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Taking
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About
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THE MAYOR'S PLAN On May 29, 1996, Mayor Rudolph
Giuliani, Governor George Pataki and Borough President Guy
Molinari announced that the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten
Island would close by the end of 2001. The state legislature
subsequently enacted a law requiring closure, which had been
moving through the legislature prior to the announcement.
This decision, much needed given the fact that Fresh Kills
had operated for almost 50 years without meeting even the
most minimal environmental standards, changed the direction
of solid waste management in New York. Initial Proposals, 1996-1998 The Mayor and the Governor established
a joint Task Force to develop a plan for closure. Released
in November 1996, The Fresh Kills Closure Task Force
Report, A Plan to Phase-Out the Fresh Kills
Landfill: · Established a Phase Down
schedule for the Closure of Fresh Kills from its 1996 level
of 13000 tons per day. Waste dumping would have to drop by
2000-3000 tons per day by the end of each year until it
reached zero in December 31, 2001; · Recommended waste reduction and
recycling as preferred waste management alternatives; · Recommended preserving and
reusing the existing marine transfer station system for
handling garbage on its way to final disposal; · Cautioned that "it is important
that the approach to exportation and the necessary contracts
for the handling of this waste reflect both the
environmental and economic concerns of the City
administration, the affected communities within New York
City, and the communities where the waste management
facilities are located." (FK Closure Task Force Report, p.
90). · Expressed belief in the
Charter-mandated principle of 'fair share' and its
application to decisions regarding siting or expansion of
transfer facilities; · Advanced the idea of borough
self-sufficiency in managing residential waste, believing in
the unique opportunity for borough input in citywide waste
management. As a result the Administration committed to
working with all five boroughs and the City Council in the
planning process. The commitment to working with the
Boroughs made sense given the magnitude of the task at hand
and the legal framework for solid waste planning within the
state, which calls for draft plans, public hearings and a
public process. Under state law the City would have to
develop a new draft Solid Waste Management Plan reflecting
the new direction. However the City prepared a Request for
Proposals for export services, releasing it in Spring 1997,
without reviewing the Borough Waste Plans, which were due at
that time. This process therefore failed to incorporate
prior years of work by elected officials, non-profit
organizations, and individual citizens, and was undertaken
without any substantive collaboration with current Borough
Presidents, City Council representatives, or the public. In
general, from this point on, solid waste planning has not
been undertaken with the inclusiveness and transparency that
we should expect in a democratic society. In April 1998, the Administration
issued its formal Draft Solid Waste Management Plan (SWMP).
This Draft Plan did not refer to the 1996 Task Force
report's recommendations. It also ignored the Borough plans
and the City Council plan and all of the detailed, carefully
crafted recommendations they contained. The Draft Solid Waste Management plan
covered only municipally collected waste despite the fact
that the City was already contracting with private waste
companies under the interim export plans, and that private
commercial waste transfer facilities were creating enormous
problems in the communities where they were concentrated.
For several decades, residential and institutional garbage
has been picked up by the Department of Sanitation (DOS) and
taken by barge to Fresh Kills. Commercial waste has been
picked up by private haulers, who take it to private waste
transfer stations, many in Greenpoint/Williamsburg or the
South Bronx, and then truck it out of the City to private
landfills. In December 1998, the Mayor released
2001 And Beyond: A Proposed Plan for Replacing the Fresh
Kills Landfill. This Plan proposed two huge transfer
stations in New Jersey, and one in Red Hook, Brooklyn, again
focusing on export of garbage to private landfills,
prompting the Governor of New Jersey's reply, "Drop Dead!"
This plan was not part of the formal solid waste planning
process and did not claim to be a Final Solid Waste
Management Plan. The City Administration's proposals through
1998 were heavily criticized by community groups, experts
and other states. Critics cited the following serious
drawbacks with the Administration's plans: · They placed an inequitable and
unjust burden on certain communities, and in particular on
low-income, minority neighborhoods, for processing waste.
