Aliyya Swaby Photo
Students Mohd-Khairi and Russell report to City Plan on airborne mercury near the harbor.
A recycling company’s request to take in packaging materials has some people arguing that that’ll help the environment by preventing burning or burying trash — and some neighbors claiming that pollution might actually increase.
Owners of the company, Murphy Road Recycling at 19 Wheeler St., asked the City Plan Commission Wednesday night to approve a new permit to allow the facility to process “dry municipal solid waste” (MSW) for the first time — which would include packaging materials from box stores. Currently, Murphy Road’s permit allows it to process mainly construction and demolition waste, scrap metals and scrap tires.
Proponents and opponents debated the request before City Plan, with a top city official at one point changing his position. Commissioners put off a vote until at least next month.
Murphy Road Recycling has a permit from the state expiring Jan. 18, 2016, expanding the permit to include MSW — which the owner has applied to get renewed. Now it needs the city to agree.
The change in the city special permit would not lead to any “significant change in the operation,” argued lawyer Edward Spinella. The dry MSW otherwise would go to a burn facility or to a landfill, which the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection does not want, he said. The goal: “recycle more; divert less.”
The state permit allows Murphy Road Recycling to operate Monday through Friday from 5:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Saturdays from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Either way, Murphy Road would be processing 967 tons per day — with the permit change, 500 tons per day can be dry MSW, he said. It would result in a 1 percent increase in traffic.
Spinella provided an example of the material he wanted to allow into the facility: Home Depot sells televisions and disposes of the cardboard, the plastic bags and the wire around the box. Instead of sending it to the landfill, they put it into a container Murphy Road provides for them, so it can be recycled.
Construction and demolition waste, which Murphy Road has been recycling in the past, includes “bricks and concrete.”
The facility is located near the Quinnipiac River. At Wednesday night’s public hearing, neighbor Lynne Bonnett (pictured) argued allowing the facility to expand its permit would lead to increased pollution within city limits, when New Haven should be phasing out the industrial activity. She said the city’s comprehensive plan for development and land use “says nothing about wanting to enhance this kind of business in New Haven.”
Truck traffic going the wrong way on Goodwin Street is a “huge problem for neighbors” and adds to pollution, she said. Although the state allowed Murphy Road to process MSW, “the city still has a right to say no,” she said. “New Haven has more than its fair share of this kind of facility.”
And its location is “prime port real estate,” preventing people from clear river access, she said.
Two students from the Peabody Museum’s afterschool program, Anna Mohd-Khairi and Rachel Russell, joined Bonnett to show findings from a scientific project on airborne mercury east of the New Haven Harbor and Quinnipiac River. Much of the mercury comes from New Haven’s power plant, Russell said.
Commissioner Ed Mattison pointed out that the applicants were actually seeking to reduce the amount of material burned. It would be recycled instead.
Bonnett took over to explain the significance of the findings. Mercury is merely a “marker molecule” showing that if the recycling of the dry MSW led to pollution, it would travel widely, she said.
But do they release pollutants? Mattison pressed.
“My guess is they do,” Bonnett said. “I would love if you would measure the air quality now before they’re allowed to increase what they do.”
Matthew Nemerson, the city’s director of economic development, at first agreed with Bonnett that the recycling plant did not fit with the city’s plans for zoning and development. He said he had not met with Murphy Road Recycling managers and did not know how their operation would continue to fit in with the “master plan” for port access.
The region has been trying to move similar facilities to the Cedar Hill railyard between Exits 8 and 9 on Interstate-91, he said.
Spinella (at left in photo) said the company’s facility has been operating since 1991 and been granted special permits from the city since 1998. “This is what we believe and what your staff believes in consistent with heavy industrial zones,” he said.
Murphy Road Recycling has been decreasing its pollution output, in part by switching its truck fleet to using natural gas and working with the mayor’s office to having natural gas available to the public. The facility is good for the city, he said. It has not received citations or complaints.
“It may be that word has not reached the development administration,” Mattison said, looking at Nemerson.
Commissioners voted to close the public hearing. Spinella, his clients, City Plan staff and Nemerson took a hiatus from the meeting to talk through the details of the new permit.
Coming back to the table after the chat, Nemerson said he looks forward to a “closer strategic relationship” with Murphy Road Recycling. He said he would have hoped such a facility would be out of the city “many, many years ago,” but understood how much had been invested in the site.
The City Plan Commission has 65 days to make a decision on the matter and plans to hear it in January.
The railroad tracks were extended across the bridge to Waterfront street at considerable cost and effort, terminating one block from this business. Why are they not being used (by any business)?