Hawkins to Call for Clean Energy, Not Burning Waste and Gas

For Immediate Release: August 3, 2018

Notice of News Conference

Date: Saturday, August 4, 2018

Location: South Pavilion in Watkins Glen State Park

Time: 12:00 PM

Who: Howie Hawkins for Governor

(Hawkins can be available for phone interviews, and in person interviews on Saturday)

Hawkins to Call on State Assembly to Pass Law to Stop Rommulus Incinerator

Opposes Effort to Convert Cayuga Coal Plant to Natural Gas; Supports Ban on Fracking Waste in Landfills

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidates for Governor, will hold a news conference on Saturday at noon in Watkins Glens to discuss his gubernatorial campaign and local environmental issues such as the Hakes landfill.

The news conference will take place at noon in the South Pavilion in Watkins Glens State Park. Hawkins will talk earlier in the day to a regional meeting of Green Party activists.

Hawkins, a long time opponent of garbage incineration, has previously stated his opposition to the propose Romulus garbage incinerator. Hawkins will call for the Governor to call a special session of the State legislature to pass the bill that would have halted incineration in most of the Finger Lakes. The Assembly decided to hold the bill hostage in a failed effort to get the Senate to agree to continue the use of speed cameras near schools in NYC (an issue that Hawkins also supports).

Hawkins also wants the Assembly to reconvene to pass two anti-corruption measures tied to the Buffalo Billion. The measures were initially an Assembly initiative, but Speaker Carl Heastie blocked the bills from being voted upon in order to protect Cuomo after the Senate unexpectedly passed the bills after Cuomo pressured the IDC to break from the Senate Republicans.

Hawkins will address alternatives to garbage incineration. More than half of all the waste landfilled in New York ends up in one of three landfills in the Finger Lakes.

Hawkins will also announced his opposition to the conversion of one of the burners at the Cayuga Coal Plant to natural gas. Hawkins campaigned to ban the fracking for natural gas in 2010 at a time when many environmental groups were only calling for a moratorium and further study. Hawkins pointed out that methane from natural gas as more than 80 times potent as a greenhouse gas that carbon. Hawkins has long campaigned for a Green New Deal to move to 100% clean energy by 2030 while investing in job creation, housing, health care and education.

Area Green Party activists have spoken out against radioactive materials contained in the fracking waste from Pennsylvania being deposited into Hakes landfill in Painted Post, which includes radon-226, bismuth-214 and lead-214. Hawkins supports banning the acceptance of shale gas drilling wastes in New York landfills and would require remediation of the radioactivity discovered in the Hakes landfill.