Local News from Marbletown, Rochester, & Rosendale
Marbletown’s Town Board has passed a resolution intended to reduce the amount of plastic straws distributed by local businesses. During the board’s July meeting, Environmental Conservation Commission member Iris Marie Bloom explained that the resolution is not a law or a ban.
“Marbletown will be making New York state history, as far as we know. This resolution asks for restaurants to ask first before serving a straw. It is intended to reduce plastic straw trash, and the overproduction and overconsumption of plastic straw trash,” she said.
According to Bloom, local eateries have been largely supportive of the proposed “ask-first” policy. “I have been talking with area restaurants for a number of months, and most of them have been tremendously supportive, including Lekker, the Kitchenette, The Spy, The Roost, and The Last Bite,” she said.
Bloom explained that the desire to limit plastic straw use is based on a number of alarming statistics. “The amount of straws we’re producing every day just in the U.S. would wrap around the earth two and a half times,” she said. “The World Economic Forum said that by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish by weight in our oceans. So, our oceans are really filling with plastic, and among the top five items are plastic straws and plastic coffee stirrers.”
Bloom also noted that plastic straws are made with ethylene, a product of hydrofracking. “New York has banned fracking; we shouldn’t use fracking products,” she said.
The Town Board unanimously passed the ECC’s resolution on plastic straws but refused to take official action on another ECC proposal regarding plastic bags. Tom Konrad, chairman of Marbletown’s ECC, gave the board a brief overview of the organization’s work to date toward crafting a plastic and paper bag law. “If you recall, I brought a proposal from the ECC that we pass a 15-cent fee on all retail checkout bags in November. Shortly thereafter, several retailers wrote letters to BlueStone Press saying that they didn’t support it, although we had previously gotten support from them for a bag ban. The ECC assumed that a bag fee would be more acceptable to them since they would be the ones keeping the money,” said Konrad.
Konrad went on to explain that the ECC has spent the intervening time attempting to get in contact with retailers who would be impacted by bag legislation, but that efforts to schedule a meeting with business owners proved unsuccessful. The ECC then invited retailers to a meeting that they themselves hosted, but only one retailer attended.
“We had the workshop and brought in bag law expert Tracey Bartels from the Ulster County Legislature, and minority leader Hector Rodriguez was also there. After working through it with the expert, all reached a consensus on a 10-cent fee and a ban on plastic,” said Konrad. Exceptions to the ban include bags used by restaurants for takeout food, and bags for produce, meat and bulk food used within grocery stores (i.e., your pork chops will still come wrapped in plastic).
“Because we haven’t actually been able to get the retailers in the room, I’m asking the board to set a public hearing on this law we’ve discussed, so that they pretty much have to show up in the room and we can have this discussion,” Konrad explained.
“I’m always in favor of getting as much public input as we can,” said board member Patricia Clarke. “We know that people had issues with it last year. Before I would feel comfortable having a public hearing on this, I think we need to make more of an effort to see what the business community thinks about it.”
Supervisor Warren also added that a public hearing is the precursor to the board voting on a law. Being that the board is not ready to vote on a bag law, the legislative overtone of a public hearing would not be appropriate.
“I joined the ECC a year ago, and at the very first meeting I attended, there was a report on the views of the retailers in Marbletown. Someone had gone and talked with each retailer and reported back about this issue. We’ve been doing everything we can to reach out to retailers for a year … If the board is not comfortable having a public hearing, would the board be comfortable having a public informational meeting?” asked Bloom. The board declined the request, agreeing that the Town Board members themselves first need to do more “field work,” according to Warren.
Since the July board meeting, the ECC has decided to alter its proposal to the Town Board and plans to present its revised suggestion for legislation at the August meeting. The new proposal still seeks a ban on single-use plastic checkout bags, but would “urge Ulster County to pass a checkout bag law containing both a plastic bag ban and a minimum 10-cent fee on all checkout bags,” rather than legislating a town-imposed fee.
Residents and business owners are encouraged to provide their input by contacting either the ECC or the Town of Marbletown.
In other news, FEMA has revised its flood maps outlining the location of flood zones within Marbletown. “After the last floods, FEMA has come out with all new maps. In doing so, that means we have to adopt a new local law,” explained Warren. Passing the new law is necessary if residents within the flood zone are to acquire flood insurance, Warren explained.
The supervisor suggested that any resident interested in seeing the new maps visit the office of Ray VanKleeck. “Ray [Marbletown’s building inspector] is the also the flood control officer. All the new flood control maps are in that office. If any resident wants to check their properties and see if they’re in the new flood plains or not in the new flood plains, that’s the place to go,” Warren said.
As with all legislation, the board will not be able to pass the new law until a public hearing is held.
