By Chris Fuchs
More than a dozen Flushing business owners and residents spoke out Monday at a Community Board 7 meeting against a multimillion-dollar contract granted to two Queens environmental businesses to build waste transfers station in Flushing and Long Island City.
The two transfer stations in Queens are part of an interim plan to handle the city’s vast refuse once Fresh Kills, a sprawling landfill in Staten Island, closes at the end of this year. In addition to these two stations, the city is expected to use five private sites in New Jersey and Long Island and two city-owned facilities as holding pens for garbage before it is hauled out of the city.
There are two barges that now accept waste collected by trucks, transporting it to Fresh Kills: one in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and the other in Flushing Bay in Flushing.
Queens Borough President Claire Shulman has expressed fervent opposition toward the plan, saying it would adversely affect commercial development and existing businesses in downtown Flushing.
The transfer station being built at 127-20 34th Ave. in Willets Point by Tully Environmental will handle 500 tons of refuse a day, but not solid waste. In addition, the facility would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was unclear when the construction of the facility would be finished.
Residents who spoke at the community board meeting Monday night were chiefly concerned with what impact the transfer station would have on Flushing.
“This would allow [Tully Environmental] to turn these 1.7 acres into a gold mine through this lucrative city contract that they would get as a result,” said Richard Jannaccio, a member of a newly formed civic association, the Flushing Environmental Reclamation Committee.
The committee, which was formed last week, sent a letter to Community Board 7 on Feb. 12, enumerating its objections to the transfer station. Like the borough president, the committee concentrated its concern mostly on what imprint the station would leave on commercial development in Flushing.
“Although the immediate area surrounding the planned waste transport station is currently underutilized, that is no reason for the area to continue to be misused,” Fon-May Fan, chairman of the newly formed committee, wrote in a letter.
And in a letter sent to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, Shulman expressed fear that prospective developers would shun Willets Point because of its proximity to the waste transfer station.
“We have already heard firsthand from potential developers that the location of transfer and waste-related facilities lead them to question future development plans in this vibrant and important commercial area,” she wrote.
The borough president has already filed papers seeking to declare Willets Point — the land where the facility is being built — an urban renewal area. If the land is given that status, it would allow the city to condemn the property, a 55-acre tract of landfill next to Shea Stadium, to make room for development.
It was unclear how the transfer station would affect these plans since a spokesman for the borough president’s office did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Apart from the discussion on the transfer station, the board did vote on two items: the preliminary budget for fiscal year 2002 and a proposition to make putting fliers on the windows of cars a criminal offense.
The budget was approved unanimously, with 34 board members voting in favor of it and four abstaining because they work for city agencies. The proposition, however, was voted down by a 36-to-2 margin, in large degree because the board members felt it was too proscriptive. It would have permitted the city to make placing fliers — including religious and political ones — on windshields of cars a criminal offense.
CB 7 covers Flushing, Whitestone, College Point, Malba and Bay Terrace.
Reach reporter Chris Fuchs by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
