State Supreme Court Justice Patrick McGrath has thrown out a lawsuit by Save the Pine Bush, which last fall sued the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the city of Albany to halt expansion of the Rapp Road dump into 15 adjoining acres, the Times-Union reported.

The Rapp Road LandfillMcGrath disagreed with the non-profit group's allegation that the DEC failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of the expansion or to consider alternatives, like having the city take its garbage to landfills elsewhere in the state. The judge also wrote that, because DEC had ruled the site of the city's planned replacement landfill in Coeymans non-viable because of protected wetlands, there are "unique circumstances and conditions, as well as significant economic burdens if the landfill expansion was not approved."

The judge also allowed Albany to use borrowed money to pay for the landfill expansion and to impose a $10-a-ton fee on municipal trash to help the city pay for an $18 million plan to restore about 250 acres of habitat around the landfill once the expansion is filled, as expected by 2017.

Save the Pine Bush Secretary Lynne Jackson decried the decision. "This is  terrible. Our courts are out of their minds," said Lynne Jackson, secretary of Save the Pine Bush. Jackson declined comment on whether the group will appeal.