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Mushroom plant gets OK on its site plan
By Victor Whitman
August 23, 2006
Times Herald-Record

Wurtsboro - A huge Yukiguni Maitake mushroom plant planned for Route 209 in south Sullivan County took a giant step forward last night when Mamakating's Planning Board approved the company's site plan and granted a special use permit.

Yukiguni has spent millions in a three-year struggle to get to this point, fighting off environmental groups and town residents living along Route 209.

But yesterday's vote was anticlimactic. About 45 people showed up for the meeting; some wearing "No mushroom plant!" buttons; some wearing union shop construction T-shirts in support of the project. The vote was met with total silence.

Mushroom plant foes say they've already shifted the fight to the courts. The Bashakill Area Association plans a lawsuit in state Supreme Court challenging the Planning Board's decision.

"Until they put a shovel in the ground or bring in big machines that start grinding up the ground, it is not inevitable," Bashakill Area Association President Paula Medley said before the meeting.

"Did they really listen to us, look at all the stuff and review it? I don't think so."

The Planning Board voted 4-2, with Gary Tetz, John Malmgreen, Edna Fedun and Todd Berenstein in favor. Bob Fiore and Robert Louis-Jacques voted no, saying they were concerned about water consumption. The plant will use about 240,000 gallons daily.

Yukiguni now has all the needed permits from the town.

"We are pleased with the vote; it is an outcome we expected," Yukiguni's lawyer, Charles Bazydlo, said.

Yukiguni still needs a permit from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to build a wastewater treatment plant and a water permit from the state Health Department.

Bazydlo said that process should take about six months. Yukiguni plans to first build an 89,000-square-foot, two-story pilot plant.

If the pilot plant is a success, the company will add a four-story, 80-foot-tall, 825,000-square-foot building in two phases.

The entire complex would span 5 acres just north of Wurtsboro. Yukiguni is expected to eventually employ 210 people.