Howland Hook Dredge Spoils to Utah?
Marine operations at Staten Island's Howland Hook Terminal, closed since 1986, may be revived as early as this fall, as the Port Authority has determined to send contaminated dredge sediment to a Utah landfill at a cost of $17.7 million dollars ($14 million from NYC, owner of the terminal, the rest from the PA). Seasoned critics predicted that the high price and local reaction like those in CT and VA where the PA tried to dump dredge spoils without citizen input and official consensus would create yet another setback for Howland Hook. Other terminals in the harbor, on the New Jersey side, used Thursday's joint meeting of the Senate and Assembly Transportation Committees to complain about their continuing lack of options and further losses if dredging does not occur soon, despite that of fifty NJ firms and agencies interviewed by the Alliance for Action for its Aug.1994 Intermodal Coordination Study, only six mentioned dredging as a problem. A task force covering those terminals established by Gov. Whitman has suggested construction of special pits in the Newark Bay floor, a multi-year project, but which has support from Newark citizen and environmental groups. Ironically, the PA is the applicant at scoping hearings on June 28 to construct those pits, while it seeks to send Howland Hook's mud cross-country. Assuming marine operations do begin at Howland Hook, resumption of rail service to it would further solidify its intermodal position, a matter to be studied in a recent RFP issued by the NYC Econ. Dev. Corp., but rejected in the PA's Goethals Bridge twin DEIS. Meanwhile, NYCTransit may cut bus service to the containerport, with a promise to restore it once Howland Hook is reopened. Borough President Molinari, who hopes the terminal will provide almost 1,000 jobs in the next five years, recommended against the cut, suggesting the idea was indicative of how "they [NYCT] operate in a vacuum." New York Times, S.I. Advance
