Marine Transfer Station

The city’s ambitious goal to send zero waste to landfills by 2030 makes two controversial garbage transfer stations — including one on the Upper East Side — unnecessary, and a waste of $390 million, a group of pols charged.  

A new study finds that the plan for an Upper East Side waste transfer station would triple its current costs to the city.

The Independent Budget Office's study says it currently costs $93 a ton to drive trash from Manhattan to New Jersey and Yonkers.

It indicates the transfer station would bring that cost to $278 per ton.

The total cost over the next 20 years would increase from $253 million to $632 million, which is actually a more expensive estimate than the budget office made two years ago when it looked at the issue. 

City Councilman Ben Kallos, who requested the report, hopes the numbers will encourage Mayor Bill de Blasio to end the plan for the transfer station, which has drawn several protests over the months.

The proposed Upper East Side waste-transfer station would cost triple what the city currently pays to transport garbage through the borough, according to a study from the Independent Budget Office.

Moving garbage to New Jersey and Yonkers for incineration would cost $278 per ton through the controversial station, rather than $93 per ton, as it does now. Over the next 20 years, the city would pay $632 million to dispose of Manhattan’s trash with the new station at East 91st Street. The price tag now is $253 million.

“The per-ton export cost is higher under the MTS option due to the more costly multimodal method of transporting the waste from the transfer station to its final destination via barge and rail,” a spokesperson for the Independent Budget Office told the New York Post.

City Council member Ben Kallos of the Upper East Side requested the study in April.

Transporting Manhattan’s garbage through a controversial ­Upper East Side waste-transfer station would cost triple what the city is now paying, according to a new study.

The findings of the Independent Budget Office provided new ammunition to opponents who have been fighting the waterfront transfer station since it was first proposed in 2006 by the Bloomberg administration.

The IBO said trash that now costs $93 a ton to ship to New Jersey and Yonkers for incineration would cost $278 a ton via the transfer station, which is ­ under construction.

Though construction for the 91st St. Upper East Side garbage station is already underway and slated for completion by March 2016, city and state elected officials opposed to its existence are not letting up.

On Sunday, they gathered with local residents and anti-garbage-station groups in front of the construction site, calling for a public hearing to review the permits the city obtained from the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC). 

The permits, issued back in 2009, are due for renewal this October. U.S. representative Carolyn Maloney, state assemblywoman Deborah Glick, city councilman Ben Kallos, and others argue that since the permits were first issued, new federal standards have been established to improve resiliency post-Superstorm Sandy, which will now place the garbage station within a flood zone.

The basic philosophy behind the Solid Waste Management Plan is to establish a more equitable -and less impactful- waste processing system, with infrastructure in every borough. Not surprisingly, communities targeted for new and/or upgraded waste infrastructure facilities are responding with bitter opposition.

Opponents to the 91st St Marine Transfer Station say that, besides taking DSNY trucks off the road, the station will not contribute to a more environmentally sustainable waste management system in New York City. "It [the transfer station] harms residents," said Council Member Ben Kallos, who represents the area.

"Instead of being located in an industrial area, it is being placed...between an Olympic training ground serving 30,000 children from all five boroughs and a public housing development with 1,173 units, and within feet of 6 schools and 22,056 residents."

Opponents like Kallos argue that the City should be focused on reducing the actual waste stream, and not on large capital projects.

Councilman Ben Kallos condemned the arrests and the city’s actions.

“We as a community joined together in a grassroots action to exercise our First Amendment rights,” said Kallos. “It’s a dark day for democracy when an administration is arresting seniors and NYCHA residents who are trying to protect a children’s playground from a garbage dump.”

In a letter to City Hall, six elected officials—including City Councilman Ben Kallos, State Senator Liz Kruger, and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney—are calling for increased oversight from Mayor de Blasio, as well as a probe into the project's budget similar to the one he recently announced over the new 911 system that's $1 billion over-budget and six years late.

Councilman Ben Kallos (D-Upper East Side) urged the city to re-think the whole plan.

“It is time to re-imagine our solid waste management plan to reduce, reuse and recycle, instead of putting Marine Transfer Stations in densely residential neighborhoods,” he said. “A forward-thinking plan for a greener city will provide relief to over-burdened neighborhoods and protect the thousands of residents and students within feet of these proposed marine transfer stations.”