SAUGERTIES – Joseph Karolys is fighting a battle with the Town of Saugerties, which seems on its surface to be about an industrial operation located at 1446 Rt. 212 – a windy stretch of state highway, halfway between the villages of Woodstock and Saugerties. He lives at the site with his wife and two teenage children. The business has operated there for nearly three years.
A closer look at the Saugerties dirt war reveals a much more complicated story – one which could eventually leave the municipality with mud on its face.
An investigation conducted by Mid-Hudson News indicates that the Karolys’ opponents may be “poisoning the well,” both figuratively and literally, in the framing of controversy and debate. Questionable surveillance tactics, including multiple drone deployments and zoom cameras, have been compounded by an alleged handgun incident, resulting in police reports.
Karolys & Son said he receives “clean fill” trucked upstate from the New York City metropolitan area, separating larger items, while reselling the remaining dirt. They have a DEC permit, and grandfather status, the owner maintains, but have recently come under fire by activists and officials alleging that the material might be contaminated.
A DEC statement issued on Monday said, “On May 17, DEC inspected three Karolys properties, including its registered C&D facility, in the town of Saugerties. DEC is investigating these sites to determine compliance with DEC’s regulations. DEC does not yet have sampling results from the laboratory. If violations are found, DEC will undertake enforcement action, including potential penalties, to protect public health and the environment.”
“We bring in clean fill, and screen it, and select certain products out of it to salvage, like cobblestone, bricks, boulders, landscape rocks, things like that, and make a screen fill product that’s available for sale,” Karolys explained from his front porch – located less than 50 feet from the 1,000-square-yard pile of material, dotted with several excavators, dump trucks, and screener machine.
“I just fluffed the whole pile up, as you can see; we’re feeding it through the screener,” Karolys said. “It’s 90 percent dirt; there’s chunks of concrete, bricks and rocks in it,” he said of the material, which sits in full view of the busy road. “There’s two other sites where we deposit the rubble that comes off the screener, the rocks and concrete chunks, things like that. I think I’m being treated unfairly, because for two and a half years, the town was on my side, with what I was doing here, and they gave me a letter saying what I was doing was fine. And all of a sudden, due to complaints with the neighbors, they changed their mind, and said I’m out of compliance.”
“The site was grandfathered in 1989, when zoning came to Saugerties, by Ray Rothe as a trucking and excavating company, with origination back to 1969,” Karolys maintained. Similar activity is going on at the adjacent parcel, across the street, and down the road. The town has never issued a permit, he said; and Karolys holds the only DEC permit from the state.
Saugerties issued a stop-work order on the Karolys operation last winter, and the local police blocked off their driveway. Two Article 78 lawsuits were filed in State Supreme Court, allowing the business to continue pending decision. One case attempts to overturn an adverse ZBA determination, while the other addresses enforcement. The DEC executed a warrant to test three Karolys sites on May 17, following a May 14 community forum held at Saugerties High School by Catskill Mountainkeeper.
“The DEC has been here several times since I’ve opened, they inspect regularly, they come on the property and inspect basically whenever they want, that’s part of having the DEC permit. If they had seen anything wrong, I would have been shut down immediately, they have the power to do that,” Karolys said. He has not heard back from regulators since the May 17 raid.
“I don’t presume to speak for the government of the State of New York, but I do know that if they had a spike to drive, they would have had it sharpened up, and driven it earlier than now,” said attorney Melvin Higgens, who represents Karolys. DEC was contacted for comment, but has not provided any update on the matter. Saugerties Town Supervisor Fred Costello’s office voice mailbox is full and cannot take messages seeking comment.
Higgens also claimed that the DEC officials removed Karolys and his employees from the property, and refused to provide him with the opportunity to conduct independent tests on their samples – exceeding the terms of the warrant.
Both DEC and State Health Department contacted Karolys in writing on May 17 – same day as the raid – offering free water tests on two of his Fel Qui Road properties, due to contamination leaching from the adjacent Saugerties town landfill.
Karolys and his wife both grew up locally, familiar with the history of contaminated sites in Saugerties and nearby towns, vocally criticizing what they consider environmental crimes poisoning the community – and public officials who look the other way.
“The bottom line is the town should enforce its laws equally. And look at the crooked hypocrite politicians who are always pointing the spotlight on someone else to shadow their sins,” Karolys wrote in a recent Facebook post dated May 23. Other social media posts criticize town violations, or show photos and videos of his incoming truck loads.
“My wife was here last week; they had three drones flying over. We believe they belong to the neighbor, because she saw them flying back there, to [whistleblower] Michael Ferraro’s house, who also has a surveillance camera watching me 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. I don’t know what they’re looking for; there’s nothing that changes from the day to day operation, it’s all the same,” Karolys said.
On March 1, truck driver Carlos Bernal-Araujo, who lives in Queens, noticed a man videotaping his delivery from across Route 212, and the cameraman pointed a handgun at him from a vehicle when he approached to ask why he was being filmed, according to a police report taken by Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra. The gunman, who was parked on the shoulder of the state highway, shouted “get off my property!” at the frightened truck driver, the report alleges. Karolys contends that whistleblower Ferraro is married to the daughter of the neighbor across the street – who is also allegedly running an unpermitted fill screening business – and believes he can identify the gunman.
Higgens said he checked with Chief Sinagra about the complaint and was told that the matter remains under investigation. Karolys said it took him several hours to convince the police to even accept the report.
“We’re just a hard-working family trying to make a living, not really doing anything different than a lot of other contractors in this town,” Karolys said. “I wish everyone well; I don’t wish any harm on anyone, we just want to be left alone, and be able to enjoy our property, and be able to work, just like everybody else does, that’s all.”
