CITY OF ALBANY.
TRASH: PAY AS YOU THROW?
SEWERS: PAY AS YOU GO? 

 http://www.timesunion.com/allnews/article/Weekend-rains-drive-more-sewage-spills-into-11297008.php

The Sheehan administration is
promoting a pay as you throw
trash fee for City residents.

Meanwhile, huge sewage spills
from the City of Albany are
polluting the Hudson River.

Is  the remedy to be found in
separating sewage from storm
water lines? Or in upgrading the
City sewage treatment plant?
Or both?

In any case, these remedies will
cost lots of money.

What about a pay as you go
solution to finance these upgrades?

City homeowners already pay as
they go. They pay quarterly water/
sewer rates (taxes). For every dollar
of water usage, homeowners pay a
corresponding dollar in sewers fees.
Even if most of the water consumed
is used for watering their lawns and
washing their cars.

Are schools, colleges, universities
hospitals, state-federal office buildings
religious institutions, apartment
buildings, hotels/motels, restaurants
and public housing complexes paying
the same dollar for dollar water-
sewer  fees?

What about the daily surge of  
commuters who come to the City of
Albany daily to work...and to go?

If not, why not?  A full disclosure
audit is in order.  A job for the State
Comptroller's Office.

Treated waste water could be used
in hydro-fracking for natural gas in
the Southern Tier, instead of dumping
it in the Hudson.

Clean natural gas can spur economic
development in Albany and elsewhere
Upstate. Clean energy translating to
needed jobs, as well as contributing
revenues for upgrading  aged urban
water-sewer systems.

Time for politicians at the state and
local levels to get their heads out of
the toilets and take action to upgrade
water-sewer systems in Albany and
along the Hudson-Mohawk-Erie Canal
urban axis.

                                    Joe Sullivan