No dumping here Freeholders look to block transfer station

Despite the county’s dire need for its own trash transfer station, the Hudson County freeholders vowed to block a site they had approved in 1997. Several freeholders at the Feb. 25 caucus complained that the site proposed along Route 1&9 in Jersey City near the on-ramp to the Pulaski Skyway would pose a serious traffic issue as well as concerns for residents living nearby.

Norman Guerra, executive director for Hudson County Improvement Authority, was brought to the freeholder meeting to explain why the HCIA was moving ahead to approve the site for a transfer station without seeking input from the freeholder board.

Guerra said the matter had been approved by the freeholders in 1997 then held up by the state Department of Environmental Protection on an unrelated matter. Once the DEP resolved its issue with the owner of the site, the process began to move forward to have the site included in the state’s waste management plan.

Nothing from the original proposal was changed, Guerra said.

The facility, if approved by the town of Jersey City, could handle between 600 to 720 tons per day. This would be about double the trash total generated from Jersey City daily or about 80 percent of the total daily output of trash countywide.

A hearing on the matter is scheduled in Jersey City City Hall on March 4, at 7:30 p.m.

“I’m opposed to this,” freeholder Bill O’Dea said, asking the freeholder board to rescind its 1997 approval.

While the original proposal claimed the site was on a truck route, O’Dea noted that the property – currently used as a recycling station – sits side-by-side with a cars-only on ramp to the Pulaski Skyway. He also noted that the application seemed to have overestimated the distance the facility would be to the nearest residents.

“This says the nearest residence is 450 feet away, but I can take you down there and show you,” O’Dea said. “Marion Gardens is right across the highway.”

This housing project, he said, has about 1,500 people who would have to see, smell and deal with the host of trash trucks making their way into the site.

Jersey City Councilwoman Mary Donnelly, in whose ward the transfer station would be built, is also opposed to the project.

“I stand solidly against this proposal,” said Donnelly in a printed statement released Wednesday night. “I stand with residents of the Marion and Duncan avenues area in opposition to this proposed construction project.”

Donnelly noted that area residents successfully fought for closure of the PJP Landfill project in the 1980s and should show the same resolve in defeating the transfer.

“Now we must rally and stop this transfer station from polluting our environment,” said Donnelly. “We cannot allow over 750,000 tons of garbage a day to be carted through and around our area. It is simply to close to residential areas.”

Freeholder Barry Dugan noted that the facility would have only one entrance off the highway and that trucks seeking to turn around to access it would likely clog up the already over-crowded highway circle used as a u-turn. Freeholders Bill Braker and Maurice Fitzgibbons said trash truck traffic could spill over into areas that would create and even greater problem for quality of life.

“We’re been trying to build up Journal Square,” Fitzgibbons said. “We’re bringing the college there and fixing up the theater, and now we’ll have trash trucks rumbling through it.”

Although several freeholders admitted they had talked about developing a trash transfer station somewhere in the county, O’Dea and others claimed this location was the wrong place.

“This is possibly the worst place in the county we could have put one,” O’Dea said. “Traffic there is already a nightmare, and now people will have to compete with trash trucks.”

Previous approval questioned

O’Dea said he was particularly concerned about the fact that the HCIA had not felt the need to go back to the freeholders for a current approval for the project.

Guerra, who took over as executive director a little over a month ago, said that the DEP didn’t believe new approval was needed because the freeholders had given the project their blessing in 1997 and the project was unchanged.

O’Dea argued that the 1997 board was comprised of a different set of people with a different philosophy, and that it is well-known that the current board would not likely approve of such a project, pointing to a similar project slated for Bayonne which the board rejected.

O’Dea, who came onto the freeholder board in 1998, has been a strong advocate of county control over trash, and once even proposed that the county purchase land in Pennsylvania for disposal of trash — an idea rejected as too expensive by then County Executive Robert Janiszewski.

Last month, Guerra appeared before the freeholders to explain a steep jump in the cost of trash disposal. He noted the increased fees at the Pennsylvania site to which the county sends its trash, and a new Pennsylvania state tax, as well as the lack of a local transfer station.

