This story has been updated to add a statement from Covanta Energy.
If it’s up to residents of the Upper East Side, the shuttered garbage-transfer station on the East River at 91st Street will never reopen.
A new $2.8 billion contract between the city and New Jersey-based waste management company Covanta Energy now stands in their way.
Earlier this month, the New York City Department of Sanitation entered into a 20-year agreement with Covanta, which operates a network of waste-to-energy plants. It calls for the company to haul garbage away from the Manhattan port and one on the north shore of Queens at Flushing Bay, using barges and rail to “significantly reduce long haul truck transportation of municipal solid waste.”
The city’s Department of Sanitation intends to start sending some garbage out of Manhattan by barge from this spot on the East River. Photo: Charles Smith/Flickr
The city expects barges to start hauling trash away from the Queens transfer station starting in 2015, with service for Manhattan beginning in 2016 following construction at the East 91st Street site.
From the Upper East Side transfer station, Covanta will take Manhattan’s trash to two waste-to-energy plants, one in Niagara Falls and the other in Pennsylvania.
The company is investing heavily to prepare for New York’s mountain of trash. Under the contract, Covanta will invest $110 million in barges, railcars, containers and other equipment.
“New York City is a leader in addressing climate change which makes us particularly proud that they chose Covanta and our Energy-from-Waste solution to help achieve one of their important sustainability goals,” said Anthony Orlando, Covanta president and chief executive officer, in a statement. “This contract is also important to Covanta because it will provide a significant and stable base of revenue, further enhancing our already predictable business model.”
The Manhattan garbage facility, part of a 2004 citywide plan agreed to by the Bloomberg administration and City Council, continues to face strong opposition from East Side residents – and from many of the candidates seeking their votes in this fall’s election.
The transfer station is located next to the Asphalt Green recreational facility and across the street from a public housing development. Carol Tweedy, executive director of Asphalt Green, said that the addition of hundreds of trucks every day will make it hazardous for children to cross the street to get to the Asphalt Green campus.
The dump is “presumably protecting children in other boroughs,” Tweedy said, “but it will harm another 31,000.”
Among the mayoral candidates, Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bill De Blasio — both of whom backed the five-borough garbage plan in the council — are the only ones who have expressed unmitigated support. Other candidates have gone on the attack. “Simply unacceptable,” railed Bill Thompson. Current comptroller John Liu said that in light of superstorm Sandy, “it is absolutely reasonable to re-look the specific site and location.”
Neither the Liu nor Thompson campaigns responded to requests for comment on the new city deal with Covanta. Liu’s office approved the contract on August 13 and referred questions to the Department of Sanitation.
The three Republican candidates for mayor are staunchly opposed to reopening 91st Street, all promising to keep the city on its current course of bringing all of Manhattan’s garbage out of town by truck.
Joseph Lhota, who presided over the shutting of the transfer station as a deputy mayor for Rudolph Giuliani, “will continue exporting the garbage to New Jersey,” vowed spokesperson Jessica Proud.
Proud said that the contract is likely to include a termination clause, which would allow the city to end the contract without cause, and could include costs to the city for ending it prematurely. “But whatever it is, it is worth protecting the health and safety of the kids at Asphalt Green,” she said.
Neither the comptroller’s office or Department of Sanitation has yet disclosed publicly whether the contract allows the city to break it. When asked for an opportunity to inspect the document, both asked The New York World to file a freedom of information request.
Local opponents to reopening the transfer station remain undeterred. On a recent afternoon, volunteers for community organization Pledge2Protect handed out flyers and surgical masks. Among them was Monica Plimack, who has lived in the area since 1974 and remembered not being able to cross the street when the plant was operational.
“It’s the destruction of a neighborhood,” Plimack said. She added that the plant is a health and a safety hazard because of the high number of school-aged children in the neighborhood.
“This is a real neighborhood,” she said, “this is not midtown.”
