Some New York city politicians are proposing a mind-boggling folly: a marine transfer station within a few yards of Asphalt Green, a widely used children’s sports facility.
Writer Matthew Chapman had an excellent piece on the Huffington Post describing the sheer and EXPENSIVE stupidity of this giant garbage dump.
Here is some of what Chapman wrote:
This outdated, geographically-challenged environmental lunacy is rationalized as “environmental justice.” It is neither. The solution to New York City trash problems does not lie in building massive, expensive 19th Century industrial structures next to children and homes and then sending it hundreds of miles to poor communities.
It lies in changing behavior across the city. By the time the MTS is built, New York — currently one of the more backward cities in America when it comes to source reduction, recycling and composting — will be one of the most advanced. The genuinely progressive aspirations of Mayor de Blasio and the City Council will make sure of this.
And then an MTS as dangerous as the one at 91st Street simply won’t be needed.
If you want to understand the full scope and scandal of this gigantic municipal blunder, read the report, “Talking Trash.” It explains everything. The city has not refuted a single piece of evidence presented in it…
Budgeted at 44 million, the 91st Street MTS is now projected by the Independent Budget Office to come in at 240 million.
In other words a forty-four million dollar project will end up being almost 200 million dollars over budget!
It can not be repeated often enough: this colossal garbage dump is a colossal exercise in unnecessary extravagance and DANGER, especially to children.
Read the article here.
