Plaintiff sees flaws in NY’s arguments for continuing I-81 project (Guest Opinion by Nathan Gunn)

Nathan Gunn, of DeWitt, is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the New York state Department of Transportation seeking to halt the Interstate 81 project.

You will recall that a number of local petitioners took the New York State Department of Transportation (DOT) to court and challenged their flawed plan to remove Interstate 81 from Syracuse. The result was a decision by the New York State Supreme Court in February that denied DOT permission to remove the highway from the city unless and until further environmental analyses were undertaken.

That was very good news for our community. However, the court allowed work to proceed on two interchanges to the north and south of the city. As a result, Renew 81 For All, the citizens group that initiated the challenge, appealed the interchange construction to the state Supreme Court Appellate Division. The state then appealed, as well. Oral arguments were heard last week in Rochester.

At those oral arguments, representatives for the state continued to push false information regarding its own conduct.

Let there be no misunderstanding: At stake is the literal air that the children of our communities, especially Syracuse’s South Side, may soon be breathing.

When Justice Donald Greenwood asked the state if the plaintiffs had offered “expert” opinion to counter the DOT’s claims, the DOT attorney answered that no “experts” had been put forth by the plaintiffs. That, of course, was a false statement.

The town of DeWitt is a plaintiff in the lawsuit and Ed Michalenko, the town Supervisor, is an environmental scientist. Not only has Michalenko been lauded by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand as an environmental expert., but Michalenko has published a very detailed environmental review in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement record, as well as a part of the lawsuit. Greenwood lives in DeWitt, so I expect he heard the DOT attorney’s responses as willful misstatements.

Even more disturbing was the sheer fallacy of the state’s response to Judge E. Jeannette Ogden’s question regarding local carbon monoxide levels from increased traffic at street level in the city. The key deception here is that the state uses the term “downtown area.” This micro-focused term only applies to the small area surrounding the current elevated highway that will be removed. At a recent open house at Clary Middle School, one of the state’s emissions expert admitted that areas of higher traffic like the South Side and Routes 5 & 92 exchanges can expect to see a 6% to 10% increase in carbon monoxide in their communities. Supreme Court Justice Gerard Neri correctly identified that reality and questioned how the state can claim that the overall project will be carbon neutral when they fail to offer concrete analysis of areas of the most heavily populated communities. Remarkably, the state continues to attempt to deceive the court and the citizens affected.

In regard to addressing the failure to include the Micron project in its planning, the state is claiming that the affected residents do not have a legal right for its inclusion, but instead, the state has complete discretion in whether or not to consider the project and include it in planning. Once again, Neri was correct to compel the state to reconsider its erroneous determination that a massive regional infrastructure overhaul should not include a once-every-100-years economic development. Why would the state be hell-bent to proceed with a project that may prove to be inadequate or offer improper solutions to the future realities of our community? What possible good reason could exist to not consider such a massive project with our regional transportation planning? Simultaneously, one obvious outcome of the proposed I-81 project will be the isolation of residents of the South Side, denying them direct access to the Micron facility for future employment.

Another fascinating development regarding the environmental impact statement for the Micron project is its own traffic studies. Upon reviewing the location of traffic projections for the EIS for Micron, they did not include the city of Syracuse or DeWitt area. Why would Syracuse be left out of a traffic review for the largest regional economic project in recent history? Why would Cato-Meridian get studied, but not Syracuse? One possible answer is that the data would show that the state’s traffic numbers for the city and DeWitt are already antiquated and false, rendering their legal arguments ridiculous.

Perhaps the court could simply ask for current traffic figures to see if that State’s projections from 10 years ago are remotely accurate.

Neri gave the State the golden opportunity to simply put forth air and water quality projections for the South Side and DeWitt while also considering the largest economic project since the Erie Canal was constructed nearly 200 years ago. Rather than spend the past year doing further study and planning while providing the public with more information and reassurance, they chose to a legal maneuver. What a bizarre and concerning choice.

One can only hope that the Appellate Division of the New York State Court will continue to protect the air that is breathed by the residents of Syracuse’s South Side.