Quinn, alone, stands firm on an East Side waste station
Quinn and Maloney. Azi Paybarah via flickr
5:02 pm Feb. 23, 20137
Four of the five Democratic mayoral candidates said on Saturday that the marine transfer station slated to open on the Upper East Side should be reconsidered because the area was flooded during Hurricane Sandy, casting doubt on a major piece of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's citywide plan to have each borough collect and dispense its own garbage.
Speaking at a candidate forum on East 93rd Street, hosted by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, more than a hundred residents, some wearing green "Dump the Dump" t-shirts, heckled and booed the one candidate who said explicitly that the East 91st Street location for the garbage facility should not be changed: CIty Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
City Comptroller John Liu and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio said they'd reconsider where to put the facility, even though they voted for the 2006 bill placing Manhattan's facility on East 91st Street.
Two others who cast doubt on the location, former comptroller Bill Thompson and former councilman Sal Albanese, were not on the Council when that body voted on the bill.
Quinn said she had a meeting recently with Bloomberg administration officials about redesigning the facility, but not moving it. "They're not, and I'm not, changing my position on the [marine transfer station] but we are doing a review with an outside expert on what structural changes need to be made," Quinn said, before the audience starting booing. "Come on. All right. Hang on," Quinn said. "Nobody thought I was coming in here and telling you the M.T.S. was gone."
Quinn said she fought to have a recycling facility built in her West Village district "because I can't stand up in this room and say your neighborhood has to take something if mine does not take one."
Quinn said the garbage plan was designed with the goal of reducing truck traffic, and to correct the historical problem of locating these facilities in poor neighborhoods.
At one point, a man in a plaid shirt yelled out, "Don't expect us to vote for you, baby." Quinn replied, "That's fine. That's fine."
Liu acknowledged he voted for the original citywide plan as a member of the City Council but he told the crowd, "in light of Superstorm Sandy, where we have now seen changes in the flood plains, it is absolutely reasonable to take a re-look that puts the specific site and location for this M.T.S., given that, now, apparently, it is in the flood zone."
Liu said he did not know where an alternate location could be found.
Thompson said he was undecided about whether to keep the facility on East 91st Street, but said he was going to tour the site soon and then make a decision.
When an audience member pressed him for a more definitive answer, Thompson, loudly, responded, "I'll be visiting with some of your neighbors and taking a look in the near future. I haven't said I'm supporting this. I haven't said I'm opposed to it. What I've said is I'm looking at information, looking at facts," and, "I think you'd want that type of deliberative response."
De Blasio also expressed reservations about the East 91st Street location, and agreed that flooding from Hurricane Sandy was cause for re-evaluation.
"I do think the effects of Sandy are now an additional consideration that wasn't there before that needs to be looked at carefully," he said.
But de Blasio, who has made favoritism to Manhattan a battle cry of his campaign, also cautioned the audience that any alternative site would have be located in the borough.
"I think there are some real issues that have not been addressed. Obviously the safety issues," said de Blasio, after an audience member had mentioned the potential for "radioactive waste" and possible accidents at the facility.
Albanese spoke last and said simply that it was "insane," to place the garbage facility on East 91st Street.
Eddie Bautista, the executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, said Hurricane Sandy was an inadequate excuse to re-evaluate the East 91st Street location. The facilities are built stronger, and the garbage is better contained than in the past, he said.
"To me, it smacks of pandering," Batista said when told of the candidate's remarks at the forum. "Quinn is being pilloried" for being too centrist, Batista said, but "out of all of them, she takes the most progressive position, in the lions den."
Kudos to Eddie Batista calling it correctly and to Speaker Quinn for supporting fairxness and justice for overburdened & beleaguered minority nabes.
BTW, it's flood "plain," not "plane."
Bronx4Life and other readers should know that Manhattan already takes care of its trash and three times more cost-efficiently than the plan for the 91st Street station -- and that's cost projection before the "adjustments" that Speaker Quinn says will need to be made. Moreover, there's no other station current or planned next to a ball field and sports facility (that teaches thousands of underprivileged kids from all over NYC and that tens of thousands more how to swim, play sports), within 300 feet of public housing, and 50 yards from other residential buildings. This trash station's placement has everything to do with horrible potential impact on young kids' lungs and overall health and nothing to do at all with Environmental Justice.
And on that last note, Speaker Quinn should be asked why an MOU to start construction of the Gansevoort recycling plant in her neighborbood has never been signed. It is widely believed that facility won't be built for another decade at least, if ever. Moreover, that plant wouldn't be subject to commercial hauling, which can contain radioactive and other extremely harmful waste, the accidental leakage for which the city's own contingency plan for the overall SWAMP plan (including 91st Street MTS) prepares explicitly.
