During the late 1980s, Oneida County was uncertain what to do about their garbage problem.  Instead of working together, as a legislative body, to solve the county's garbage issue, it handed over the problem to a New York State Public Authority - the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority (OHSWA).  

OHSWA was founded in 1988 by the State of New York and was issued $50 million in bonds for "start-up costs".  For the next several years, determined that building a landfill was the "best" solution to Oneida (and Herkimer) County municipal solid waste, OHSWA proceeded to look for potential landfill sites.  This search included seeking private property owners (willing sellers) who would gladly sell their land for a new landfill. According to OHSWA's newsletter in 1992, 40 willing sellers offered property for a landfill, however the Authority refused to publish their names. 

 

Although Executive Director Hans Arnold acknowledged in a 1989 letter that using reforestation land for a landfill was not allowed by the County, in 1993 then Oneida County Executive Ray Meyer illegally authorized the digging of test wells in the Veterans' Memorial Forest in Ava, NY - violating County Law 219 and doing so without the consent of the Oneida County Legislature.  How Mr. Meyer was able to retain his position and then go on to become a state senator is a mystery.

Little by little, area residents and veterans began to discover the Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Authority was quietly digging test wells within the Town of Ava.  OHSWA also gradually began to revise its for site testing methodology.

 

By the Spring of 1993, OHSWA had identified 79 potential sites for its new landfill. By May 1993, OHSWA narrowed the 79 sites to only 10:  5 separate parcels of Oneida Indian Land Claims located in Verona; 3 sites in Herkimer County in the towns of Newport, Little Falls and Norway; and 2 sites in Oneida County namely Deerfield and the Veterans Memorial Forest in Ava. 

Instead of selecting a site that was closer to the majority of the county's population (and waste production), near Utica and Rome, OHSWA decided it would be "better" to site a landfill in the least populated, most northern reach of Oneida County in the small rural town of Ava, NY.

When area citizens protested the use of the Veterans Memorial Forest for a landfill site, OHSWA purchased farm land adjacent to the forest for its landfill footprint.  This farmland, which OHSWA bought from a local farmer for just under $240,000, was NOT included in the original 79 potential landfill sites.



In August 1993, Adirondack Communities Advisory League (ACAL) was founded to conserve the towns of Ava, Boonville, Lewis and Leyden, from what turned out to be an eleven year fight to stop OHSWA from constructing a landfill. ACAL tried its best to prove, with numerous reports and studies, that Ava was one of the worst locations, environmentally, for a two-county landfill.

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Although ACAL, veterans and area residents were successful in stopping the landfill from being sited in the Veterans Memorial Forest, they were unable to halt the politically charged, super-funded Authority from constructing its landfill in the Town of Ava.  The landfill opened in October 2006.