Transfer Station Debate Goes To The Gulls

Do seagulls on the site of an Annex waste transfer station mean that the place is filthy, smelly, and in violation of city zoning rules?

Or does that web-footed, salt-water-drinking avian presence reflect nothing more than the facility’s riverfront location — and the fact that there are lots of seagulls up and down the coast?

That bird-centered debate circled overhead during the latest contentious, hours-long public hearing about the future of a commercial and municipal solid waste processing facility at 19 Wheeler St.

The venue for that legal, environmental, and neighborhood quality-of-life debate was, as has often been the case in recent years, a City Plan Commission meeting, which was held online Thursday night via Zoom.

The specific application up for debate was Murphy Road Recycling’s bid to renew its special permit to continue operating an existing solid waste facility in the coastal management area in an IH (heavy industrial) zone.

Murphy Road has operated such a facility on that 15-acre, Quinnipiac River-adjacent site since 2007. Its current permit allows it to process no more than 967 tons per day of construction debris and ​“non-putrescible” municipal solid waste (MSW) such as cardboard and paper products. Murphy Road also shares that 19 Wheeler St. property with the trash trucking business All American Waste and with a compressed natural gas fuel station. The property as a whole is owned by Airline Avenue Realty LLC, which is controlled by Frank and Gerald Antonacci and which leases the property to Murphy Road, which in turn leases part of the property to All American Waste.

Click here to read the public documents associated with this application. Click here to read a recent Independent story about this renewal application, and here to read a recent story by the New Haven Register’s Mary O’Leary about neighborhood opposition to the application.

Once again on Thursday, the commissioners didn’t take a final vote on Murphy Road’s permit renewal application. Rather, they closed the public hearing and promised to pick up their deliberations on the matter during a special meeting on May 25. 

Just as during another four-hour-long meeting on this matter in late April, Thursday’s hearing saw hours of impassioned public testimony from surrounding neighbors and local environmentalists. They criticized the plant as loud, smelly, unsanitary, a source of rodents, and a menace to the neighborhood and riverfront.

At each turn, Murphy Road Recycling’s lawyers and engineers rebutted those criticisms by arguing that the plant is well run, has gone to great lengths to tamp down smells and exterminate rodents, and has no documented history of city or state code violations. They argued that its operators are the victims of a bunch of angry neighbors who don’t like living next to a waste transfer station.

On Thursday, much of that debate was encapsulated in frequent references to … seagulls.

City Director of Environmental Health Rafael Ramos brought up those birds during his testimony about all of the complaints his office has received from Annex neighbors since February of this year about the waste-transfer activities 19 Wheeler St.

Those complaints have been about ​“noise at the wee hours of the morning,” he said, as well as about concerns that, ​“during warm weather, the smell is unbearable coming from the facility.”

Have you verified any of these complaints? City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe asked. Or are these just allegations that may not necessarily reflect upon any wrongdoing by the applicant?

“I can confirm the population of seagulls I’ve seen on the roof” of one of the buildings at 19 Wheeler St., Ramos said, with the implication that the seagulls were there because of the presence of wet trash to pick at.

“And the smell,” Ramos continued, ​“a putrid smell emanating from the property.” 

He said that he was in the backyard of a nearby single-family house earlier on Thursday, and he saw that ​“the trucks were less than 40 yards from the residential property, and that there was some putrid smell emanating from the property.”

“With the seagulls and the smell,” he continued, ​“it’s clear their must be some kind of wet waste.” (“Wet waste” — aka, household garbage — is not allowed at the Murphy Road Recycling transfer station under its current permit, and under the permit renewal it’s applying for. The company had sought permission last year to allow garbage from surrounding towns to be trucked in to its plan, but ultimately withdrew that application in the face of neighborhood and city official opposition.)

Neighbors and environmental activists ranging from Chris Ozyck to Laura Cahn to Anstress Farwell to Chris Kelly to Ian Christmann echoed that line of criticism throughout the night.

Madeleine Cahn read a letter from Fair Haven Heights resident and attorney Marjorie Shansky that criticized the waste transfer site for its ​“terrible odors, vermin, noise, [and] likely overnight storage of wet garbage.”

“The city has a responsibility to serve the best of interests of all who work and live in New Haven,” said Cahn, who chairs the city’s Environmental Advisory Council. ​“Abdicating that responsibility by lack of monitoring harms us all.” She called on the commission to limit the special permit to just one year, and not the maximum of five, if the commissioners grant it at all.

“This special permit process is not working to protect residents from these negative externalities,” said Heights resident Oliver Gaffney. He called on the city and the commission to work with the applicant to ​“update its odor and vector control strategies,” to make sure that they work closely with neighborhood residents, and to hold them accountable to whatever conditions of approval are ultimately attached to their special permit.

During her time to rebut such criticisms as Ramos’s, Murphy Road Recycling-hired attorney Meaghan Miles said, ​“What we have is a number of people who are raising complaints really against All American Waste. Nothing has been alleged against Murphy Road Recycling. Rather, what people are upset about is that they sit there next to a trucking company and they can smell odor.”

Miles stressed that All American Waste — even though it is a related company and operates on the same site — is not the company applying for permit renewal. Rather, Murphy Road Recycling is. She said All American Waste could continue operating its trucking business at 19 Wheeler St. even if the commission were to turn down Murphy Road’s application. She also pointed out that All American Waste had submitted an affidavit to the commission, swearing that it does not keep wet waste on site.

“It’s frustrating, because we have an operator in Murphy Road Recycling who really has gone out of their way to operate at the best level,” she said. ​“People I think are pivoting to try to go after All American Waste instead.”

What about the seagulls?

“Seagulls are everywhere on the waterfront,” Miles said with exasperation. ​“They’re all over the place.” That is not evidence that Murphy Road Recycling is doing anything wrong. She also stressed that Murphy Road Recycling has a state- and city-sanctioned protocol for separating and getting rid of garbage ​“if wet waste is accidentally received” at the site.

Fellow Murphy Road Recycling-hired attorney Jim Segaloff was also skeptical of the seagull-sighting testimony.

“A bunch of seagulls on the roof? Where’s the evidence” that that is reflective of a problem with Murphy Road’s operations? he asked.

“I have no expertise in seagulls,” he said. ​“I think that’s a pretty unreasonable conclusion to draw, that because we’ve got seagulls on our roof, that we created the odor.”

Radcliffe pointed again to Ramos’s testimony that he smelled a ​“putrid” smell and saw the seagulls on one of the property’s buildings. What does Segaloff make of that evidence offered against his client?

“Is that enough to conclude that we should be shut down?” Segaloff asked. ​“It may be enough to say: Let’s think more about that smell,’ ” if one assumes that indeed there is a smell, Segaloff said. ​“We’ll try more if we need to” to tamp down on bad smells at the site.

“But don’t shut us down, for goodness sakes,” he implored.

With promises to explore a host of issues during their upcoming deliberations on May 25 — including about whether or not the commission can approve a special permit for less than the five-year maximum, and about whether or not any conditions can apply to All American Waste’s sublease from Murphy Road Recycling — the commissioners closed the public hearing on the matter and adjourned for the night.