ALBANY - The New York State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, has rejected an effort by the Basha Kill Area Association and one of its members to hear further argument on the Yukiguni Maitake Corporation’s site plan approval and special use permit.  Yukiguni has proposed building a mushroom manufacturing plant near the Kohl's distribution facility outside of Wurtsboro in the Town of Mamakating.

The Basha Kill Area Association, and Jodi Rubenstein, a member of that group had challenged the approvals in Sullivan County Supreme Court and lost.  The Supreme Court found that the Basha Kill Area lacked standing based on a technicality.  However Rubenstein appealed trial court's ruling to the Appellate Division and lost, before finally trying to have the state's highest court take the case.

Yukiguni has recently gone back to the Planning Board seeking to make the factory smaller.  Yukiguni representatives appeared at the Mamakating Planning Board meeting on May 27 seeking to revise downward the size of the building and amount of water the factory would consume.  Planning Board members, the town engineer and planner are reviewing the details of the documents submitted by the company.

The Town of Mamakating has been sued three times over the siting and development of the Yukiguni project and has won each case.   According to Mamakating's Planning Board attorney Langdon Chapman, who defended the Town in argument submitted to the Court of Appeals, "The fact that judges at every court in three different cases have upheld the town's actions speaks to how good a job the town has done in reviewing this project.”