Tyrone Heppard
Aug 25, 2017 · 7 min read

Poisoned and punished: One family’s fight for environmental justice

By Tyrone Heppard

Published on Truth Against the Machine May 11, 2017

Denying justice to families harmed by pollution doesn’t necessarily take high-powered attorneys, a crooked judge or a multi-national corporation. Sometimes it only takes a village. Or, in one mother’s case, a town.

In a recent interview Stella Martin, a resident in the small hamlet in rural Catskill, NY, talks about how she has been trying for years to get local and state officials do their jobs: namely to make sure the illegal dumping next door to her home is put to an end, and that what was dumped there isn’t slowly poisoning her family.

As a result, Martin has documented most of her struggle on Facebook and YouTube where she has rallied support in her community and others dealing with similar issues elsewhere.

Some background

Martin’s story begins in December 2012 when she first started noticing trucks dumping on the property next door owned by man named Fred Edwards III who runs a small composting business there.

The dumping itself wasn’t particularly unusual, Martin said. What was odd was when it occurred. Large trucks importing yard waste would be brought to the facility next door to her home just before the break of dawn.

Given the proximity of Edwards’ property to the Martin family well, or their underground source of drinking water, she naturally had concerns about what was being trucked in. Plus the property is adjacent to state- and federally-protected wetlands.

Over time, Martin said she began seeing some disturbing things: full garbage bags being dumped into holes for burial. Large chunks of concrete and rubber and other construction debris littering in the adjacent wetlands where the lily pads and trees were slowly dying.

In March 2015, after being tipped off by Martin, the state Department of Environmental Conservation would determine Edwards had in fact illegally dumped, “leaves, wood chips and organic material in wetlands.”

Investigators would tell the local Daily Freeman newspaper they found, “… the trucks arriving at night were hauling organic material, including leaves and small wood products — yard wastes — from Long Island,” to turn into mulch.

According the Daily Mail, another local newspaper, an inspection in January 2015 would find things like home siding and, yes, plastic bags, buried on the property. Edwards also had not maintained the required 200-foot setback from the pond.

Reports also note in August 2013, officials found Edwards had, “dumped fill consisting primarily of dirt, brick, cinder block, asphalt, concrete, wood chips and stone, over the slope down to and into the wetland.”

In the end, a consent order would be handed down from the DEC to Edwards and $11,000 in fines were levied against him, though a large portion of the penalty — $9,000 — would be waived so long as he complied with the clean up.

Part of the remedial work included moving the junk found in 2013 away from the wetlands, a process which involved moving a lot of dirty things with heavy machinery. At the time, Martin tried to compel authorities to take a closer look at the debris.

She and her family would later learn in a devastating way her concerns were valid.

The summer of 2015 was a dry one in Greene County and as remedial efforts were underway on the Edwards property, on windy days, large plumes of dust would engulf the Martin home which could be viewed as a minor inconvenience for the sake of the clean-up, she said.

Then everyone in her house started getting sick.

Martin said her entire family would begin to lose their senses of taste and smell and have trouble breathing, but things got serious when her son began exhibiting symptoms of neurological damage such as ticks and violent seizures.

Taking matters in her own hands, Martin began taking her children to doctors and specialists in Albany, which is just shy of an hour away from her home. They determined not only was exposure to this dust affecting their health, they strongly recommended the family leave the home.

Subsequent testing would confirm the entire family was diagnosed with exposure to toxic chemicals.

As for Martin herself, in addition to developing sores, her blood tests from May 2016 would come back showing high levels of cadmium, a heavy metal which the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry says people are usually exposed to by inhaling fumes. Or dust.

Testing done by LabCorp would detect cadmium in Martin’s blood at 7.6 micrograms per liter. The Mayo Clinic says anything over 2.0 is abnormal.

“I’ve pretty much been told I need accept these are symptoms,” Martin said Friday. and “There’s really not a cure for these things, we have to wait to see what the sores turn into, and see if the kids neurological issues can heal themselves.”

