NEW YORK—Upper East Side residents living near East 91st Street are battling to stop the construction of a proposed marine transfer station, which they say will stink and harm their neighborhood.
The $500 million project would tear down the current trash transfer facility near East 91st Street and York Avenue, closed since 1999, and build a new 10-story facility for trucking trash across the river to New Jersey.
On Monday, State Assemblyman Micah Kellner joined fellow residents in filing the fourth lawsuit against the city over the facility. Kellner, who lives at 84th Street and York Avenue, said the city was required by law to perform another environmental review of the site, which it has not. He said factors have changed since the original proposal was approved in 2006, giving them grounds for their lawsuit.
The 2006 proposal had included two additional stations, one at West 59th Street, which has major uncertainty surrounding its construction, and another at West 135th Street, which was scrapped.
Without these two stations, the East 91st Street station would handle as much as 4,290 tons of trash per day—not the 1,800 tons approved in the proposal, Kellner said.
He said the East 91st Street station would be handling almost half of the 10,800 tons of trash the sanitation department sees per day.
“You are talking about two-and-a-half times the garbage rolling though our neighborhoods, and we don’t want any garbage rolling though our neighborhoods,” Kellner said.
A lawyer with the city’s environmental law division said they had been served legal notice and were reviewing the documents, but had no official statement by press time.
Residents’ Views
George Morin, president of the Gracie Point Community Council, is strongly opposed to the marine transfer station, which would be on the other side of FDR Drive from the Asphalt Green playground and community center.
“This was a commercial area, but now it is 93 percent residential … It is a vibrant playground and playing field for hundreds of kids,” he said.
Court documents show that the original proposal had approved 71 commercial truck trips to the East 91st Street station per day. Morin said that, without the other two stations, up to 186 more truck trips could go through the proposed facility.
Morin’s wife, publicist Kathie Morin, has lived in the area since 1980. She recalled when the original station was open, and the stench it produced.
“That was pretty bad. There were rats here everywhere. It really got better after that old one was shut down,” she said.
Alternative Solutions
Much of the city’s trash is trucked across the Hudson River to New Jersey. The marine transfer station was originally proposed to cut down on the truck traffic, thus reducing pollution as well as relieving traffic congestion.
Kellner said the costs of transporting by water outweigh the benefits: “We will drive it on East 91st Street, put it on a barge, and barge it to the same place in New Jersey. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Kellner and local residents were adamant that the East 91st Street site would not go ahead as planned. He said the city should compromise and find a site in a commercial neighborhood. Kellner suggested a former pier on the West Side that used to house NYPD tow trucks.
“It is in a commercial area, there are no residents around it and there is no thought of residential development around it. That is an appropriate place,” Kellner said.
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