The Sullivan County Legislature has released information saying it has received several responses to a request for proposals (RFP) that will establish baseline measures of the air, water and noise in the area near the proposed gas compressor station near Eldred. While this is certainly a welcome development, some residents who live in the area don’t consider it to be nearly as helpful as the health impact assessment that the legislature pursued for more than a year.

While there may be very good reasons for the legislature to have dropped the health study in favor of the environmental measurements, the public doesn’t have a full explanation of why the decision was made, because it was done behind closed doors in executive session.

The county put out a press release on July 7, saying the responses to the health impact RFPs study “elicited either no interest from bidders or proposals, which did not meet the needs of the county.”

In explaining the decision earlier, Legislator Nadia Rajsz wrote, “I cannot go into the details of the discussion that happened in private executive session… but I can say that there was a consensus among my colleagues, based on the judgment of staff, which included the county attorney, that the health study aspect of the previous RFP could create an unwieldy and inconclusive amount of data.”

That’s not much information about a matter that concerns so many residents so deeply, and the first part of it is certainly questionable. Elected officials often say they can’t discuss with the public matters that were brought up in executive session, but frequently that is simply not the case. In fact, in many cases, the decision to take a matter behind closed doors is one that may be made but is certainly not required.

An advisory opinion from Committee on Open Government from May 2006, regarding the Open Meetings Law says, “While that statute authorizes public bodies to conduct executive sessions in [some] circumstances… there is no requirement that an executive session be held even though a public body has the right to do so.”

It further says, “Since a public body may choose to conduct an executive session or discuss an issue in public, information expressed during an executive session is not ‘confidential.’ To be confidential, again, a statute must prohibit disclosure and leave no discretion to an agency or official regarding the ability to disclose.”

There are certainly situations where some discussion generated in executive session should remain secret, but we suspect that negotiations with an organization that proposed a health study for a compressor station is not one of them.

The health study proposal that was rejected was from the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project, which is conducting health studies at other compressors in New York State.

A member of that team, Celia Lewis, responded to an inquiry from The River Reporter to explain that organization’s proposal. She wrote, “Basically, we ask local residents to fill out health surveys, we place continuous air monitors locally, and collect short-term air samples. The health surveys allow for an assessment of current health of the community and allow for follow-up if a compressor is built. The continuous air monitoring allows for an assessment of potential exposure patterns, based on local weather patterns, the siting of the compressor station, and known emissions. This methodology provides more detailed information on potential health impacts than current regulations require, but we find that it more carefully addresses health concerns presented to us in many communities we’ve worked with.”

It sounds expensive, and that may—or may not—be one of the reasons the legislature rejected the health study. But we can’t know for sure one way or another, because to this point the legislature has decided not to make public the specific reasons it decided to turn down the proposal.

An environment baseline study is good; a health impact assessment is better. The people who live near the proposed compressor station have a right to know why one was chosen over the other.