Bloomberg really wants trash near LaGuardia runway

From the Daily News:

The Bloomberg administration was crowing Tuesday about a court victory against opponents of a garbage transfer station near LaGuardia Airport in Queens.

The opponents claim the trash will attract birds, posing a threat to aircraft like the US Airways plane that pilot Chesley Sullenberger landed in the Hudson River after a bird strike in 2009.

Sullenberger last year lent his voice to the opposition.

But the administration insists the College Point transfer station will be safe. Various courts have now ruled 11 times “against those who don’t want to bear their fair share” of the garbage load, a Bloomberg spokesman said in a statement.

I guess all the other crap that the administration has dumped on College Point over the years doesn't count.

An air accident waiting to happen?

From the Queens Courier:

A panel of aviation experts trashed the city at a recent town hall meeting for not dumping a nearly completed waste transfer station project they say would be detrimental to the safety of fliers and quality of life for Queens residents.

“It’s just an accident waiting to happen,” said Jack Friedman, executive director of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, at the September 20 meeting held at the Flushing Library. “It would be a tremendous, tremendous mistake to keep on going. Just because we started doesn’t mean we can’t stop it.”


The North Shore Marine Transfer station, currently under construction in College Point, is close to three-quarters done, with expected completion in 2013, officials said. But nearing the eleventh hour, critics say the project — located approximately 2,206 feet away from one of two major runways at LaGuardia Airport — still should never have been approved.


“The North Shore Marine Transfer Station will endanger all who fly here and all who live here,” said James Hall, a former head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). “Why has the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allowed this to happen? We don’t know and they won’t say.”


Hall joined a nine-member panel of experts who called for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to pull the plug on the project.

Budget cuts mean more trash for outer boroughs

From the NY Post:

Manhattan residents can breathe easier -- but not those in other boroughs.

Budget cuts mean the city will be delaying construction of three sanitation transfer stations in Manhattan, prompting politicians from the outer boroughs -- where much of the city's trash is handled -- to cry foul yesterday.

Jason Post, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, blamed the five-year delays for construction at stations on East 91st Street, West 59th Street and the Gansevoort Terminal on the West Side of Manhattan on the budget. The administration also is delaying the Southwest Brooklyn Marine Transfer Station.