The South Bronx, Greenpoint/Williamsburg and Red Hook in
particular were targeted for large private transfer
facilities for containerization of garbage. · They failed to adequately use
and develop City-owned infrastructure, particularly the
City's Marine Transfer Stations, thereby leaving the City in
an economically vulnerable situation. Instead of compacting
and containerizing at these stations, the City proposed
using the Marine Transfer Stations only as pass-throughs on
the way to large private waste containerization facilities,
which meant that the waste would be handled twice, at two
separate facilities. Double handling raises the costs of the
export program. · They relied too exclusively on
export, rather than advancing a diverse set of responsible,
environmentally sound options including waste reduction,
reuse, recycling and composting. The City has failed to
propose any new city-owned recycling and composting
infrastructure which could reduce the volume of waste and
associated costs of export. · They relied extensively on
private companies despite recent waste industry
consolidation and the possible impacts of limited
competition. The large proposed containerization facilities
would be built at City expense, but would be the property of
the operating corporation. Once these facilities were built,
the City would be at the mercy of the companies owning and
operating them-it would be impossible to request bids from
competing companies, because there would be no other
companies with viable containerization facilities in or near
the City. Long term this could put the City at the economic
mercy of a few large multinational waste companies. · Finally, they did nothing to
address the desperate problems associated with the
commercial waste stream, which is even larger than the
residential waste stream. The commercial waste stream is
already handled by private haulers, a number of whom have
been bidding for the residential waste contracts. They
currently operate waste transfer facilities in the South
Bronx, Greenpoint/Williamsburg and Red Hook, which
frequently do not meet environmental standards, create
enormous garbage truck traffic problems in surrounding
neighborhoods, and have had unacceptable worker accident
rates. THE NEW MAY 2000 PLAN In May 2000, the Administration
released yet another new plan for export of the City's
residential waste stream in the form of its Draft Solid
Waste Management Plan (SWMP) for the City and Environmental
Impact Statement. This plan has as its centerpiece a large
garbage containerization facility to be built and operated
in Linden, New Jersey by Browning Ferris Industries/Allied
Waste Industries, Inc., which would process over half of the
City's garbage and send it to an out-of-City landfill.
However, the Plan also presents a diverse array of possible
options, from which the City may select for future disposal.
The City is not legally bound to any of these proposals, and
could substitute other options. Until the New York City
Council approves the Administration plan, it cannot be
called a City Plan, nor can it be forwarded on to the New
York State Department of Environmental Conservation for
final approval. The Administration's latest proposals,
released in May 2000 are an improvement over previous plans.
They address some of the worst social inequities in previous
proposals. No borough would have to handle another borough's
residential waste. Waste movement out of the City would be
by rail or barge, rather than by polluting and
congestion-generating trucks. However, they still fail to
meet a number of important sustainability criteria. According to the Administration, the
Major Advantages of the Proposed Plan are the following: · "It is borough-based.
Specifically, all Department generated waste generated
within a borough will be delivered to a transfer facility or
to transfer facilities within the borough. · It will reuse a substantial
portion of the MTS-based waste transfer station system that
for over 50 years has enabled the Department to provide
highly reliable and cost-effective waste collection,
transfer and disposal services. · It will enable all
Department-managed waste to be exported to out-of-City
disposal sites by barge or rail. · The in-City facilities
proposed will likely be or replace on the same site,
existing solid waste management facilities. · The proposed procurements
may provide an economic incentive to the owners of existing
truck based commercial waste transfer facilities to convert
them into facilities that will include the ability to export
waste by barge or rail. "(Draft SWMP, May 2000,p.5) (The
basis for this last statement is unclear since it is not
discussed anywhere in the Solid Waste Plan or the
Environmental Impact Statement.) The essence of the Mayor's approach is
to contract with private firms to receive waste within the
City, package it, and transport it to distant landfills and
incinerators. Private companies would
containerize a total of 10,400 tons per day (TPD) of
waste: a) The City would sign a 20-year
contract with BFI/Allied Waste to build and operate a
7000-10,000 TPD containerization facility in Linden, NJ and
to dispose of the waste at a landfill. The Linden facility
would receive a total of 6430 tons of NYC residential waste:
2390 tons of waste daily from Manhattan's three Marine
Transfer Stations (MTSs), 1860 tons from Brooklyn's Hamilton
Ave MTS, and 2180 tons from the Queens North Shore MTS. No
modifications will be needed to the MTSs. Garbage will need
to be handled twice, once at each MTS and once in
Linden. b) An unspecified private company
would build a 1080 TPD new
truck-to-container-to-barge-or-rail facility in Queens near
the shore line of Newtown Creek. The site is currently owned
by Waste Management, Inc. c) The Greenpoint MTS would be
modified to containerize 990 TPD, OR a new
truck-to-container-to-barge-or-rail facility would be built
