The problem began in the early 1990s, when the city government started opening transfer stations in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint community. This neighborhood possessed what is a commodity in New York City – a large industrial park with a lot of empty space in it. The City gravitated to it. The Williamsburg/Greenpoint area, one of the fastest growing in the city, became the garbage district du jour due to its plethora of manufacturing zones, areas to which transfer stations are restricted by law.
Community Board 1, encompassing both the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, contains over 25 waste transfer stations, double what any other community board possesses. One of these facilities, Radiac, transfers and stores radioactive waste. Recently, a setting regulations lawsuit deemed that clustering transfer stations in one area is unfair because these facilities should be distributed more equitably throughout the entire city. Williamsburg purportedly handles half of the garbage of New York City in its 4.2 square mile area. The waste transfer station on Kent Avenue is the largest on the East Coast, handling up to 5,000 tons of New York City’s garbage everyday, or one truck every minute and a half, 24 hours a day.
Recently, City Council passed the Solid Waste Management Plan, which recommends opening marine transfer stations in all 5 boroughs. The City has sent the Plan to Albany for State approval, where it is expected to gain approval without change. Under this plan, Manhattan, which currently possesses no transfer stations, will gain 3 MTSs – 2 to be reopened and 1 new construction. However, impending lawsuits from local neighborhood communities hang the fate of Manhattan MTSs in limbo, at present. City Council anticipates all the new and newly refurbished marine transfer stations to be open by the year 2009. Councilmember David Yassky of Greenpoint asked for a promise-in-writing that the currently over-burdened districts, such as Community Board 1, would have their existing land-based transfer stations closed permanently. However, the City Council did not include this resolution as part of the Plan, with the assumption that the new MTSs would greatly reduce the burden of the transfer stations currently in operation. Although, Greenpoint and Williamsburg did gain one victory in this fight, the former marine transfer station adjacent to the Newtown Creek Water Treatment Facility and the now-defunct incinerator will not be reopened. The MTSs slated for refurbishment in Brooklyn will be in Bay Ridge and the Gowanus section.