As for reducing the overall carbon footprint -- Quinn's/the Mayor's plan does so minimally in order to haul garbage from as far as the West side nearer the Hudson River to laser focus a concentrated amount of diesel carbon-filled emissions on 40,000 kids and their parents when the current plan works or a commercial site can be found.
The only pandering here is Quinn pandering to the real estate developers and the uninformed in others neighborhoods. She's relying on your knee jerk responses. As for "justice", Yorkvilke already had a turn.
The current SWMP SHOULD be re-considered, the planning of which dates back to the late 90s, and is already antiquated and seriously flawed. In 2013 the city's focus should be on recycling, cutting back on waste, and composting, NOT sending more waste to landfills. By contrast in 2013, San Francisco currently sends only 25% of its waste to landfill and is on track to being a city that sends 0% to landfill. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/climate-change/jan-june13/recycling_01-25.... Under Bloomberg/Quinn NYC's recycling rate has to fallen to 15% from a high of an admittedly paltry rate of a bit over 20% in 2001. The rest-- 85%, is sent to landfill.
The SWMP also doesn't take into account the rise in sea levels and pattern of catastrophic flooding during the recent storms that are expected to continue in the future. The East 91 St. planned MTS (waste to landfill) was under 6-18 ft of water during Hurricane Sandy according to FEMA maps.. It is folly and throwing millions, if not billions after bad by locating a huge industrial waste transfer station in Hurrricane Zone A, between a playground, an aqua-center, and ball fields, in the densely populated, diverse neighborhood of Yorkville/East Harlem, which suffered severe flooded during storm Sandy.
The current SWMP SHOULD be re-considered, the planning of which dates back to the late 90s, and is already antiquated and seriously flawed. In 2013 the city's focus should be on recycling, cutting back on waste, and composting, NOT sending more waste to landfills. By contrast in 2013, San Francisco currently sends only 25% of its waste to landfill and is on track to being a city that sends 0% to landfill. Under Bloomberg/Quinn NYC's recycling rate has to fallen to 15% from a high of an admittedly paltry rate of a bit over 20% in 2001. The rest-- 85%, is sent to landfill.
The SWMP also doesn't take into account the rise in sea levels and pattern of catastrophic flooding during the recent storms that are expected to continue in the future. The East 91 St. planned MTS (waste to landfill) was under 6-18 ft of water during Hurricane Sandy according to FEMA maps.. It is folly and throwing millions, if not billions after bad by locating a huge industrial waste transfer station in Hurrricane Zone A, between a playground, an aqua-center, and ball fields, in the densely populated, diverse neighborhood of Yorkville/East Harlem, which suffered severe flooded during storm Sandy.
1. Manhattan's garbage goes to NJ not the Bronx
2. Manhattan's garbage includes that of the tens of millions of people who visit or work there.
3. The people who want this facility are exploiting "class warfare" by making it appear that Manhattan's rich are going to finally pay their share. But it's not the rich living in this area. I haven't seen many bodegas and laundromats on 79th and Fifth but there are plenty in Yorkville.
4. No other facility like this is located in a residential area and doesn't belong in one.
5. People should ask the Mayor why he wants to locate the facility here and not in other less residential areas
6. And for those people who still think the MTS belongs behind Asphalt Green please visit on a sunny day when the fields are full. Walk the Esplanade and see people biking, fishing and running. Wander through Carl Shurtz Park and see people out in the sun with their toddlers or grandmothers. Then imagine 200 plus trucks a day 24/6 and wonder why any sensible person would think this is the perfect location for a mammoth waste transfer station.
Although the concept of environmental justice is sound and I agree that every borough should help bear the brunt of its own waste, the site of the proposed MTS is right in the middle of a residential area. Every other waste disposal station is in an industrial or similarly underpopulated zone. Since the beginning of this fight, the community in Yorkville and East Harlem have encouraged the SWMP to consider other locations. To date, none have been looked at seriously, mainly because the fact that the current 91st facility exists -- even though it will have to be completely demolished. Mayor Bloomberg had in fact dropped the 91st MTS from his plan, only to have it resurrected by Speaker Quinn. She frequently points to her acquiescence to a disposal site in her district, but the Gansevoort site is not remotely similar to that being proposed on 91st.
Today, Yorkville is a thriving area that has recovered in no small part thanks to the lengthy reprieve we've had since the original MTS was closed. Bringing it back would re-devastate the area. Some justice.