ALBANY, N.Y. (Nov. 23, 2009)—New York has cleaned up more than 26.5 million scrap tires in the past five years and is on track to clean up the remaining 7.5 million by the end of 2010, according to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
Of 17 major tire dumps in New York in 2004, 12 no longer exist, the DEC said. Those sites in a state of complete cleanup include the two largest: the 11.4 million-tire Fortino site in Oswego County, and the 5-million-tire Mohawk Tire Storage Facility site in Waterford, Saratoga County. So far, 102 dump sites have been completely remediated, the DEC said.
The largest dump site remaining to be cleaned up is the 2 million-tire New York Tire site in Suffolk County, according to the agency. Other large sites yet to be addressed are the Thomas Price site in Madison County, with 1 million tires; the Mahopac site in Putnam County, 750,000 tires; the Fortino 2 site in Onondaga County, 550,000 tires; and the Almag site in Rensselaer County, 550,000 tires.
New York launched a Waste Tire Stockpile Abatement Plan in the fall of 2004, around the same time it instituted a recycling fee of $2.50 on every new tire sold in the state.