County Legislator Peter Tuohy Continues to Downplay Public Safety Hazard in Monroe
The hydrogen sulfide issue in the Village of Monroe is back, and Orange County Legislator Peter Tuohy continues to refuse to take any action to help address it.
Above: The July 2025 Orange County Sewer District 1 Advisory Committee meeting. At 36:34 to 44:49, a discussion begins featuring Monroe Town Councilwoman, Mary Bingham, and Monroe Village Trustee, John Karl, about the recurring hydrogen sulfide smell in the Village of Monroe.
At certain levels, hydrogen sulfide can pose a danger to people breathing it in. The longer you are exposed to it, the more dangerous it is. This is especially true for children, the elderly, and those suffering with other illness.
Despite this potential for danger, as you’ll see, the Orange County legislator who represents Monroe, Peter Tuohy, continues to downplay the smell and the risk it poses to the public. “It’s funny how it comes and goes” said Tuohy during the meeting.
Tuohy then said “There’s not much we can do” and didn’t explain what logic South Blooming Grove — the cause of the hydrogen sulfide issue — is using to justify not addressing the problem. It’s been multiple years now where South Blooming Grove’s un-elected co-mayors, Joel Stern and Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein, have been aware of the issue and have taken no action to address it.
Tuohy suggested both the Village and Town of Monroe pursue legal action against South Blooming Grove. While this is something both municipalities should do — but likely won’t because Monroe Town Supervisor, Tony Cardone, doesn’t want to upset the real estate developers who support him — Tuohy and Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus have made it clear from their inaction that they have no plans to help resolve this issue either.
Peter Tuohy, Steve Neuhaus, and Tony Cardone are all up for re-election this November. While we can’t speak to the quality of Tuohy and Neuhaus’s competitors, Monroe residents do have a viable alternative to Tony Cardone in Maureen Richardson, who has already taken steps to remedy this hydrogen sulfide issue. For more on that, you’ll have to keep reading.
South Blooming Grove has not complied with FOIL requests on the condition of their sewer infrastructure, and Orange County has routinely delayed FOIL requests specifically on that matter. What exactly Peter Tuohy does as legislator on behalf of Monroe residents is also unclear.
The Monroe Gazette will be filing a second Article 78 lawsuit against the Village of South Blooming Grove soon, to get to the bottom of this and other important issues, such as the lack of Village Elections in 2024 and 2025.
Well, it’s another month, and another meeting of the Orange County Sewer District 1 Advisory Committee where the hydrogen sulfide issue in the Village of Monroe is downplayed or outright ignored.
Today, as you read this, there is another public hearing concerning the near $200M project that Monroe, Palm Tree, and potentially other residents are going to need to pay for. This $200M (or more, by the time it’s all said and done) project involves upgrading and expanding the Harriman Wastewater Treatment Plant. If State and Federal funding cannot be secured to help offset this cost, Monroe, Palm Tree, and other area residents within the district may be up to $1,200 a year for the next thirty years, for a project that will primarily benefit South Blooming Grove, Palm Tree, and Simon Property Group’s Woodbury Common.
Once again, this hearing was held in the middle of the afternoon, when most Orange County residents were unable to attend.
So, I submitted the following letter as part of the Public Comment portion of this hearing:
We Can’t Trust This Committee
I'd like to take a moment to highlight for the public the continued dishonesty and lack of transparency provided by some members of this committee, including the OCSD1 Committee Chair, Peter Tuohy.
For the following reasons, the public should remain skeptical of all remarks put forth by Peter Tuohy, particularly concerning the availability of state and federal funding for the upgrade and expansion of the wastewater treatment plant.
As Legislative Chair Kevin Hines documented at an OSCD1 Advisory Committee meeting, despite State Senator James G. Skoufis helping to hold up the passage of this year's New York State Budget — to ram through an un-popular ban on protestors wearing masks — Skoufis told Hines that he was unable to exercise that same awesome power in delivering badly needed state funding to contribute to the OCSD1 project.
You can hold up the state budget for a mask ban that you refused on TV to call a mask ban, but you can't hold up the state budget for a multimillon dollar project impacting thousands of your constituents, Mr. Skoufis?
This was despite a last minute request by Skoufis to Hines insisting there was a chance to secure some funding. Providing yet again, that like Peter Tuohy, nothing State Senator Skoufis says should be taken at face value.
A look at any media outlet covering the cuts on the federal level, particularly where the EPA and FEMA are concerned, should also demonstrate that we cannot reasonably assume money is forthcoming for this project from the Trump Administration.
That means, Monroe and Palm Tree residents — as well as other OCSD1 customers — should expect, for the next thirty years, to be on the hook for this near $200 million dollar project at a rate of about $1,200 per year.
The County also refuses to charge prime beneficiaries such as Woodbury Common more for their usage of this plant to offset that cost.
The Committee repeatedly stated, without providing any legal rationale to back up its claims, that the County cannot "adversely target" individual property owners. Conveniently leaving out that that Simon Property Group could easily pay for the entire project itself, from their projected Q4 2025 revenue.
If they did — and to be clear, nobody is asking that they pay for the entire project — Simon would still receive in excess over a billion dollars in profit in the upcoming quarter.
60-80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Life in Orange County is getting more expensive for homeowners.
Prices at the grocery store remain out of control.
And over a million New Yorker's are about to lose their health insurance.
You mean to tell me Orange County can't charge Simon Property Group more for this project, or won't?
If there is legal rationale to explain why the County cannot charge the multi-billion dollar Simon Property Group, as County Attorney Rick Golden insists, the County should tell the public which statutes specifically it chooses to hide behind, should any actually exist.
