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.

The existing East 91st Street Marine Transfer Station was shut down in 1999.

Opponents of the recently approved East 91st Street Waste Transfer Station have a new weapon in their ongoing battle against the 10-story, $240 million project: Hurricane Sandy. The flooding that surged from the East River all the way to Second Avenue between 91st and 96th streets during the Oct. 29 storm, they argue, provides tangible evidence that the station could do more harm than good.

According to Assemblyman Micah Kellner, in light of the storm, the transfer station’s susceptibility to flooding “is no longer a theory, it’s a reality.” Kellner partnered with various Upper East Side advocacy groups in June to file suit against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the city Department of Sanitation and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to prevent the station’s construction on a small piece of land that juts out into the East River at the east end of East 91st Street, beyond FDR Drive. Kellner’s concern is the environmental impact on the homes and parks surrounding the approved site, and he told Our Town that floodwater from a storm of Sandy’s proportions could push trash deep into the Upper East Side and cause severe pollution.

Asbjorn Finsnes, the executive director of Residents for Sane Trash Solutions, a volunteer advocacy group that partnered with Kellner in filing the lawsuit, agreed. “Imagine all the toxic materials that would flow into the streets,” he said. “All these chemicals would flow in and pollute the community.” Additionally, he said, garbage would spill into the East River.

The transfer station proposal was originally passed as part of the city’s Solid Waste Management Plan in 2006. The overhaul of the city’s waste management was intended to reduce garbage-truck emissions and street traffic by allowing more trash to be moved by barges, a point that proponents reference when arguing in favor of the new station at East 91st Street. The proposal also passed muster with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which evaluated the infrastructure and potential changes to the East River environment, though not without falling under criticism from the likes of Rep. Carolyn Maloney for not taking the full impact into account. The potential to reduce overall pollution and the purported state-of-the-art technology that will go into the new station have led some politicians in favor of it to take opponents’ environmental objections with a grain of salt. Though the station may increase garbage-truck traffic—and could conceivably decrease the property values for homes—in Yorkville, proponents of the station such as Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito argue that locals need to bear their share of the burden of waste management.

Finsnes and Kellner argue, though, that the station’s expected benefits of course presume that the station would not be ruined in a storm—and after Sandy, they say, there is no guarantee of that.

“I’m not sure that there can be reliable predictions about flooding when the flood of the century comes every 16 months now,” Kellner said. “The old standards can’t apply. They clearly don’t protect community.”

He referenced an oil spill at 200 East End Avenue and flooding at 535 E. 78th St., consequences of the storm that were not anticipated. “There were effects that no one saw coming,” he said.

Finsnes, too, said the storm revealed faults in the transfer station’s design, such as its intended 6-inch elevation above the city’s 100-year flood level. “The whole plan is already outdated before it is implemented,” he asserted, citing climate change—and consequent raised sea levels and more frequent storms—as a confounding variable the plan failed to factor in.

“This is not NIMBY [not in my backyard],” Finsnes said. “This is about what’s right and wrong.”