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Three years after the City Council passed a Waste Equity Law sharply reducing trash trucked to waste transfer stations in environmentally hard-hit neighborhoods, one lawmaker is pressing to roll back the change in his own district.
Councilmember I. Daneek Miller (D-Queens) is the sole sponsor of a bill that would lift the restrictions for transfer stations that deliver plans to ship out trash by rail — including in Queens Community District 12. The measure is scheduled for a pair of votes Thursday, while a key committee chair is out of the country.
While the existing law already exempts facilities that rely on rail as an alternative to long-haul trucks, Miller’s bill would fast-track the exception, lifting the restrictions for facilities that intend to begin using garbage trains soon, giving them four years to follow through.
“We want to make sure that there’s provisions in place where companies want to do the right thing,” Miller told THE CITY.
Among the trash station operators in the area, along the Long Island Rail Road tracks, are Royal Waste Services, Regal Recycling Company and American Recycling Co.
Not so fast, say Miller constituents who advocated for the Waste Equity Law’s passage.
They say that living alongside the waste stations in southeast Queens is a daily experience of environmental racism, with garbage trucks constantly rumbling down the streets and exhaust leaving them gasping for air.
Air reeks near the stations, they say, forcing them inside their homes and away from Liberty Park. A group of community leaders has even begun legal proceedings against two waste stations on Liberty Avenue in Jamaica.
“Clean air is something that we have to ask for on top of everything else,” said Oster Bryan, 41, chair of the St. Albans Civic Association, who held a sign with the slogan “We literally can’t breathe” at a Tuesday rally outside Miller’s office.
“We shouldn’t have to ask for that.”
City records show that waste stations based in Southeast Queens have lobbied Miller and other elected officials for years over legislation.
Most recently, Royal Waste Services paid a lobbyist to target Miller and Reynoso to amend the Waste Equity Bill. American Recycling spent more than $19,000 in total this year to lobby Miller and Reynoso, along with Councilmembers James Gennaro in Queens and Justin Brannan in Brooklyn.
Four years for stations to export by rail means four more years of keeping the windows closed and never entering the park, said Caroll Forbes, 74, who lives across the street from the stations on Liberty Avenue. She said she doesn’t recall the last time she set foot in Liberty Park.
“I can’t open my windows,” Forbes said, adding that her nine grandchildren were asthmatic when they lived in the neighborhood.
City Council Speaker Corey Johnson shelved legislation Thursday that would lift the trash truck caps as questions mounted over the bill, which environmentalists said would benefit a politically connected southeast Queens carting company.
The term-limited Johnson pulled the measure just an hour before sources said a vote was scheduled to take place.
It was a dramatic about-face after he fast-tracked the bill, despite it having just one sponsor, the area’s equally termed-out local Councilman, I. Daneek Miller (D-Queens).
Johnson also made his now-reversed decision to move the bill even though Sanitation Committee chairman, Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn), is out of the country.
This confirms Reynoso will continue Adams record of unaccountability in the borough president's office. Hope you gentrifiers are glad who you voted for.
Anyway...
Council insiders pointed to Miller’s endorsement of Johnson’s failed Comptroller bid as a likely explanation for the decision to move the bill despite significant initial pushback.
Johnson strongly disputed the charges Thursday when he was pressed repeatedly by The Post about the timeline of events.
“What you are saying, there is no truth, there is no merit. Zero,” he said.
His remarks came after a slew of statements by activists and Council insiders to the Post laying out their concerns.
“That’s the obvious connection — that Daneek endorsed Corey,” said Jen Guiterrez, the Democratic nominee to succeed Reynoso on the Council. “There’s just no other logic – there’s so many bills being waited on to be heard, and this is the bill? This is the one you want to prioritize?”