Saying we can't do it without disclosing the specific reason should be reason enough to postpone this project until new representatives can be elected, and new officials placed in charge of county departments.
If the County simply does not want to charge Simon Property Group more, it should say so, and let the consequences come for elected officials like Mr. Neuhaus and Mr. Tuohy when the election comes this Fall.
South Blooming Grove Is Causing the Hydrogen Sulfide Problem
Mr. Tuohy has also continued to use these OCSD1 meetings to either deny, or downplay, the ongoing hydrogen sulfide smell that exists in the Village of Monroe. This smell could constitute a risk to the public's health and safety without consistent monitoring and maintenance. While we're happy the county has recently taken action to address this issue, we'll point out that this action only came after Monroe Town Councilwoman, Maureen Richardson, wrote to the DEC about it. (Mrs. Dorey Houle, better late than never, after knowing for years about this issue, only wrote a letter to the DEC after Councilwoman Richardson did.)
While true that the hydrogen sulfide smell dates back to the early 1990s, it has grown worse in recent years because of the often undocumented and un-permited building in South Blooming Grove. Much of which the County Planning Board often is either unaware of, or simply chooses not to play any role with.
To say nothing of the continued refusal of the un-elected co-mayors, Joel Stern and Isaac Ekstein, to install hardware recommended to them by the county some years ago.
In fact, an examination of South Blooming Grove's last four fiscal budgets revealed that they did reserve money to purchase the ANUE system the County requested, but then for reasons never explained to the public, nor to Orange County, proceeded not to do so. This is despite Stern and Ekstein's chummy relationship, as documented in court, with County Executive Steve Neuhaus. (Steve, next time you three have cigars on the mountain, have someone else take a picture of it so we can know for sure whether or not Rick Golden was there with you.)
Above: Photo taken by an unknown party of Yitzchok “Isaac” Ekstein (left), Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus (Center), and Joel Stern (right). This photo, and others, were submitted as part of Orange County’s lawsuit against the Village of South Blooming Grove over illegal construction on county owned property at the behest of Stern and Ekstein. Neuhaus and County Attorney Rick Golden have actively fought against testifying in this court case. The case, and all its related documentation, can be found here.
Peter Tuohy and other members of this committee have explained away Stern and Ekstein's actions on a number of occasions. Why the ANUE equipment wasn't purchased? We don't know.
If the Sewer system is in such disrepair, why hasn't Orange County stepped in to address these issues? We don't know. Everything is fine says Orange County.
If the Sewer system in SBG is in such disrepair, why did Orange County allow SBG to provide its excess sewage capacity to Simon Property Group for Woodbury Common's Phase 5 expansion? Everything is fine.
Is it though?
Because documents received in a FOIL request, as well as comments made by Mayor George Kalaj at Village Board meetings, indicate continued failures of the municipal sewer infrastructure in South Blooming Grove. As Kalaj described one recent failure, "It's bad. It's bad. It's bad."
Who's in charge here, Orange County, or two men (Stern and Ekstein) who weren't elected to run the Village of South Blooming Grove?
South Blooming Grove also continues to fail to respond appropriately to FOIL requests for documents concerning their municipal sewer infrastructure. Orange County itself, particularly where the Sewer infrastructure of South Blooming Grove is concerned, also takes upwards of six months to respond to FOIL requests. Sometimes longer.
While I recognize the FOIL department is likely overwhelmed and understaffed, that seems to be a problem Mr. Neuhaus would want to fix, unless he's looking to avoid another FBI investigation. In which case, I can understand why he wants FOIL to be broken on the County level.
Despite this, and just to reiterate the problem here, this OCSD1 committee, without providing documented evidence to the public, stated that SBG has the sewer capacity currently to provide to Woodbury Common for their Phase 5 expansion.
Does it?
I hope by now you see a pattern forming with this committee: No one is in charge. There is no accountability. Everyone can say and do what they want, and you — OCSD 1 customers — are a bunch of suckers and losers stuck footing the bill.
(Because I know Mr. Golden will read this and make a snide remark, it is factual to state that the Village of South Blooming Grove, despite being required by law, failed to hold elections in its village in both March of 2024 and March of 2025. This is because of a failure by their Village Clerk, Kerry Dougherty, to properly file a resolution changing the terms of office for the mayor and trustees that they attempted to pass in 2021.
So to be clear: George Kalaj and the current Village Board in South Blooming Grove are all de facto village officials, and have overstayed their time in office without any recourse or repercussions by Orange County or New York State.
Perhaps if Mr. Golden spent as much time crafting whiny responses to public comments such as this, and more time ensuring that the appropriate county laws are followed by South Blooming Grove, letters like this may not need to exist in the first place. Not to mention, we probably would have had this hydrogen sulfide problem licked years ago.
Yet here we are.)
While I know many members of the committee have done their homework, it is difficult to trust the information coming from the committee given the behavior by Tuohy and select members for the reasons I just explained.
If we're going to be on the hook for nearly $1,200 for the next 30 years (assuming correctly that no federal or state aid is coming to offset the cost) the least we can ask for from Orange County is maximum transparency and honesty with the committee in charge of making these decisions.
As long as Peter Tuohy remains the chair, we will have none of it.
-BJ Mendelson
Watch The 7/23/25 OCSD1 Public Hearing Below:
If you watch to the end, you’ll see a surprise appearance by Woodbury Mayoral candidate Brandon Calore, who did not exercise this opportunity to speak up on behalf of Woodbury residents in term of the costs of this project or that Simon Property Group should chip in more than Woodbury residents for this project.
What a “great” mayor he’ll be.