Local advocates fight Waste Transfer Station as construction looms

As you read this, construction on the proposed and embattled Southwest Brooklyn Waste Transfer Station at Gravesend Bay may already be underway.

Assemblymember William Colton and Councilmember Mark Treyger called an emergency meeting at the United Progressive Democratic Club (29 Bay 25^th Street) on Monday, December 23 regarding the demolition of the old incinerator located at 400 Bay 41^st Street. According to the Colton, the pair learned in court on Friday, December 19 that demolition of the foundation was to be started as soon as Monday by the New York City Department of Design (DDC).

“The fact that New York City and the [Department of Environmental Conservation] are allowing plans to go ahead and begin construction is most troubling,” said Colton, “but the fact that the city is rushing forward with demolishing the highly toxic foundation of the old incinerator during a holiday season without proper public input, is irresponsible.”

Proposed by the Department of Sanitation (DOS) as part of the city’s Solid Waste Management Plan (or SWMP), the station – which would be built on the site of the reviled Bensonhurst incinerator which operated without a permit from the 1950s through the 1980s – has aroused a myriad of concerns.

Among these is the impact of truck traffic on nearby residents, a potential increase in traffic congestion (all trucks would have to access the facility through the eastbound Belt Parkway service road) and the possibility that necessary dredging (to allow garbage barges to travel to and from the station) would bring up toxins from the old incinerator and potentially disturb unexploded munitions dating back to World War II now at the floor of Gravesend Bay.

The news that the city was moving ahead with the facility came not long after Colton – who has led the fight against it – filed an appeal in a case he had brought in 2012 to stop it from being constructed. The appeal followed a decision by New York State Supreme Court Justice Burt Bunyan that allowed the project to proceed.

Completion is planned for mid-2017.

Check www.homereporter.com for developing news on the poised waste transfer station.