nearby. It appears from the plan that the City will turn
over operations and possibly ownership of the MTS to a
private company. d) In the Bronx, 1900 TPD capacity
would be contracted to an existing or new
truck-to-container-to-barge-or-rail facility. Waste
Management, Inc. and Republic both operate existing
facilities which could handle this volume; AMR has applied
for a permit to build a new facility. City owned facilities would
containerize 2100 TPD: a) A 1150 TPD new City-owned
truck-to-container-to-truck-to-barge-or-rail facility would
be built at the Fresh Kills landfill to handle Staten Island
waste. The site currently lacks rail access but it is hoped
that rail would be available in the future. The site is
barge accessible. b) A 950 TPD City Marine Transfer
Station in Southwest Brooklyn would be modified to
containerize a portion of Brooklyn waste, to be exported by
barge. The May 2000 Plan proposes creating a
total of 12, 500 tons per day of waste disposal capacity,
although the City projects only 11, 441 TPD of residential
waste output for 2000, and further declines in subsequent
years. Drawbacks of the May 2000 Plan The May 2000 proposal unfortunately
still does not meet many criteria of long-term
environmental, social and economic sustainability. Despite
the improvements over previous plans, the following remain
as drawbacks of this proposal: 1. Exporting for disposal all mixed
solid waste that is municipally collected and currently not
being recycled. 2. Developing no new programs to
prevent waste or increase recycling as alternatives to
export despite being out of compliance with existing state
and city laws that mandate greater efforts. Increased
recycling could reduce export costs and contribute to
economic development that revitalizes communities. 3. Issuing private contracts to
handle containerization and disposal for the majority of the
City's waste. 4. Developing little city-owned
infrastructure for waste handling. 5. Dealing only with municipally
collected waste, leaving commercial waste and associated
transfer stations out of the planning process, missing a key
opportunity to upgrade the substandard commercial
system. Detailed Discussion of Drawbacks of
May 2000 Plan A fuller discussion and analysis of
the drawbacks of the May 2000 Plan is presented below. 1. Excessive reliance on waste
export Pennsylvania and Virginia, which
already host landfills receiving a large portion of New York
City's commercial waste, are leading the charge to limit the
waste shipped to them from out of state. A study by the
Congressional Research Service reports that the top three
waste importing states are Pennsylvania, almost 7 million
tons; Virginia, 3.7 million tons; and Michigan, 1.6 million
tons. The top three exporting states are New York, 4.2
million tons; New Jersey, 2.9 million tons; and Illinois at
2.3 million tons. Nationally, imported waste nearly doubled
in five years from 14.5 million tons in 1993 to 28.4 million
tons in 1998. According to Waste News, industry
consolidation contributes to this trend because the top
companies tend to send waste only to their own landfills,
even if they have to cross state lines to get to them.
(Duff, Waste News , Feb. 14, 2000) The City's plan to export over 11,000
tons of residential waste per day, once Fresh Kills closes,
engendered anger in these states not only because of the
sheer scale of the proposed amount. Many also had the
perception that instead of managing our own waste in an
environmentally sound manner, New Yorkers have opted simply
to dump it elsewhere. In 1996, Public Advocate Mark Green
warned that NYC's failure to recycle would encourage
legislation to restrict interstate export of waste. (Green,
Trashing Jobs And the Environment,, p. 19) Communities in upstate New York are
also responding to NYC's export plans. A proposal for a
Newburgh marine-to-rail transfer station resulted in the
ouster of some elected officials who were willing to just
review the idea. In Wallkill, NY, a landfill proposal
resulted in posters on telephone poles proclaiming the town
as Wallkill, not Fresh Kills. If our ability to export is seriously
curtailed, NYC could be forced to keep Fresh Kills open,
violating state law. Given our limited available land and
existing environmental problems, NYC is not well situated to
develop disposal facilities within the City. Alienating public officials in other
states hurts the long-term viability of a plan that relies
primarily on export. Concrete actions by New York City
officials to reduce the overall waste stream to be exported
by pursuit of environmentally sound options would go far to
demonstrate that the City is acting responsibly. 2. Failure to invest in and expand
more sustainable waste management options. NYC is missing a vital opportunity to
diversify its waste management options and at the same time
foster pollution reduction and community revitalization, as
well as economic development. We are at a dangerous juncture
because the huge annual expenditure necessary to export
waste threatens to siphon funds from programs, still in
their infancy, which offer the most potential for achieving
a rational, sound and sustainable solid waste system. The
City would be in a better position to adjust to escalating
export and disposal costs if it had a recycling
infrastructure and a management system that could expand
prevention, recycling and composting programs as
necessary. If money invested in export were
invested in recycling, it could generate a host of indirect
economic development and job benefits in the City. In simple
economic terms, the choice is to invest with no potential
for return on the money, or to invest where there is great
potential for a multiplier effect of benefits for
businesses, jobs and for the City. The Administration plan has not
adequately considered waste reduction and recycling, on the
grounds that all waste to be exported was "unrecyclable."
