Connecticut City Looks to Clean up Yards

One front: permanently halting the influx of businesses that truck sewage sludge or dirty oil or demolition debris into New Haven from around the state, which then sends it back out by train or barge.

The other front: getting junkyards, typically old family businesses that rescue valuable materials from the dump, to clean up their acts without driving them out of business.

"We have an overabundance, far more than our fair share of waste-transfer stations and junkyards in New Haven. And our zoning regulations are pretty loose right now," says Fair Haven alderman Joe Jolly.

That's why he supports a proposed new law that tackles both fronts by imposing a ban on new waste-transfer facilities and setting tough new environmental, health and safety rules for existing transfer stations and for new and existing junkyards.

"It's a pretty straightforward attempt to clean up and get on par with other communities," Jolly says. "You can't find land in Guilford or Milford or whatever, because of the zoning."

Jolly chairs the City Plan Commission, an appointed board that held a public hearing last month on the proposal and is expected to approve it on Sept. 21. From there it goes to the Board of Aldermen, whose legislation committee is scheduled to discuss it on Sept. 26.

Two years ago, New Haven found itself drowning in other people's waste (including, though not primarily, human waste).

Despite vociferous opposition, state regulators had just approved a transfer station for construction and demolition debris, bizarrely named Circle of Life, on Middletown Avenue. The state had also permitted a waste-oil transfer facility on New Haven Harbor.

On top of that, waste-meisters had submitted plans for two other transfer stations, one for construction and demolition waste, the other for sewage sludge, both on the harbor, both intending to truck waste in from all over the state. The city already hosted a sewage treatment plant, sludge incinerator and garbage transfer station, as well as numerous junkyards, all serving the region ("Sludge Haven," Aug. 7, 2003, newhavenadvocate.com).

Environmental and neighborhood activists fought back and got the Board of Aldermen to pass a moratorium on these waste facilities.

The proposed new law grows from that moratorium. Extended once, in 2004, it will expire this November. Rather than extend it again, city officials want to move toward a long-term solution.

The new law tackles two problems: junkyards, and everything else.

The "everything else" category includes transfer stations or waste-processing plants. Except for the East Shore sewage treatment plant, which is specifically exempted, the existing facilities would have to meet tougher environmental standards; new facilities would be prohibited.

"New Haven is overburdened by these facilities, and they hurt our health and environment," says Lynne Bonnett, chair of the New Haven Environmental Justice Network, who spoke in favor of the ordinance at an Aug. 17 City Plan Commission hearing. "We're not going to continue to be the regional dumping ground."

Most of the speakers at the meeting, though, were junkyard operators and their lawyers. Some opposed the new regulations outright, recalls City Plan staffer Mike Piscitelli. Others objected to specific rules, like the requirement for a 25-foot fire lane encircling each junkyard.

Piscitelli says the city is committed to working with junkyard owners to make their yards cleaner and safer without driving them out of business. After the public hearing, his department convened a workshop on the proposed regs, which Piscitelli expects will get tweaked before the City Plan Commission votes next week.

Metal Management, a Chicago-based scrap dealer that owns the Bixon scrap yard near New Haven's West River, has been among the most active would-be tweakers.

"Regulation is a good thing so long as it's not well beyond where you're getting real benefits to the environment," says John Hayworth, Metal Management's national director of environmental health and safety.

Owners of smaller, family-run junkyards, such as Fair Haven's Alderman-Dow and Regan Metals, also spoke at the hearing, but they couldn't be reached for comment.

Surprisingly, the proposed ban on other kinds of waste facilities has drawn little attention and "no adverse feedback," Piscitelli says.

Maybe our "Sludge Haven" days are finally numbered. New Haven Advocate