NYC’s new trash plan land comes under fire

Trash bag mountains are being banned across the city, but recycling piles like these are permitted.

By Liam Quigley, Gothamist

A new report argues the sanitation department isn’t going far enough in its effort to containerize all the city’s trash, noting the plan pushed under Mayor Eric Adams doesn’t cover the heaps of recycling that are still allowed to pile up on sidewalks.

The report, which the Center for Building in North America and the Center for Zero Waste Design published on Friday, gives city officials credit for mandating that all the city’s businesses and small residential buildings put out their garbage in secured bins. But it also points out that paper, plastic, and glass recycling continues to clutter up walkways.

The group wants the city to eventually require recyclables and compost to be put out in the city’s new “Empire Bins,” which are slowly being rolled out in parking spaces to store trash from large buildings.

Clare Miflin, executive director of the Center for Zero Waste Design, said the city was too narrowly focused on removing garbage bags from sidewalks and failed to account for recycling.

“When you’re going to do something this big and expensive, I think you need to think bigger,” she said, laying out a vision where the vast majority of the city’s waste and recycling is stored in bins sitting atop parking spaces. “ We think that it shouldn’t be trash only. It should be for both recycling streams and compostable waste. All of them should be alongside each other in the street.”

The sanitation department plans to install those street-side bins in front of every residential building with more than 30 units over the next seven years. Owners of buildings with 10 to 30 units can either request for one of the bins to be installed or rely on wheelie bins that are set out for collection. Landlords with fewer than 10 units are already required to put out their trash in the smaller containers.

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NJ gives final approal needed for gas pipeline under Raritan Bay

By Benjamin J. Hulac, Julie Daurio | NJ Spotlight

WASHINGTON — A fossil energy company now has all the government approval it needs to expand a pipeline across New Jersey, through Raritan Bay, and into New York City after the Murphy administration late last week issued an essential permit.

Approving the project is a parting act by Gov. Phil Murphy, a term-limited Democrat, who, after President Donald Trump last year won a second term, said he would “not back down” on climate, no matter the administration.

New Jersey signed off on the project, called the Northeast Supply Enhancement Project, hours after New York authorities issued their permit — the final two steps needed for work to commence.

Environmental groups are challenging the project in federal and state courts.

Northeast pipeline project allowed to disrupt marine wildlife

In an interview Friday with NJ Spotlight News, Shawn LaTourette, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, said his agency approved the project because the U.S. government has exclusive jurisdiction over pipelines that cross state lines.

The state, he said, has the power to approve or deny permits on a project’s impact to air or water. “We’re not approving a pipeline,” LaTourette said. “We’re only evaluating its adverse environmental impacts and ensuring they are avoided or mitigated for.”

New Jersey environmental regulators twice denied environmental permits for the project, including in 2019, when the state blocked the project, saying dredging in the bay would stir up sediment contaminated with mercury, arsenic and PCBs — cancer-causing human-made compounds — impairing water quality. LaTourette says the most recent proposal addresses those concerns.

Approvals from both states follow sign-offs from a pair of federal bodies — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, an independent body that regulates pipelines, which issued their own permits for the project.

The firm behind the project, the Oklahoma-based Williams Company, plans to build a 23.3-mile pipeline underneath Raritan Bay to bring gas from Pennsylvania, east through New Jersey and to Queens.

Specifically, the pipeline would link Sayreville to the Rockaway peninsula in Queens. Williams proposed drilling 163 piles into the bay floor with mechanical hammers and pistons to “liquefy” the earth below and mount the pipeline, which will be 26-inches in diameter.

The project also includes 3.6 miles of new pipeline to run through Middlesex County and about 10 miles of new pipeline in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

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Massive $54M dune fill canceled after Wildwoods leaders clash

By Eric Conklin | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A $54 million plan to fortify beaches and dunes across the Wildwoods and Lower Township has been scrapped after local officials failed to resolve a long-running dispute over the project’s scope, state environmental officials said Friday.

The beach protection project between Hereford and Cape May inlets was fully funded by federal and state sources, sparing local taxpayers any cost. Nearly $2.4 million had already been spent on planning and design before it was scrapped.

On Friday, Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette formally notified mayors of the Wildwoods and Lower Township that the long-planned beach and dune project was terminated.

The project would have covered the towns located on Five-Mile Island, which include North Wildwood, Wildwood, Wildwood Crest and the Diamond Beach section of Lower Township in Cape May County.

The project aimed to reinforce beaches and protect homes from future storm surges—a priority since Superstorm Sandy devastated coastal towns and spurred demands for stronger shoreline defenses.

Leaders in both Wildwood and Wildwood Crest have expressed disagreement with the project’s blueprint.

Wildwood Crest was concerned that sand from its own beaches would be moved to other parts of Five-Mile Island as part of the beach replenishment plan, which would shrink the borough’s beach area, leaving less space for sunbathers and potentially hurting tourism.

Borough officials moved earlier this year to withdraw from the project.

The money will instead be repurposed for other post-Sandy resiliency efforts, LaTourette said.

“Unfortunately, after years of costly engineering work and many attempts by DEP to help resolve local disagreements, the project reached an impasse necessitating its termination,” LaTourette said, in a letter to the shore leaders.

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