Waste Plant Gets 2 Years, With 23 Conditions

A controversial Annex waste transfer station won permission to keep its doors open for another two years — so long as it takes extra steps to cut down on rodents, bad smells, speeding and idling trucks, and inadmissible wet trash.

That was the outcome of Wednesday night’s special meeting of the City Plan Commission. The three-hour virtual meeting took place online via Zoom.

Following up on two previous meetings on the subject, and after hours upon hours of deliberations Wednesday night, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve Murphy Road Recycling’s special permit renewal application to operate an existing solid waste facility at 19 Wheeler St.

The commissioners also voted unanimously to approve the company’s related site plan and coastal site plan applications for the Annex operation.

That means that, for at least the next two years, the company will continue to be allowed 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 at its facility on a 15-acre site adjacent to the Quinnipiac River. 

Murphy Road Recycling has operated out of that site since 2007. It shares the Wheeler Street property with the trash trucking business All American Waste and with a compressed natural gas fuel station. 

In recent years, it has been the subject of heated public hearing after public hearing in which it has defended itself as a well-run and necessary industrial business — and during which Annex neighbors and local environmental advocates have criticized it for running a loud, filthy, and smelly operation, even as city officials have stated that the company has not been cited for breaking any local laws.

While the commissioners did sign off on Murphy Road Recycling’s special permit renewal application Wednesday night, they imposed a number of new environmentally minded and neighborhood-quality-of-life conditions of approval.

They also imposed a tighter timeline than the company had initial sought.

For one, the commissioners limited the special permit’s duration to two years, rather than the state-allowed maximum of five.

That means that, if it wants to keep operating in its current Annex location, Murphy Road Recycling and its lawyers, engineers, and advocates will have to come back before the City Plan Commission in 2024 to go through the same special permit renewal process they have gone through over the past four months. 

The commissioners put in place a requirement that Murphy Road Recycling conduct a ​“pest control survey” of its own property and of any neighboring properties that opt in, and that the company then implement any ​“recommended control measures” to come out of such a survey.

And they required that the company put together a ​“vehicle idling mitigation plan” as well as a ​“putrescible waste and odor mitigation plan” that Murphy Road Recycling will have to provide to City Plan Department staff in the next six months. Per the condition of approval, the company will then have to provide city staff with quarterly reports on the implementation of those plans to cut down on truck idling and speeding, as well as on reducing the incidental introduction of wet trash — i.e., household garbage — to a site that allows dry waste only.

Those were just three of the conditions of approval attached to the now-approved two-year special permit Wednesday night. 

The commissioners ultimately signed off on attaching 23 different conditions in total. (See below for a full list of those other 20 conditions, some of which are new to this year’s special permit renewal process, some of which were included in the special permit that Murphy Road Recycling last received for this site back in 2016.)

“It does seem to me that there’s substantial evidence that, in its present operation … that some of the costs of operating this enterprise are being laid on the people who live around there,” Commission Vice-Chair Ed Mattison said on Wednesday night. ​“It’s much harder for them to live comfortably than it might otherwise be.”

That doesn’t mean that the business should be shut down entirely, he continued. But it does mean that the commission can and should exercise stricter oversight in some way during this special permit renewal process.

“How can we limit the damage that the applicant’s business, whether they intend it or not, is doing to the people who live near it, and how do we make sure that, just because we make it a condition, that it is not ignored, but that it is actually carried out?”

One of the clearest routes towards mitigating that neighborhood harm, the commissioners decided, was to grant a special permit duration that was less than the five-year maximum allowed by the state.

City Plan Commission Chair Leslie Radcliffe initially pushed for a one-year term. That would mean that Murphy Road Recycling would have to come back before the commission in 2023 — when the commissioners would be able to press the company again on if and how it’s become a better Annex neighbor.

“I think that’s an adequate time to check in,” she said. ​“I would suggest a year with a check-in to see that there is either movement or improvement.”

Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand and new commission member Joshua Van Hoesen advocated instead for a two-year term, and ultimately prevailed.

“I’m of the opinion that two years is about as brief as I think we should make it,” Marchand said. He said that’s the best balance between keeping the ​“heat on” and ensuring accountability, giving the company time to flesh out and put in place its new vehicle idling, odor, and wet waste reduction plans, and not jamming up the already busy City Plan Commission and City Plan Department with an untenable level of work on this one project.

Van Hoesen agreed. It can take a ​“long time” for a large organization to make shifts like these being required by the commission, he said. ​“You have contracts you have to deal with, internal auditing that has to be done.” Doing all of that in a year — or, really, six months, given that the company would have to apply again for the special permit in advance of its expiration date — ​“would not be doable for a company unless if they took on additional resources to accomplish that.”

Radcliffe said those all seemed like good reasons to go with two years rather than one, and ultimately joined her colleagues in voting unanimously in support of that two-year term.