However this is clearly not the case. The 1988 New York State Solid Waste
Management Act required municipalities to adopt local
ordinances requiring source separation of recyclables by
September 1, 1992. "All residents and businesses must
separate recyclables at the point of generation . . . the
local law . . . must apply to both municipally and privately
contracted garbage haulers." (Legislative Commission on
Solid Waste Management, 1988, P.7) Solid waste shall be
separated into recyclable, reusable or other components for
which economic markets for alternate uses exist. The City Council passed New York
City's Recycling Law to meet the requirements of the State
law. Its purpose was to "establish the most environmentally
sound and economically desirable waste reduction, recycling
and reuse programs possible and [to] be consistent
with or surpass the reduction, recycling and reuse goals
established by New York State." Most familiar to the public is the
Recycling Law's "25% goal" to recycle 4250 tons per day of
DOS-collected waste materials by April 1994. As recently as
December of 1999, DOS reported recycling 2200 tons per day,
just over half of the required tonnage. (The law actually
did not contain percentage figures, but tonnage figures, to
enable better accounting for recycling.) The public may be less familiar with
how comprehensive the City recycling law is. It calls for
detailed analysis and planning. It requires the City to do a
waste composition analysis by district, to establish a plan
for waste reduction, and to establish a recycling plan with
annual updates. The recycling plan would include a five-year
strategy for collecting, processing and marketing
recyclables and a strategy for procuring recycled goods for
the City ("buying recycled"). Under the law, the City was to
open ten Recycling Centers, including a "buy-back" center in
each borough, by January 1991. The City is supposed to work
with different agencies, like the Metropolitan Transit
Authority, and Port Authority, and with schools, hospitals
and prisons, to foster recycling collection. If the Administration had made a
serious effort to comply with the City Recycling Law's major
provisions, it would now have important alternatives to
waste export already in place. However, few of the law's
requirements have been fully met. A coalition of
environmental groups, elected officials, Staten Island
residents and others in 1997 won a suit to force NYC to
comply. After losing all of its appeals, the Administration
was under Court Order to produce a Recycling Plan by July
14, 1998. However, it has submitted neither the Recycling
Plan nor progress reports. The Court Order also requires the
city to recycle 4,250 tons per day by July 14, 2001,
approximately six months before Fresh Kills closes. The
Administration plans to recycle only 3003 tons per day in FY
2002, according to the May 2000 Plan. Not diverting that
mandated 1247 tons per day to recycling will cost the city
more than $37 million in export fees, not to mention the
missed revenues from sale of the recyclables to a
remanufacturer. In 1999, Waste Management backed out
of a NYC transit contract which required 40% diversion of
the waste stream for recycling. The company had dismantled
recycling equipment in its Brooklyn facility and therefore
no longer found the contract profitable. (Brown, Waste News,
June 28, 1999) Since the removal of this large
facility's recycling equipment, the amount of commercial
waste recycling is down from 233,300 tons in 1998 to 77,500
tons in 1999. (Draft SWMP, May 2000, Table 2.1-1.) There are
in fact, significant problems related to commercial
recycling in the City. Those generating waste are forced by
the Department of Sanitation to source separate. However,
often waste haulers, against whom DOS rarely takes
enforcement action, then proceed to mix it all back together
again. Private carters are supposed to provide information
about differential rates for recycling to their customers
and assist them to reduce their hauling bill. However, the
reality is that tenants in commercial buildings are
generally provided with no information on recycling options.
The Department of Sanitation claims enforcement against
haulers is the responsibility of the Trade Waste Commission
and the Commission has not as yet accepted the
responsibility. The Department of Sanitation in the May 2000
Plan suggests amending the recycling rules for the
commercial sector, but does not appear to be recommending
applying the rules to private carters. Under its current plan NYC will not
realize important environmental and economic benefits of
waste reduction and recycling. The White House Task Force on
Recycling analyzed these benefits for the nation in 1996,
and they are as follows: · Saved energy: 408
trillion BTUs of energy were saved by recycling. NYC is also missing an opportunity to
work with Congress on legislative efforts to reduce waste.
