Results tagged “waste”

It was, oh, about one year ago that fisherman Robert Skonieczny first caught wind of an awful stench coming in the direction of Tottenville on Staten Island. Courageously, Skonieczny tracked the odors along Arthur Kill to its source: a storm drain spewing feces and other human waste into a marsh that feeds the bay! A call to 311 was placed, and he was told an investigator would be dispatched to the area. But over time, the smell got worse, the water in the marina got murkier, and the storm drain continued spewing feces, feminine hygiene products and toilet paper. Until yesterday! The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was on the scene and finally fixed an obstructed sanitary sewer that was diverting the waste to the storm sewers. DEP says they never received a complaint until this Monday, and suggested maybe Skonieczny's complaint got sent to the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), but that city agency tells the Staten Island Advance they weren't alerted until last Friday. In other sewage news, be advised this is not the weekend for a dip in the Hudson; some 2 million gallons of raw sewage could be dumped in the river Sunday while a pipeline is repaired in Yonkers.

Apparently New Yorkers make so much waste that the city's Department of Environmental Protection has to ship NYC sludge to the Garden State. According to the Daily News, "Sludge production at the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant - the last of the city's 14 plants to upgrade its systems - has shot up 28% in five years." City Councilman David Yassky is concerned that the Newtown Creek upgrade will end up costing $5 billion, over twice its initial estimate, and said, "There is just something very wrong with DEP's management of its construction projects." At any rate, the DEP thinks the deal with NJ was necessary (and it also means that less waste will go into the East River); deputy commissioner of wastewater treatment Doug Greeley joked, "[Otherwise] It would be constipating New York City."

The former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, George Marlin, is urging federal investigators to look into WTC rebuilding delays, since seven years after the WTC attacks, Ground Zero is mostly still a giant hole. Marlin is recommending that the feds look into the delays as beyond a matter of bureaucratic wrangling and incompetence, but an issue of criminal wrongdoing that could include waste, fraud, abuse, and the the misleading of investors.

The NY Times columnist Clyde Haberman is annoyed about shops that keep their air-conditioned stores' doors wide open and found other New Yorkers who share that gripe. One downtown resident was told by a Soho clothing store that the open door was "company policy," so the outraged resident called the store's main office, where someone "said they had a ‘green team’ forming."