Over the course of the meeting, Van Hoesen detailed his rationale behind supporting conditions that require Murphy Road Recycling to come up with its own vehicle idling, odor, and wet waste mitigation plans — rather than having the commissioners detailing exactly what those plans should be.

Yes, he noted, Murphy Road Recycling has not received any specific citations from city inspectors indicating that they have clearly broken any rules or regulations.

Nevertheless, based on critical testimony from the public, a so-called ​“intervenor” in the special permit renewal hearings, and the city’s environmental health director, ​“I think as a commission, we’re telling them: ​‘Listen, we don’t believe that you’re meeting these criteria. We know you haven’t been cited, but you’re not meeting expectations. And … if you do not try to address these things, then the special permit is not going to be a thing in the future.”

These new conditions are essentially ​“us communicating to them that there’s an issue that needs to be resolved, and we’re giving them time to resolve it,” Van Hoesen said, or else they might not renew the special permit next time.

No Wet Waste; No Trucks On Goodwin; No Litter, Trash, Debris

Below are 20 of the 23 conditions of approval that the commissioners included on Wednesday night with Murphy Road Recycling’s special permit for 19 Wheeler St. These conditions are quoted directly from the draft staff report put together in advance of the meeting by the City Plan Department. The three other conditions of approval, described above, pertain to a two-year duration for the permit, a pest control survey, and vehicle idling, odor, and wet waste mitigation plans. 

Click here to read the draft staff report for Murphy Road Recycling’s special permit application, and here to read the draft staff report for the company’s site plan and coastal site plan application.

• The Special Permit is granted to Murphy Road Recycling, LLC for its sole use and is not transferable or assignable without the express approval of the Commission.

• The applicant shall record on the City land records an original copy of this Special Permit report (to be provided by the City Plan Department) and shall furnish written evidence that the document has been so recorded (showing volume and page number) to the City Plan Department within 30 days of the date of publication of approval.

• Hours of Operation are limited to 6 AM to 7 PM Monday through Friday and 6 AM to 5 PM on Saturdays. Hours of Operation shall include the arrival and departure of trucks and delivery and removal of materials and equipment (Sec 46 (5) Operating Conditions (i)). No facility maintenance, loading or unloading shall occur outside of these hours. No operations will be allowed on Sundays.

• A copy of the new CT DEEP Stormwater Permit shall be provided to City Plan once the existing permit expires in April 2024.

• A copy of the renewal of the CT DEEP Permit to Construct and Operate a Solid Waste Volume Reduction Plant shall be provided to City Plan when it is received by the applicant.

• The site shall comply with all state and local regulations. In cases where City and State regulations differ, the more stringent standard will apply.

• Container storage on the parcel shall be limited to the area surveyed and shown on the plan entitled ​“Site Plan, Sheet 1 of 7” created by Barton & Loguidice and with a revision date of 1/18/22. No container storage will be allowed in the flats/terraces below Fairmont Avenue or above contour 22 as shown on this site plan. (Section 46 (h) (4)b.)

• ​“Roll off” containers parked or stored on the site shall not be stacked.

• The site shall be maintained free of litter, trash, and debris.

• There shall be no truck access or queuing to the site from Goodwin Street

• Non- ​“roll off” containers may not be stacked more than 2 high, or 15 feet, whichever is less.

• No municipal solid waste as defined by the Connecticut General Statutes may be accepted/handled/stored at the site, except as permitted under the DEEP’s Permit to Operate.

• No other materials otherwise regulated under §46d may be accepted at the site.

• Murphy Road Recycling LLC will prohibit idling of vehicles on-site and inform truck operators of this prohibition through signage on the premises and enforcement by facility operators and/or the Building Official. Existing signage shall be supplemented with signage at the beginning of the driveway at the corner of Wheeler Street and Goodwin Street.

• No hazardous wastes as defined by the Connecticut General Statutes shall be accepted, disposed, stored, or otherwise handled at the facility. Storage shall be done in conformance with proper fire control measures.

• No open pile storage of any waste materials, including but not limited to tires or wood, and listed in this permit application are allowed. All waste must be received and stored indoors or in a proper closed container for outdoor storage as allowed by the Permit to Operate.

• The Site shall adhere to City Ordinances Title III, Chapter 18, Article II, Noise Control. Any violations will be strictly penalized according to Article II Sec. 18 – 82. — Violations and penalties.

• As is required by law, there will be no storage or temporary location of wet, putrescible waste, or any materials on the site other than those delineated by this permit.

• The applicant shall post a permanent sign visible from the Public Way with a staffed phone number for the three businesses on the site, as well as phone numbers for the appropriate city enforcement agencies (Office of Building Inspection and Enforcement, Liveable Cities Initiative, and the Health Department) as well as CT DEEP. The sign shall be in English and Spanish and comply with NHZO Section 60.3.

• The applicant shall create and maintain a green buffer zone of arborvitaes or similar evergreen plantings to reduce noise between the site and abutting residences.