Mayors Sanitation Plan Smells Good For Queens

Residents of some parts of Long Island City and Corona may soon be able to sleep in peace at night, no longer hearing the never-ending rumble of garbage trucks passing down their once quiet streets, if Mayor Bloombergs proposed waste management plan is adopted.
"People talk about knick-knacks falling off shelves," said Joe Conley, chairman of Community Board 2, which oversees the part of Long Island City where Waste Management, a transfer station used by the City Sanitation Department is located. He said that local residents had complained repeatedly about the noise and pollution from the hundreds of trucks. "Anything thats going to reduce traffic in that area would be welcomed," he said.
Since the Fresh Kills landfill was closed for residential garbage in March 2001, all city residential trash has been channeled through 15 privately owned waste management depots, some of which abut residential neighborhoods. The Department of Sanitation (DSNY) trucks most Queens residential garbage to two privately owned waste management companies in Corona and Long Island City, from which it is then taken to various landfills outside the city and state. All the garbage transfer is accomplished using trucks, which often use residential streets to get to area highways leading out of the city.
The mayors plan would end the citys use of the privately owned transfer stations, and reopen the city-owned marine transfer stations that barged waste to Fresh Kills for 50 years. Most Queens garbage would go to either the marine transfer station on 31st Avenue in College Point or to another in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There, the waste would be compacted, put into sealed shipping containers and then taken out of the city on barges.
Once in containers, the garbage could be sent anywhere in the world, by ship, rail or truck, so the contracts for disposal of the waste would be open to bidders worldwide.
"The plan opens the city up to competitive bidding," said Kathy Dawkins, a DSNY spokeswoman. "There are a lot more companies that will take garbage in containers." Dawkins estimated that the plan would take about two years to implement if passed.
City Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), who is the chair of the Council Environmental Committee and a member of the Sanitation Committee, said the new plan could save the city a great deal of money by opening up the bidding process.
"I think [the plan] is terrific," Gennaro said. "It will also go a long way towards unburdening communities with private transfer stations."
Timothy Logan of the Organization of Waterfront Neighborhoods (OWN), which represents neighborhoods along the citys waterways, agreed. "All the marine transfer stations already exist and are not problematic for the neighborhoods," he said.
Marilyn Bitterman, district manager for Community Board 7in which both the College Point station and Tully Construction Co. Inc., the second city-contracted private transfer station currently operating in Queenssaid the College Point marine transfer station did not have an adverse impact on the surrounding area. "Because its within a corporate park it has had less of an impact," she said. "And, College Point Boulevard [a prime access route to the marine transfer station] is already a truck route."
The plan would ultimately channel all commercial garbage through the marine transfer stations, according to Gennaro. That would relieve still more neighborhoods of the burden of the trucks. Though Corona and Long Island City residents have not complained of garbage odors from their transfer stations, people who live in Jamaica, where much of Queens commercial waste is processed, have told local officials of unbearable smells.
Yvonne Reddick, district manager of Community Board 12, which has five such transfer stations, said that some area residents had told her they could not open their windows in summer because of the odor.
"If it happens, it would be great," Reddick said.