NY River Watch Calls on NYS to Protect Waters, Communities, and the Environment from Leachate Pollution in the 2026‑2027 Budget
January 31, 2026
Last week, New York River Watch submitted formal comments to the New York State Legislature as part of the joint Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means 2026-2027 budget hearing. Our testimony focused on one of New York’s most urgent—and least understood—threats to drinking water: the ongoing practice of sending untreated landfill leachate to municipal sewage treatment plants.
This regulatory gap, known as the “Leachate Loophole,” allows highly contaminated liquid waste from landfills to be trucked or piped to sewage treatment plants that were never designed to remove toxic compounds such as PFAS, 1,4-dioxane, and heavy metals. These pollutants are then discharged into rivers and lakes that supply drinking water for communities across the state.
Under current regulations, landfill leachate is routinely treated as ordinary wastewater—but it is not. It is a complex mixture of contaminants created when rainwater and snowmelt percolate through waste. Most of these contaminants pass straight through sewage treatment plants, ending up in New York’s surface waters. Downstream drinking water plants—and their ratepayers—must shoulder the consequences, mainly unaware of this practice.
During the budget hearing, Assemblymember Grace Lee (District 55) asked the DEC directly how it plans to ensure that New York’s drinking water is safe in the face of emerging contaminants, including those from landfill leachate.
In her 2026 State of the State (Page 65) address, Governor Kathy Hochul acknowledged the problem, noting that untreated landfill leachate containing PFAS and heavy metals may flow into wastewater treatment plants that cannot remove these substances—risking the discharge of “forever chemicals” into drinking water sources. The Governor’s directive to DEC to establish regulations requiring treatment of leachate at the source is significant. If implemented correctly, this rulemaking could be the first of its kind in the nation and a model for other states facing the same challenge. But ambition alone is not enough.
Even before the specifics of new leachate management regulations are known, the state must be ready to fund their implementation fully and equitably. In our comments to Senate Finance Chair Liz Krueger and Assembly Ways and Means Chair J. Gary Pretlow, we urged lawmakers to prioritize:
- Adequate and accessible funding for municipalities, particularly those operating municipal landfills, so compliance does not increase local taxes.
- Funding access for all landfills that generate leachate, to avoid incentives for evasion or noncompliance.
- Safeguards against consolidation or monopolization of leachate treatment infrastructure by private entities.
- A full evaluation of environmental justice impacts, ensuring new treatment facilities do not further burden frontline communities already living with landfill pollution.
New York River Watch stands ready to work with DEC and the Legislature as this rulemaking advances. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right—for New York and for states watching closely. We will continue to engage, educate, and advocate to ensure that New York’s rivers are protected from this major source of pollution.