We wrote about a News10 NBC story where a Engineer at the Water Authority received truck loads of free fill dirt. The county Water Authority delivered the fill and spread it around. The program of giving away dirt was not previously advertised. Upon the breaking of the story, Water Authority management went into full damage control. Brighton Legislator Travis Heider requested additional information from the Water Authority. Now, Jill Tierreri has an article in the D&C this morning about this. Here are some article grafs in context. Frankly, I’m not convinced the Water Authority responses hold water let alone wash this stain off of a tarnished managerial reputation.

The Water Authority supported by Deputy County Executive James Smith argues that it is saving the rate payer money and it saved the rate payers money because they dumped this dirt at their employee’s private residence. Trouble is they play loose with numbers and loose with reality. They say

If the authority dumped all of the dirt it removes from the ground into a landfill over a year, it would fill 2,200 dump trucks and cost about $990,000, he said, adding that the dirt shouldn’t be placed in a landfill, where space is scarce, if possible.

Can they provide the details of how much actually goes into a landfill? What we have here is a false linkage to supposed cost avoidance because it doesn’t go to a landfill. I mean if the process is to landfill “the spoils” then I’m sure there would be a budget item for landfilling the spoils. Is there? Doubt it. Here is what happens:

The authority calls the public works department of the municipality in which it is working to see if there is any place where the town or village needs the dirt. If there isn’t a place to dump it, it gets trucked back to Authority’s headquarters on Norris Drive.

So, no landfill option, no landfill argument. Now that the distraction is out of the way.

The county has a policy that prohibits employees from taking home surplus equipment, whether it’s a typewriter or dirt.

Got that? There is a County policy. So this is about following the rules - Nothing else. Monroe County Authority Employees are County Employees. So, who was the employee and what is Monroe County Water Authority Management doing about it? I’m guessing this isn’t some rogue employee - management knew as well.

Again, for the record, the reason this is wrong is because it seems the County Employees received an unfair advantage over the public. Free fill dirt, special considerations, free equipment usage - all paid by rate payers for a program that the public was unaware existed.

Bigboy noted the State DOT dumped several loads of dirt at their private residence. I have no problem with that. That was a 1/4 mile trip from the work site to a private residence. The Water Authority was moving several truck loads of dirt 12 or 13 miles. That is a special arrangement - an unfair special arrangement.

But the good news for the public is that the Water Authority changed its web site and published a phone number for people to get free dirt. Of course they should have done this before Friday May 2, 2008 or, put another way, before their hand got pinched by the lid of the cookie jar.

Oh, one more thing, Marianetti is the former public works commissioner in Greece. Small world.