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New Waste
Program By REUVEN BLAU
'We Should Take Over' But he has renewed his call for the city to shift control of privately-run waste transfer stations to city Sanitation Workers. "We should run it all," Mr. Nespoli argued. "The City of New York should control its own destiny." The Sanitation Department, however, has no plans of making such changes. "The transfer stations that DSNY owns will be run by DSNY," said Keith W. Mellis, an agency spokesman. "We can't run privately-owned transfer stations that we contract out to." Under the proposed plan, only the four new marine transfer stations in separate boroughs will be run by the Sanitation Department. Those stations will be located on the Upper East Side and in Brooklyn at Hamilton Ave. at the Gowanus Canal and at Shore Parkway at Bay 41st St. One station will also be located in Queens at 31st Ave. and 122nd St. Approximately half of the 12,000 tons of garbage generated daily will be transported to the new stations, which will cost the city an estimated $360 million to construct. In all, Sanitation oversees eight transfer stations. 'We Do It Better' Civil servants, Mr. Nespoli and other union officials have contended, are more efficient workers who cost city tax-payers less than their private industry counterparts. Former Mayor Giuliani, however, privatized the city's transfer stations over the union's objections. That move was part of the Giuliani administration's broader push to privatize various city services in an attempt to reduce costs. E.S. Savas, a Baruch College Professor who has written a book on the issue, argued that privatization can reduce costs by as much as 30 percent because it helps introduce competition. "The tax-payer gets a better break," the former Giuliani administration consultant said during a July 25 phone interview. "The best way to do it is to have competition; to get bids from everybody." Unions contend that privatization reduces the city's control over essential services and leads to a cheaper and poorly-trained work force. "Right now the privates can slow down the city of New York dumping," Mr. Nespoli said. "I'm always looking to put city workers in those locations." Current System Most of the city's residential waste currently is transported out of the area by trucks. The majority of it goes to privately-owned transfer stations and is then moved to landfills in different states. The trash hauled to the new transfer stations will then be transported by rail and barge, reducing pollution created by garbage trucks. The locations of two of the new transfer stations have created some controversy. Local officials and residents in the Upper East Side and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn have opposed the city's plan to place stations in their neighborhoods. But environmental advocates and many community leaders have praised the new plan, calling it a more equitable solution that requires each borough to deal with its own share of garbage. New Recycling Station The city will also create a major new recycling center on a pier in the Hudson River Park in Manhattan near Gansevoort St. In addition, the Sanitation Department will convert a recycling station on a pier near West 59th St. to an area that will deal with commercial waste. On July 19, the plan was overwhelmingly approved by the City Council by a vote of 44 to 5. In 2004, the Council under previous Speaker Gifford Miller blocked the Bloomberg administration's trash proposal. Mr. Miller was against it largely because he opposed the placement of a
transfer station on East 91st St. in his Upper East Side district. Current
Speaker Christine C. Quinn, however, has a much more cordial relationship with
Mr. Bloomberg. She supported the trash plan even though the recycling station
will be placed in her West Side district. | |||||
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