up.
This is what Martin and other water advocates call the “Leachate Loophole.”
For Rider, one of the challenges is that state regulations and funding programs focus primarily on active landfills. Both he and Martin agree that the rules––and the resources––should be expanded to include inactive landfills.
UCRRA is already studying a solution for two of the inactive landfills it manages, in Ulster and New Paltz. The agency hired an engineer to develop on-site pretreatment systems. Rider estimates that construction could cost around $3.5 million, in addition to operating and maintenance costs.
Now there may be a new opportunity to address the situation. The problem is that the new regulations proposed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, focus primarily on active landfills. New York River Watch is asking the DEC to close that gap and establish rules that include active, inactive, and closed landfills that continue to generate leachate. It is also calling for treatment to take place where the leachate is generated, before it is sent to a municipal treatment plant.
We have close to 700—more than 700––individual actions so far. There is also a coalition letter, containing our public comments in response to the regulations, that has been signed by more than 100 organizations.
It has been a truly extraordinary effort by many coalition partners. This is a long-term process, and it is connected to many other issues: our landfills, the concept of zero waste, sludge, and the precautionary principle, which means placing the burden on chemical companies to demonstrate that their chemicals are safe before they are incorporated into products. We want these chemical companies to pay. We want landfills to manage their waste, especially those operated by companies that make billions of dollars a year managing waste, rather than simply passing the responsibility on to the end user, to drinking water, and to the people who depend on that water. And we want them to support municipalities that are trying to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, consumers can also reduce the amount of garbage we produce. One of the simplest measures is composting food waste. Rider notes that, according to audits conducted by UCRRA, approximately one-quarter of the waste stream may consist of food waste. Keeping that waste out of the garbage bag directly reduces the amount that ends up in a landfill.
We can also buy fewer disposable products, reuse what we can, repair before replacing, recycle properly, and avoid unnecessarily packaged products.
But reducing our garbage alone will not solve the problem of the tons of waste that have already been buried for decades. That garbage is still there. And as long as it remains there, the rain will continue to pass through it.
Mariel Fiori
Director
back to top
COPYRIGHT 2026
La Voz, Cultura y noticias hispanas del Valle de Hudson
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