And here’s the kicker: Martin’s research would also lead her to believe that it is likely Edwards did not have the necessary permits from the town and the county that would allow him to do the work on the property in the first place.

Once again, Martin turned to her area officials for answers and demanded someone take a better look at the Edwards property to see if there was anything left behind that could explain why everyone was getting sick — or at least if there was anything of concern there.

Obfuscation, denials, and a at times outright dismissals of her concerns came from not just her town government but from local officials, Martin said, and felt the people tasked protecting her and the rest of the community had better things to do.

Board members for the town of Catskill, which includes Palenville, decided they’d rather make excuses and defer to the DEC that the issue is being taken care of, though medical professionals and blood tests indicate something is clearly wrong.

However, based on what Martin said happened next, it seemed town and county officials were more interested in shutting her up than helping her out.

Martin said it started a couple of years back with bogus codes violations. For those who don’t know, the codes department is, ironically enough, tasked with making sure dwellings in a municipality are safe to live in.

Martin said she would end up spending thousands of dollars trying to appease the codes department. One such violation was a determination by town officials that having a broken stove on the first floor made the room it was stored in a kitchen and thus, a two-dwelling unit.

“There’s not even … plugs for this stove,” she said. “All the stuff they were asking for was stuff I’ve never even heard of. I had to hire an engineer. I had to dig up my septic tank three times for these people. I had to pay for that. Every single time they would come up with something else. No matter what it was it just kept turning into all of this other crap. Nothing was ever going to be good enough.”

Then, Martin explained how in the summer of 2016, she was showing the extent of damage to the property to a couple of concerned people when a deputy with the Green County Sheriff’s Department pulled up.

Martin said during the confrontation, the officer informed them they were being charged with trespassing and that he needed to check with the county to see if it wanted to pursue charges. Sure enough it did.

“Two hours later we got a call from the Sheriff’s Department,” she said. “They’re pressing forward with the trespassing case.”

It seemed likely officials in her small, close-knit community were using what power they had to keep her silent, but Martin said it was all but confirmed she had that all but confirmed when county officials wanted to talk to the others being charged.

“They took everybody in the back,” Martin said. “They (officials) said ‘listen, we’ll let you guys off scot-free if Stella Martin pleads guilty.’ They all said … no, we’ll all go to trial. They pretty much called the town out on its own bullshit and said no, we’re not leaving her behind.”

Martin added authorities said they had some pictures of the “crime” that would be brought up in court. As of April 24, 2016, the issue is yet to be resolved.

“Eight months later it’s still hanging over our heads,” she said. “Where’s our … right to a quick and speedy trial? We haven’t seen any proof, nothing. It’s just another form of harassment. It’s an abuse of our laws.”

Neither Edwards, nor the DEC Environmental Conservation Officer Martin was voicing concerns to, Sean Dewey, has not returned a request for comment. Neither Jeffrey Hammond, a representative with the state Department of Health, nor Catskill Town Supervisor Doreen Davis, returned multiple requests for comment.

Those two examples just scratch the surface. Martin said once she started pushing on the permitting issue, Edwards filed a defamation lawsuit against her, which, if she can prove in court, would be very illegal under New York state law.

On her Facebook page and her new website, Martin has posted video of what she says are people harassing her dogs at night. During a follow up interview on Monday, Martin said she had been working on her car all day. The brake lines were damaged.

Today, Martin and her kids are renting an apartment — even though her house is paid for.She’s legally disabled and the extent to which her children will be affected by the poisoning done to the environment outside her home.

Martin said she and her family are basically on their own. They have had to move out of the house due to unsafe living conditions and while Edwards has apparently said he would cease business operations at the property, that has yet to happen.

Finding shelter and paying for representation in court costs money, something that’s become more difficult for Martin to do overtime, but said fortunately, an attorney who is willing to take her case regarding Edwards’ defamation suit against her.

But it’s important to remember while Martin and others in her community are continuing to demand answers and justice — none of which are assured should the complacent and apathetic officials remain committed to getting nothing done.

More information on Martin’s fight and what you can do to help is available online www.palenvillecatskilllandfill.com.

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