Statement By Attorney General Spitzer On The

I am pleased to announce today that a creative negotiating process has produced a plan that will rid Buffalo of millions of pounds of trash stranded for many months in a local rail yard.

Under this agreement, the trash in 400 large containers stacked on railroad cars at the SK Rail Yard since last December will be transported away by train beginning tomorrow and disposed of at a licensed out-of-state landfill.

No one will be more pleased by this development than the residents of the Clinton-Bailey neighborhood who have had to live with a foul and unpleasant illegal landfill in their backyards for far too long.

My office first filed a lawsuit on May 29 against Chem-Rail Logistics, Express Intermodal Services and Canadian Pacific Railroad in an effort to resolve this issue. I am pleased that the work of my office helped drive this matter to a successful conclusion.

However, this resolution would never have been achieved without the dedicated work of many, including neighborhood activists, Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Congressman Jack Quinn, Buffalo City Council Member David Franczyk, Erie County Legislator Mark Schroeder and others too numerous to mention. The settlement could not have occurred without the cooperation of the railroad companies involved, Delaware and Hudson Railway Company, Inc., Canadian Pacific Railway, and CSX Transportation.

I want to extend my particular thanks to Supreme Court Judge Patrick NeMoyer who kept the parties at the negotiating table and helped facilitate the agreement.

Today's resolution ends a regrettable chapter for the Clinton-Bailey community. But it also demonstrates that successful results can be forged from bad situations when those involved deal with each other in good faith.