One key area of potential legislation addresses the amount
of waste generated in the production of consumer goods. Once
these goods are purchased, the waste is shifted onto the
public sector for collection, processing and disposal. Other
nations, like Germany, have put the burden on the producers,
making them responsible for cutting down on unnecessary
waste in packaging, and for taking back products like
refrigerators and computers for recycling (Fishbein, p.
43-55). We also are missing an opportunity to
work for national legislation to remove subsidies that favor
virgin, extractive materials over recycled materials in the
production process. A sustainable waste system cannot exist
with economic supports that provide disincentives to more
sustainable options while rewarding destructive ones. 3. Excessive reliance on a few very
large waste management companies to handle containerization
for the majority of the City's waste. The Administration's May 2000 Plan
proposes to build containerization facilities to accommodate
export of approximately 12,500 TPD of residential waste,
even though the City is currently not generating that much
residential waste. The City projects a total of 11, 441 TPD
for FY 2000 and by FY 2002, 10,841 TPD. Under the May 2000 plan, private
companies will handle or process under contract a total of
10,400 tons per day of waste out of 12,500, building one
huge barge unloading and containerization facility in
Linden, and one new containerization facility in Queens.
Private companies will also process all the garbage from the
Bronx, and from a portion of Brooklyn in
Greenpoint/Williamsburg. Five City Marine Transfer Stations
-- three Manhattan MTSs, North Shore Queens MTS, and the
Hamilton Ave., Brooklyn MTS -- will continue to serve merely
as pass-throughs for garbage going to the BFI/Allied
facility in Linden, much as the MTSs were previously used to
go to Fresh Kills. This excessive reliance on private
companies leaves the City economically vulnerable,
particularly in the face of recent waste industry
consolidation. Recently, the waste industry has
undergone major consolidation through mergers and
acquisitions. A few companies have come to dominate the
industry. In 1998 USA Waste acquired Waste Management. The
new company, now known as Waste Management Inc., is the
largest waste company in the U.S. Allied Waste Industries
then acquired Browning Ferris Industries (BFI) to become the
second largest waste company. Republic, the third largest in
the nation, recently left the NYC market because of limited
nearby landfill capacity; Republic is selling its transfer
stations to Allied. The top four industry players account
for 85% of total industry revenues according to a
Congressional Research Service study. (Waste News , Feb. 14,
2000) New York City is now primarily negotiating with the
top two industry giants-Waste Management Inc. and BFI/Allied
Waste. So far, the Administration appears
unconcerned about the emerging duopoly in waste handling in
NYC. In 1997 the Administration began privatizing its
municipal waste system by awarding interim three-year
contracts for waste disposal from the Bronx. In 1998 it
awarded additional three-year contracts for parts of
Brooklyn and Queens. Waste Management Inc. has received the
majority of the contracts for interim export for a grand
total of $214.56 million over three years. The latest round,
for Staten Island and Manhattan, awarded in 2000 gave Waste
Management a grand total of $286.56 million, or 67.44% of
the $424. 9 million total awarded in interim three-year
contracts. BFI and Republic also received some contracts.
The Sanitation Department recently had to request an
additional $28 million from the City Council, as it had
estimated the cost of export at $55 per ton, when it is now
costing $62 per ton. (Lipton, NY Times, 2/21/00). The City
is now suggesting a fourth and fifth round of interim
contracts for the remainder of Brooklyn and Queens
waste. If New York is not worried about
consolidation, other states are. Consolidation is being
closely examined in Ohio after the closure of a recycling
facility affected a district's ability to meet recycling
goals. According to Todd Boyer of the Ohio Attorney Generals
Office, "Any time there is a consolidation of competitors,
there's always the potential to result in an adverse way for
consumers." (Gynn, Waste News, Mar. 27, 2000). In addition,
Connecticut towns have asked the Attorney General to
investigate whether Waste Management is monopolizing the
local trash hauling industry. According to the New York
Times the company admitted that it raised prices too high
after the merger (New York Times, 8/31/99). According to reporter Juan Gonzalez,
"Waste Management is a darling of the politicians and Wall
Street financiers even though the firm has a rap sheet
nearly as long as the mobsters it replaced. Since 1980 the
company has faced repeated federal and local criminal
indictments including price fixing and bribery. Convictions
of Waste Management subsidiaries and executives have
occurred in Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Illinois, and
California. During the same period, the firm has paid more
than $52 million in fines and settlements of lawsuits
arising from its environmental practices." (Gonzalez, p.
