HUDseen: Our Department of Public Waste Shows Its True Colors Yet Again

Yesterday, I walked along both sides of the newly paved upper portion of Columbia Street to inspect Colarusso's work that was completed the day before. Their paving work seems good at least for now, but it was our DPW's "cleanup" work that leaves a whole lot to be desired and a whole lot to be discouraged about. This was not the first time they've proven how lazy, disrespectful and polluting they can be, and it won't be the last. Still, we all deserve better from the department and particularly from the DPW Superintendent who makes over $115,000 a year. The Hudson River -- if not the entire planet -- deserves far better, too.

While walking the sidewalk from just below 8th Street to the triangle at Prospect Avenue and back down the other sidewalk, I bent over 15 times to pick up connected strands of zip ties that a DPW employee or two had left on the ground instead of disposing of properly. After the zip ties securing DPW's temporary NO PARKING signs are clipped to free up the signs for removal, workers often let the unwanted plastic ties drop to the pavement or actually toss them to the ground. In the street, in the grass, on the sidewalk, still wrapped around a pole, even inches from a storm water drain -- who f'n cares? Alas, this is our DPW in the year 2024. (The first time I noticed this practice of theirs was a few days after a snow emergency in 2016 when I found over 40 dropped strands of zip ties in the snow.)

How much more effort would it have taken
to properly treat this like the garbage that it is?

1 of at least 15 strands of zip ties left on
the ground by DPW.

I counted and measured all of the zip ties I found along the hill of Columbia Street. There were 38 heavy duty plastic zip ties of differing lengths totaling approximately 258 inches. 21 feet of disposable and unrecyclable black plastic designed to last hundreds of years, all of it intentionally dropped on the ground to eventually make its way into our sewer system and possibly into the river and the ocean. Who at DPW cares if all of it makes its way into our sewer system? Obviously, no one at DPW cares, including and especially the superintendent! Or better yet, what if we have a big rainstorm and all the zip ties get flushed into the river with all the excess rainwater that the sewer plant can't handle? Yet another shrug of the shoulders and a "Whatever!" from Robert Perry.

The results of DPW's work on 2 blocks of Columbia Street

Next time Mr. Perry asks the council for a half-million dollars to improve his wastewater treatment plant (which he just did) or replace a failed section of sewer pipe in town, someone needs to ask him what, if anything, he is doing about keeping debris and other unwanted material out of the system. Because we can't afford to continue allowing and encouraging his slobby habits, can we? If he's okay with his employees dropping dozens of used zip ties on the ground (PLASTIC LITTER!), what else is he okay with on the ground, on our streets, in our sewer system and in our river? How about in our drinking water?

How is it possible to have any hope in the future of Hudson or our planet when this kind of behavior is the norm? We pay someone over $115,000 who allows his employees to leave plastic garbage on the ground as if it doesn't matter one bit? Does Mr. Perry have any hope in, or regard for, the future of Hudson, the Hudson River and our planet? Yesterday, on the ground, I easily found 15 reasons why the answer appears to be NO!

Mr. Perry regularly reminds the council how
important it is for the DPW street sweeper to
clear our streets of debris before it reaches
our sewer system.