WATERLOO, N.Y. -- Seneca Meadows is New York state's largest landfill.

Environmental advocate Yvonne Taylor said at roughly 6,000 tons of garbage every day from 47 counties, four states and Canada, the operation has gotten too big.

"It is impacting businesses. It's making people have to change their places of worship to someplace farther away from the landfill. It's impacting children at schools and it's impacting people who live near the landfill who can't even go outside of their homes and enjoy their backyards," Taylor said.

The vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian said smells and potentially harmful pollutants in the air make it difficult to live or run a business near the landfill. She said it also emits huge quantities of greenhouse gases and chemical-laden wastewater is trucked all over the state.

"This is really a statewide problem and the sooner we shut this landfill down, the less leachate they'll be producing and the less they'll be poisoning other communities with this stuff," Taylor said.

The group joined other activists, businesses and residents to file a lawsuit in Albany County Court Monday morning against Seneca Meadows and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. They're asking for an immediate abatement of nuisance conditions and an injunction preventing the DEC from issuing a permit for the landfill's expansion.

The lawsuit alleges violations of the state's less than three year old Green Amendment to its constitution.

"New Yorkers overwhelmingly voted in favor of this Green Amendment which gives every New Yorker the right to clean air, clean water and a healthful environment and this landfill is certainly violating that new constitutional right," Taylor said.

The Seneca Meadows website refutes many of the arguments made by what it calls a small group of vocal opponents. It said allegations of harmful health effects caused by the facility are false, impacts are regularly monitored by the state and in some cases, it goes above and beyond abatement requirements.

Seneca Lake Guardian believes there would be less need for landfills if the state aggressively begins to implement its newly released solid waste management plan which it says is a road map to zero waste in a circular economy.