10). The problems associated with
consolidation are not limited to Waste Management. Attorney
Generals in several states along with the Department of
Justice are examining the potential for monopolies in
certain areas as a result of the BFI/Allied Waste Industries
Inc. deal last year. (Gynn, Waste News, Mar. 27, 2000). In
1990 Browning Ferris Industries, Inc. and Waste Management
settled a civil class action suit brought by their customers
that alleged a nationwide price fixing conspiracy for ten
years. The customers received a total of $50 million in
penalties. (Lipsett, Multinational Monitor, Jan./Feb.
1991) Since 1996, the Trade Waste Commission
has worked to remove the influence of organized crime in the
waste carting industry in NYC. As a result, the transfer
stations operated by organized crime were sold. Waste
Management and Browning Ferris (now owned by Allied) bought
up most of these facilities, despite the fact that they were
improperly permitted and incapable in most cases of being
brought up to state and city standards. Waste companies with
billions of dollars in assets are thus now operating some of
the worst waste facilities in the nation. Since few
standards exist and enforcement has been weak, these
companies have been able to earn even higher profits. They
have not offered communities any compensatory benefits, such
as upgraded facilities and environmental controls, living
wage jobs and a safe workplace, or less polluting
trucks. The Trade Waste Commission has
regulated hauling fees for private carters but not tipping
fees at transfer stations. After Waste Management raised
their fees the Commission negotiated with them to limit
their fees over the next three years, going from $56 to $60
per ton in the third year. The few remaining independent
local haulers could be forced out of business if tipping
fees increase and the fee they are allowed to charge for
hauling is limited by the City. (Johnson,Waste News Oct. 12,
1998,p.3) For the City to give contracts to
Waste Management Inc. also raises questions about possible
conflict of interest for the public. Dennis Vacco, former
NYS Attorney General, joined the Waste Management team in
February of 1999 shortly after reviewing the merger with USA
Waste for potential antitrust issues and finding none.
Although no laws were broken, this raised many concerns. He
is now President of Waste Management's New York State
subsidiaries. According to the NY Times, he said he would
guide Waste Management through various regulations as it
competes for a contract to export NYC residential waste. (NY
Times, 7/29/00, B7). The ultimate economic impact of making
New York City dependent on an industry with little
competition could be serious. Landfill fees have increased
300% on average nationally from 1986-1996, and they are
expected to increase 7% per year in the future, more than
double the rate of inflation. This estimate was made before
the waste industry consolidation. (NRDC, Feb. 1997, p.
45). As a result of the export contracts,
the overall DOS budget is projected to increase to $941
million in Fiscal Year(FY) 2004 from $578 million in FY
1997. The NYS Financial Control Board believes that NYC is
underestimating waste disposal costs by $63 million in FY
2001 rising to $126 million in FY 2004. (NYS Financial
Control Board, Preparing for 2001, Mar. 21, 2000). This
would mean that the DOS budget would top $1 billion for an
increase in the DOS budget of 84.6 % since FY1997. Department of Sanitation spending is
projected to grow at an average annual rate of 7% per year
from 2000-2004, second only to city debt service in growth.
(Independent Budget Office (IBO), NYC, p.18) In the face of
estimated severe future budget deficits, the need for
sounder fiscal choices is urgent. 4. Creation of little City-owned
infrastructure for waste handling. In contrast to the private sector, the
City will own and operate only two containerization
facilities, one new on Staten Island and one modified City
Marine Transfer Station in Southwest Brooklyn, handling a
total of 2100 tons per day of waste. Waste from both of
these facilities will ultimately be disposed of in private
landfills. The City is proposing no other
infrastructure investments either in reuse, recycling or
composting or in modifying other City MTS facilities. This
limited City-owned infrastructure will leave the city
vulnerable to price gouging by the private sector because
the City will have few options. 5. Dealing only with municipally
collected waste, leaving commercial waste and transfer
stations associated with it out of the planning process,
misses a key opportunity to upgrade the substandard
commercial system. As a result, communities overburdened by
private facilities have continuing cause for concern. As discussed in Chapter II, there are
significant problems with the private sector commercial
waste handling system. Two state laws actually mandate an
examination of private sector waste handling. As a result
the City should have included a detailed study of private
transfer stations and the waste they handle in the May 2000
Draft Solid Waste Management Plan and Environmental Impact
Statement. The first applicable law is the NY State Solid
Waste Management Act, which requires solid waste planning
for the entire waste stream, including commercial waste. The
City first prepared a Solid Waste Plan in 1992. However, it
was unable to complete a study of commercial waste handling.
