August 1, 2008 It’s not just a dump, it’s a Superfund Cleanup Site. That puts it in the major leagues of dangerous landfills. The N.Y. State Department of Environmental Conservation will continue to monitor the site for 20 more years to make sure poisonous leachate doesn’t run into the groundwater. It’s 86 capped acres of fermenting garbage that has to be vented so methane buildup doesn’t one day blow it all over the Torne Valley. And now it’s being seriously considered as a future site for 650 living units. Once again, a really bad smell leads back to Town Hall in the form of a damp money trail.

Methane Manor
As always, the key to understanding almost anything in Ramapo turns out to be a money trail connecting the principals. Sometimes it remains a mystery, like when a court and law enforcement fail to make the connection between a Ramapo building inspector, a bundle of new C-notes in the glove compartment of his town vehicle, and the other party who originally stuffed the envelope. And then there are the situations when the connections are as obvious as the rank fumes venting from a mountain of soaking refuse. In this case, there’s a wet track that leads all the way from the Torne to Town Hall and the office around the corner.

Supervisor St. Lawrence was quoted in the Journal about the proposed development. He said "he was interested in the ‘creative thinking’ of the developer." Creative thinking? It’s a Superfund Cleanup site—an enormous dump! I’m afraid the Supervisor’s perspective has been warped by his other jobs as Head of the Solid Waste Management and Vice Chairman of the Sewer Commission. His vision of a future Ramapo now includes condo cities built atop dumps, with, perhaps, streetlights made of methane gas vent pipes that are lit every day at sundown. And, oh yes, clocks—talking clocks.

And not only are there questions about his vision, but if you want a current measure of the Supervisor’s competence related to his waste-management expertise, just ask a few people who live around the year-long stench at the sewer treatment plant. Ask them what they might want to tell the Sewer Commission’s Vice Chair about the utility's inability to keep the heavy smell of raw sewage out of their homes.

But back to the money trail. Here are the facts:

St. Lawrence and his board, today, remain open to the project. If Puddingstone can get the approvals from state agencies, Ramapo will put it on the schedule along with numerous other massive projects in Western Ramapo (Sloatsburg/Suffern).

This goes so far beyond the limits of common sense there must be something missing. There was some damage to the cap that seals this mountain of pollution back when it was new. Hurricane Floyd destroyed some of that cover and it took $4 million to fix it. Now, Puddingstone and Ramapo want to move in the heavy equipment used in construction to put in 650 rental units. What’s missing?

Well, if you follow the stinking bread crumbs you will find an answer. (Information from the Board of Elections and www.puddingstonegroup.com.)

On April 12, 2007 Gershon Alexander made a donation of $2,000 to the Friends of Christopher St. Lawrence (his campaign fund). Gershon Alexander is Principal and Senior Vice President of Puddingstone Funding and is in charge of, among other things, site evaluation for the company’s construction projects. He is apparently keenly interested in Ramapo politics.

On April 12, 2007 Marie A. Cook donates $2,000 to the Friends of Christopher St. Lawrence. Sources connect Marie A. Cook to Puddingstone in this way. The third principal of the company, Harold Cook is the company’s in-house attorney and the company website claims he "handles all of our legal matters and is instrumental in the financing process of Puddingstone’s projects." Marie Cook of Oakwood Ave, North Haledon is Harold Cook’s mother.

On October 20, 2007, just a few weeks before the Ramapo Supervisor election, Marie Cook donates another $750 and Alexandra Cook of North Haledon also donates $750 to the Friends of St. Lawrence.

The New Jersey-based Puddingstone Group’s support for an out-of-state Supervisor in a New York election totals $5,500. Eight months later they are in a workshop session with St. Lawrence/Friedman/Stein/Hunter/andYager discussing "creative" uses for the dump. $5,500 to vie for the position as the town’s "designated developer" might sound pretty cheap, but when you add all the favorites up, and then factor in the "pay-to-play" donors like Stearns and Wheler ($2,500) it gets substantial real quick. Remember, Michael Tauber (developer for the RLUIPA-entangled Tartikov college in Pomona) gave St. Lawrence $3,500, and Jeffrey Goldstein (ARCO), the developer who was sold an Open Space property this year (the Quarry), got in for $3,000.

With these current numbers we have to rearrange our priority list of St. Lawrence’s favorite developers. Puddingstone moves ahead of Michael Tauber into second place and Mr. Goldstein (purchaser of the Quarry) is tied for third with others. The list is based, obviously, on monies that we know about and is subject to change as information develops. For instance, there’s a North Haledon company called Paddington Funding (892 Belmont Ave., North Haledon) that made a $1,000 donation to St. Lawrence in October of 2007. When, and if, we are able to connect up the company with the Puddingstone collective lump of cash, the total will change.

The cash keeps rolling in, the stink increases, and soon more and more of Ramapo will be literally and figuratively sitting on top of garbage.

Michael Castelluccio
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