When Mayor Giuliani announced plans in December to adjust to the closing of Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island by shipping NYC's waste to New Jersey on barges, the Whitman administration was quick to express its outrage. The latest plan - not yet announced officially - has provoked no such response, despite its reliance on trucks to carry waste to New Jersey. BAGS estimates that transport of the Manhattan and Staten IsIand garbage now at issue will bring 400,000 to 600,000 new truck trips to Newark and Elizabeth annually. While Trenton may be choosing to ignore the plan due to its temporary or "interim" status, NYC advocates have been warning for months that the interim plan could well become permanent.

NJ Department of Environmental Protection staff noted that, so long as the waste incineration and transfer facilities involved in the plans remain within the terms of their permits, the proposal may not fall within the agency's purview. DEP also noted, however, that local traffic impacts are taken into consideration in the permitting of such facilities, and that therefore a significant change in the origins of a facility's garbage input would call for a modification to the permit.

BAGS projects 80,000 new one-way truck trips over Goethals Bridge per year under the interim plan, an instant 4% increase over current levels. Unlike the many trucks crossing the Goethals en route to the NJ Turnpike, the garbage trucks would ply Elizabeth streets to get to transfer stations on Front Street and Julia Street, located at distances of 3 and 5 miles, respectively, from the Goethals Bridge. Moreover, 18-wheelers would carry the garbage from the transfer stations to landfills in Pennsylvania and Virginia, generating an additional 40,000 truck trips.

The Manhattan portion of the plan would produce 216,000 garbage truck trips between Newark and New York. According to the Brooklyn Borough President's office, this waste would displace garbage from other sources currently trucked to the incinerator in Newark, and this garbage would then be directed to transfer stations in or near Newark. This would add 82,000 trips by 18-wheelers annually to Essex County roads.

Link to BAGS