Consultants to the Department of Sanitation noted that due
to the poor results of the survey they attempted, a
"separate study will be necessary to accurately quantify the
private sector's collection and transfer activities." (SWMP,
1992, Appendix 4.2) Such a study has not been completed to
date. The NY State Environmental Quality
Review Act has similar requirements in that any proposed
action requires a study of existing conditions into which a
new project or plan will be placed. The City, however,
arbitrarily refused to study private sector commercial waste
handling as part of the May 2000 Solid Waste Plan
Modification and Environmental Impact Statement claiming
that they were only modifying how they handle DOS-collected
residential and institutional waste. Yet, the May plan makes
it quite clear that existing and proposed private commercial
facilities will receive City garbage for waste export. In the absence of a desperately needed
comprehensive study and plan to upgrade private waste
handling, the City alludes to some sort of partial remedy
when the May 2000 Plan states, "The proposed procurements
may provide an economic incentive to the owners of existing
truck based commercial waste transfer facilities to convert
them into facilities that will include the ability to export
waste by barge or rail."(Draft SWMP Modification, May 2000).
Unfortunately the plan gives us few clues regarding the
meaning of this statement. The City appears to be suggesting
that commercial facilities that receive contracts for
residential waste will be more financially able to upgrade
to barge or rail transport out of the City. However, even if
this occurs for the facilities which receive residential
waste contracts, there will be no change in the other
transfer stations. Nor will there be fundamental change in
the physical plant, equipment or environmental conditions
under which all of the facilities operate. Continuing concern for inequities
related to garbage handling exist in
Greenpoint/Williamsburg, Brooklyn and in the South Bronx.
The May 2000 plan could result in worsening of the situation
in these two communities. In Greenpoint/Williamsburg, the City
suggests that it may contract with a private company to
retrofit the Municipal Marine Transfer Station so it can
containerize waste, or to build a new facility somewhere
nearby. If the City MTS is put in private hands, the company
can use it to process commercial as well as residential
waste. The potential exists to create another huge
commercial waste processing facility in an already
overburdened community. In the South Bronx, the May 2000
proposal may lend support to development of another highly
problematic proposed facility. American Marine Rail, LLC has
proposed a barge-to-rail facility in the South Bronx, to
containerize approximately 5200 tons per day of commercial
waste. It would be built on 5.5 acres of property which
would include tracks for the railcars. The NYS Department of
Environmental Conservation in an astounding decision
determined that an environmental impact statement was not
needed for this facility because there would be no potential
for negative impacts. There are several serious problems
with this proposal. We will highlight three of them. First
the size of the site is very small for such a large
operation. Second, rail service has been extremely
unreliable east of the Hudson. This situation has continued
unabated despite the fact that NYC is choking on truck
traffic which would be relieved by improved rail freight.
Despite existing rail service problems, AMR claims that it
will be able to ship out 5200 tons of waste per day. It was
only through an administrative hearing that people learned
that AMR would be allowed to hold waste for 48 hours and
CSX, the rail company, for an additional indeterminate
amount of time thereafter at its adjacent rail yards. This
could lead to odor problems. Perhaps more importantly there is no
apparent need for this facility. It would supposedly receive
commercial waste by barge, but no commercial waste is picked
up by barge in New York. All of the Bronx's existing
residential waste is currently being processed and exported
by truck through a Republic facility. Waste Management
operates another large commercial facility nearby, at the
Harlem River Yards. The May 2000 Draft SWMP suggests
giving a long term export contract for disposal of Bronx
waste to an existing or proposed facility, which would leave
the possibility open for AMR to receive a City contract. The
City has also stated in administrative hearings on the
facility that it would allow commercial waste to flow
through its Marine Transfer Stations and this is how AMR
might receive commercial waste by barge. However, this would
involve a substantial change in the operation of City
facilities and would necessitate a modification of the Solid
Waste Management Plan. Since the City refused to study
commercial waste handling in this draft modification of the
Plan, a new modification to the Plan would need to be
prepared. |
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