There’s something rotten in Jersey City.
That was the consensus of city officials Thursday as they stood on eight feet of landfill in the Greenville Yards. City officials said that the 30 acres of landfill were the product of a yearlong illegal dumping operation that had recently been discovered.
“We will not sit idle and let this happen,” said Ward A Councilman Peter Brennan, who represents the Greenville section.
Residents of Port Liberte, a gated community on the southern end of Jersey City’s waterfront, have been complaining for a month about an increasingly potent stench emanating from the Greenville Yards. But the exact location of the stench was mysterious.
According to William Macchi, executive director of the Municipal Utilities Authority, MUA employees discovered a dumping ground on the eastern end of Linden Avenue by accident when examining an underground pipe in the area.
“All of a sudden, trucks started scattering when we arrived,” Macchi said of the scene.
Since then, the city has investigated the grounds of the former Conrail Railroad maintenance facility. Although Conrail still owns the property, its buildings have been gone for decades, leaving a vacant lot that stretches from the neighboring Tropicana building to the river. Conrail leases that property to New York Cross Harbor Railroad, a Brooklyn-based company.
Employees of New York Cross Harbor Railroad Corp. could not be reached for comment last week.
Police officially discovered that New York Cross Harbor Railroad Corp. had staged a dumping ground for construction debris at the site on April 9. To cover the debris, on-site bulldozers had topped it off with landfill. Although it is not known what materials are underneath the surface, further investigation uncovered that sludge was also being hauled, Police Director James Carter said.
The city impounded the two bulldozers, which have not been claimed by any party, and instructed the company to cease all dumping activities, issuing eight summonses for illegal dumping.
Since then, the Police Department has shut down the site and randomly monitored traffic to the area. Carter said that the police officers have issued summonses to commercial vehicles for any motor vehicle violations they find in an effort to send a message to the company that dumping is prohibited. Carter said that the traffic to the site has dropped to a few trucks a day.
According to Mayor Glenn Cunningham, any kind of dumping on vacant property is illegal in Jersey City. Without having any permits, the company is in violation of the law according to city officials.
But after asking the state Department of Environmental Protection to investigate the issue, the city received a legal setback when it was told that the New York Cross Harbor Railroad Corp. falls under the jurisdiction of the Service Transportation Board (STB), a federal entity. According to federal authorities, the STB determines how railroad property is used.
But the company is not using the property for transportation purposes, city officials complained.
“This is not railroading,” said Alex Booth, corporate counsel. “This is a dump.”
To take a “proactive” stance against the dumping, police officials will continue monitoring the area as Cunningham petitions the federal government to investigate the railroad company’s actions. If the ground has been filled with contaminants, Cunningham said, he wants the company responsible for the dumping to pay for the cost of remediating the site.