Editorial: The Mayor Must Now Call Off His Stinky Garbage Plan

Our Town — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:27:51 +0000

Climate change now threatens an ill-conceived garbage dump

Like the rest of New York, Gov. Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn have now become acutely aware that there is a new normal: climate change, extreme weather events and crumbling infrastructure must inform every public policy decision made about our city.

We must now revisit the mayor and Speaker Quinn’s mistaken decision to site a marine transfer station (for those who prefer less euphemistic language, it’s actually a garbage dump) in an Upper East Side residential neighborhood, right off the East River and next to one of the largest athletic facilities for children in the country.

Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn must finally see their folly—like the Mayor finally did on the scheduled marathon recently—and immediately cancel this garbage dump that will threaten New Yorkers’ health. Perhaps most poignantly, this marine transfer station will potentially hurt the area’s many poor residents and the thousands of children who could be exposed to carcinogens, hazardous air pollutants and the potential for contaminated water flooding off the East River during a future extreme weather event.

Obviously, recent events affecting the East River highlight the enormous risk in locating a garbage station on the far east end of 91st Street. The proposed site is located in a hurricane flood zone that has been classified “A” by the City’s Office of Emergency Management. The FDR Drive, which is adjacent to the East 91st Street site, has flooded more than six times in the past four years, causing temporary closures.

Flooding of the garbage station or the barges carrying garbage from the facility could contaminate the East River and nearby residential neighborhoods. During Hurricane Sandy, sewage, bacteria, gasoline and debris contaminated New York City’s waterways, threatening human health. River water containing this contamination flowed down residential streets from the FDR Drive to York Avenue. In addition, Asphalt Green’s facilities suffered water damage from the hurricane, and the defunct garbage station, which is over the East River, is likely to have suffered damage as well.

We could go on to cite many statistics and reasons to stop this stinky plan. Here’s just a few: There are 2,200 public housing residents who live nearby and will be put at risk. As will the 40,000 children who use Asphalt Green and will be exposed to the 2,000 garbage trucks and their diesel fuel emissions and pollutants 24/6.

But this plan is so wrong—especially in the wake of Hurricane Sandy—that we will not waste more paper and ink today explaining why the Mayor and Speaker Quinn must halt this plan now.

If there is not a halt to this folly, Our Town plans to keep this issue on our front page and our news pages consistently in the coming months until we get the attention from Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn and a reversal of this plan. If you agree with us on this, please send a brief letter to us at editorial@manhattanmedia.com and we will present these to the mayor’s and speaker’s offices and we will publish many of these letters in our paper and on our website in the coming weeks.

It’s one thing to acknowledge the reality of climate change and endorse a presidential candidate because of that, but it’s an even more important thing to realize that because of the new normal, the plan to site a garbage dump in the middle of Hurricane Zone A is dangerous and wrong.

Mayor Bloomberg: listen to your better angels like you did recently on the Marathon. STOP the 91st Street Marine Transfer Station.

Our kids—and our city’s health—depend on your decision.

Residents Continue Fight Against Garbage Dump

Our Town — Wed, 30 May 2012 20:08:18 +0000

It’s been six years since the city passed its Solid Waste Management Plan, a system that promises to be a cost-effective, environmentally sound solution to handling the city’s solid waste. But Upper East Side residents are still fighting one key component of the plan: the reopening of the East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station (MTS). (By Laura Shin)
“We have a belief that you don’t want to put trash dumps in poor, minority neighborhoods, nor, on the other hand, do you want to put trash in residential neighborhoods,” said Jed Garfield, president of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, a neighborhood organization dedicated to fighting the opening of the MTS.
Residents for Sane Trash Solutions and dozens of residents, along with City Council Members Jessica Lappin and Dan Garodnick, gathered on the steps of City Hall recently to protest. They believe the proposed MTS, planned to be a two-acre, 10-story facility along the East River, will have a significant negative impact on their neighborhood.
“It would wreak havoc on a residential community. It would bisect a park where tens of thousands of children come to play. It would ruin our air,” Lappin said at the rally.
Garfield said his group believes the project will cost $400 million, based on a recent independent study. According to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Executive Budget released in early May, the 91st Street MTS has a budget of $226 million.
The city currently relies on a truck-based system, where in the city’s waste is transported from a number of land-based waste transfer stations in the city to areas outside of New York.
The 91st Street MTS, along with three other converted marine transfer stations—two in Brooklyn and one in Queens—is part of a larger plan to reduce trucks trips by moving to a barge-and-rail system for long-haul waste disposal using the city’s waterways and existing MTS network.
“You’re talking about over 100 truck trips that each one of these barges would eliminate,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
According to a May 15 statement released by the Environmental Justice Alliance and a coalition of groups that support the Solid Waste Management Plan, the 91st Street MTS would offer relief to low-income communities of color that are currently overburdened because the majority of the city’s land-based transfer stations are located there.
“We all know that the burden of garbage facilities has been borne by disadvantaged communities. That is unjust,” said Garodnick. “But the city is not correcting that injustice by doing the same thing on the back porch of a public housing complex home to 2,200 New Yorkers or the thousands of other New Yorkers who live right across the street.”
The MTS operated from 1940 to 1999. Some residents fear reopening the facility would mean the odors and rodent problems that existed before would return.
CIVITAS, a group dedicated improving the quality of life on the Upper East Side and in East Harlem, supports the MTS.
“Conditions have been imposed by the state that make it acceptable to go forward with this marine transfer station,” said Gorman Reilly, vice president and board member of CIVITAS.
Reilly said the facility’s ramp has been designed to hold more trucks, so there will be no queuing on residential streets. He said a Department of Sanitation employee would also be at the bottom of the ramp to help direct traffic, ensuring safety in the area.

Still, residents are concerned.

“I feel it’ll create a lot of noise; it’ll create a lot of filth; it’ll create a lot of congestion; it will endanger the health of children,” said Alison Grillo, a nearby resident who attended the rally. She added that if the MTS opens, she might have to consider leaving the neighborhood.

NYPress.com - New York's essential guide to culture, arts, politics, news and more » East 91st Street

Editorial: The Mayor Must Now Call Off His Stinky Garbage Plan

Residents Continue Fight Against Garbage Dump