“The county will needed to find some alternate to the current system,” Guerra reiterated at the Feb. 25 meeting, “to bring down these costs.”

One reason bids on trash collection came in so high last year was the lack of a local transfer station, forcing the costs up for smaller trash haulers. If a trash company has to travel too far to a transfer station – where the trash is packed into containers for the longer trip to distant dumps – the company cannot afford to bid on the contract, leaving the bid to bigger companies that charge significantly higher fees for collection. Guerra said Hudson County needs to have a transfer station as well as new technologies that would reduce the amount of trash transferred to dumps in other states.

Make no mistake; the freeholders want to know it all

Freeholder Chairman Sal Vega, however, was very concerned about the apparent lack of protocol that left the freeholders out of the decision process. Although he acknowledged that the problem predated Guerra’s tenure on the HCIA and that Guerra seemed remarkably cooperative, Vega made it clear that the Freeholders were the deciding power in these matters – and that he would not tolerate any other board operating without freeholder approval.

“We do not want board operating without our knowledge,” Vega said. “If a matter is every in a gray area, we should be contacted.”

Vega – in a side note – reported a comment made to him by a former Hudson County official a few years earlier.

“This official told me that there is a lot of money to be made in trash,” Vega said, staring out at Guerra as if to indicate that where there is money, there may also be questionable acts the freeholders need to monitor closely. While Vega did not echo O’Dea’s belief that the freeholders were deliberately sidestepped, he did make it clear that he would not put up with such behavior even if it was unintentional.

Guerra said he had set up a process to notify the mayors and other officials of Hudson County towns so that everyone would stay apprised of the waste management situation.

Shinnick reappointed chairman of HCIA

John Shinnick of Secaucus was unanimously elected to his sixth term as chairman of the Hudson County Improvement Authority during their Feb. 13 reorganization meeting.

Shinnick, who also serves as the Director of Human Resources and Communications at Hudson County Community College, and whose firm serves as the county’s official photographers, was given a vote of confidence by Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, who attended the meeting.

“I look forward to working with John and all the other members of the board as we move ahead in the effort to improve services and control costs,” DeGise said.

Shinnick has served as chairman since 1997 and has been with the HCIA since 1995. Despite a recent spike in county trash costs, Shinnick has led the HCIA in maintaining one of the lowest solid waste disposal costs in Northern New Jersey and promoting environmental awareness. But he said during a telephone interview that he was most proud of helping the HCIA through the rough transition over the last two years.

“We had three county executives, and yet we managed to keep the HCIA moving forward,” he said. “I’m very pleased with Tom DeGise. I believe he has some very progressive ideas and want to help us continue our work here. I believe he is coming to us with a new outlook and a sense of cooperation.”

Shinnick, who also sits on the boards of Hudson Cradle and the Secaucus Youth Alliance, said the recent appointment of Norman Guerra as executive director of the HCIA is a positive step towards the future. Guerra replaced Tom Calvanico, someone Shinnick said did a great job.

“I didn’t know what we were going to do when Tom left,” Shinnick said. “We are very fortune in getting Norman with his experience in Jersey City.” (Guerra managed Jersey City’s trash program under Mayor Bret Schundler.) Along with approving Shinnick as chairman, the HCIA members voted Peter B. Higgins III as vice chair, Nicholas A. Chiaravalloiti as secretary, and James E. Byrnes, Treasurer. All are non-salaried positions.

The HCIA is an autonomous public agency that oversees solid waste management, recycling, affordable housing and transportation management in Hudson County.

“The HCIA is continuing to address issues like effective solid waste planning, promoting the development of affordable housing, and improving our recycling programs,” Shinnick said.

Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell was pleased by the reappointment.

“I’m not surprised to see John Shinnick achieve this level of recognition, because he is a very professional and talented person who demonstrates the highest ideals of public service each and every day,” Elwell said. “It’s clear that he has the confidence of his fellow HCIA board members and the new county administration. I know John personally and he is very dedicated to his family and our entire community.” – Al Sullivan

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