About a year ago, in the Capital Region Solid Waste Plan, the City of Albany proposed creating a mega-solid waste authority to manage the Solid Waste for most of the Eastern Half of New York State. The plan specifically called for creating a regional authority — to service up to nine counties, and cover an area of 100 miles from the center point of the Rapp Road Landfill.

So I decided to make a map, and run some numbers…

100 square miles equals roughly 30,500 square miles, with 21,500 sq miles in New York State and 9,000 sq miles out of State — primarily Southern Vermont, but also most of Western Massachussets, roughly 3/4th of Connecicut, and part of Pennsylvania in the Poconos.

In contrast to 30,500 square miles, Adirondack Park “Blue Line” covers roughly 9,100 sq miles in NY State and the Catskill Park “Blue Line” covers roughly 1,100 sq miles. That includes all land within those parks, publicly and privately owned.

That area, within NY State, covers an area were 2,957,993 persons reported residing in the 2010 census.

That is 2.95 million people, or almost 3 million people, a population greater then Manhattan at 1.5 million persons, and even Brooklyn at 2.5 million.

While no one town or city in the proposed in Authorty is particularly large — the City of Albany is the largest population center at 97,856 followed by Colonie at 81,591, the reality is those numbers add up, when you include the 406 towns and cities in NY State that fall within the 100 mile distance from the Rapp Road Landfill.

Large Cities and Towns in Proposed Authority.

All Towns and Cities in NY State within 100 miles of Rapp Road Landfill.

Here is entire list of towns partially or wholely contained in the proposed jurisdiction of the Albany Solid Waste Authority (including large cities and towns listed above)…