[From www.Niagara-Gazette.com]
The city planning board did not want to talk about rats at a special informational meeting held to discuss the expansion of a waster-to-energy plant. They heard about them anyway.
Ronda Grose, a city resident who lives next to the Covanta Niagara plant insisted on speaking about an increase in the rat population in her neighborhood which she and other neighbors attribute to waste trucks headed for the garbage incinerators being rerouted through their neighborhood, amongst other causes.
“You don’t want to hear about rats but I’ve got to talk about them anyway,” she said.
Rick Smith, the board’s chairman, interrupted Grose to remind her that the purpose of the informational meeting was to discuss the company’s expansion and not the rat issue, which the city is working with the company to resolve.
That’s when City Council Chairman Glenn Choolokian stepped in to ask that the planning board hear her out.
“All these people are here to talk about rats and I think we should let them talk,” he said.
Loud applause erupted from a group of neighbors in the crowd.
Smith agreed to let Grose continue but reminded her of the three minute time limitation for comments and asked that others speaking on the issue not repeat points touched on by other speakers.
Grose submitted a petition to the city council offices last week with 248 signatures asking the city, Covanta and the state Department of Transportation to help the neighborhood deal with what they describe as an “infestation.” The petition names the Buffalo Avenue road project as another possible cause for the spike in vermin.
Grose said that Covanta had sent an exterminator to her house to leave traps, but more needs to be done.
“We need more help than that,” Grose said. “Please help us out.”
Kevin O’Neil, the business manager at Covanta, said he has been in contact with city officials and they are working to come up with a plan.
“We’ve just made a commitment to the planning board members that we’ll do what we can to help and we’ll sit at the table with them to come up with a solution,” hel said.
O’Neil added that the plant’s exterminator has visited four homes, but he will not be able to continuously visit the homes of people in the neighborhood and take care of issues at the plant.
“I can’t do the whole neighborhood this way,” he said. “It doesn’t work. We’ve got to come up with a plan that will work for everybody.”
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