Braced for Garbage

Neighbors still trying to stop transfer station

By Zara Kessler

For many New Yorkers, contact with trash ends with the slam of a garbage chute door. But the prospect of garbage trucks lining up near parks, classrooms and residential buildings has some Upper East Siders devoting a lot of attention to waste management these days. Residents have long protested the city’s plan to rebuild and reopen the marine waste transfer station at East 91st Street and the FDR Drive, but the announcement that P.S. 151 will have a new home down the block from the site has added urgency to the debate.

New York has struggled to deal with its trash since the 2001 closing of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. The 91st Street station was included in Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2004 Solid Waste Management Plan, which aimed to decrease the number of trips made by private garbage trucks and shift waste transport to more environmentally friendly modes, like barge and rail. The plan also sought to equitably distribute the city’s waste among the five boroughs. The old 91st station was smaller than the new one, which will accept a maximum of 1,860 tons of garbage daily but could take in 5,280 tons during an emergency.

“The newest issue and the newest wrinkle here is that we just announced that we are putting a new school in the neighborhood, P.S. 151. And the presence of an elementary school in that area makes this site even less appropriate, if that were possible,” said Council Member Dan Garodnick, who has spoken out against the station and was one of a handful of Council members who voted against the mayor’s plan.

Jackie Filler is a longtime resident whose son Marc will start kindergarten at P.S. 151, on East 91st Street between First and Second avenues, next fall. She thinks that with an increase in children frequenting the area, the site is particularly inappropriate.

“Any dump should not be anywhere near where there’s going to be a public school of any kind,” Filler said.

Additionally, this past summer the Convent of the Sacred Heart School purchased a building on East 91st Street between First and York avenues, with plans to use it for physical education. Many schools, day care centers, senior centers and social services facilities also already operate near the proposed site.

Carol Tweedy is executive director of Asphalt Green, a sports and recreation center that is divided by a roadway leading to the station. She has bad memories of the former station, which closed in 1999.

“I remember when I first came to Asphalt Green during the summer time, the marine transfer station and the barges smelled so badly that children in day camp got nauseous, and parents withdrew their kids from camp,” Tweedy said.

Despite concerns about pollution, Department of Sanitation spokesperson Kathy Dawkins wrote in an email, “The Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) issued for the city’s Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP) thoroughly reviewed among other things, potential environmental and health impacts of the East 91st Street MTS and potential impacts to Asphalt Green and concluded that the facility would not cause significant impacts. These issues were litigated and the trial court and the appellate courts have fully upheld the city’s position.”

Assembly Member Micah Kellner, though, hasn’t given up hope that the plan can be stopped. In March 2009, he reintroduced a bill that would prohibit waste transfer stations or facilities within 800 feet of public housing projects; the 91st Street station sits less than 300 feet from the Stanley Isaacs Houses and John Holmes Towers. The proposal would not impact any other stations included in the mayor’s plan.

Though the legislation ultimately died last year, Kellner hopes it can still make it onto the floor of the Assembly. A companion bill in the State Senate is still in committee.

Resident Eliza de Sola Mendes has helped organize petitions in support of the bill and against the building of a new transfer station, collecting 7,320 signatures. That includes more than 700 from New York doctors, scientists and others in medical and science fields, de Sola Mendes stressed.

Also pending in New York State Supreme Court is a lawsuit focused on whether the building and operating of a transfer station at 91st Street would disrupt Asphalt Green and Bobby Wagner Walk parklands. The suit was filed by six plaintiffs from the Yorkville, Harlem and Gracie Point communities. In June 2007, the court rejected the city’s effort to dismiss the suit, ruling that it could advance to a hearing. A summary judgment probably won’t occur until at least the fall of 2009. If the court rules that this does constitute an “alienation” of parklands, the issue will move to the State Legislature for a decision as to whether the construction can proceed.

Gracie Point Community Council, a group involved in the pending lawsuit, is also waiting to hear about its appeal addressing the findings of an administrative law judge following 2007 hearings by the State Department of Environmental Conservation. Permits by the department and the Army Corps of Engineers have not yet been issued.

Tony Ard, the council’s president, thinks there are still other options in the borough that could work.

“There’s a lot of other ideas to consider, and they don’t have to involve marine transfer stations. One of which, of course, is the idea of using the Hudson Rail Yards to transport the waste that would otherwise go through the marine transfer station. Direct truck to rail and then out,” Ard said, adding that the city never fully investigated such an option.

Sanitation spokesperson Dawkins maintained in her email that other locations were considered during the development and environmental review processes, but the East 91st Street station was determined to be the best suited.

Bloomberg’s plan revolves partly around not placing the burden on poor communities in the South Bronx and Brooklyn. Some suggest that this overburdens Manhattan, which hosts the garbage of far more commuters and tourists than other boroughs. Kellner, for one, thinks the claim that Manhattan doesn’t deal with its own garbage is false, noting that Manhattan sends its garbage not to The Bronx but to New Jersey.

“Right now we’re trucking it. Instead we’re going to drive it up the island, we’re going to put it on a barge and we’re going to barge it to New Jersey,” Kellner said. “Either way, it’s getting to New Jersey. Manhattan takes care of its own garbage.”

Tweet This Post