Hackensack Riverkeeper Takes On Latter-Day Railroad Robber Barons

Joins with state, local officials to oppose illegal garbage piles

 

By Hugh M. Carola

On January 6, 2005, Captain Bill Sheehan, executive director of Hackensack Riverkeeper, joined state Senator Nicholas Sacco (D-22), NJ Dept. of Community Affairs Commissioner Susan Bass Levin, NJ Meadowlands Commission (NJMC) Executive Director Robert Ceberio and others to protest the proliferation of unregulated garbage transfer stations in the New Jersey Meadowlands.

For over a year, the New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad (NYSW) has been operating four unregulated and unpermitted garbage transfer operations along their right-of-way in North Bergen and they plan to add two more. Each day, the stations literally move mountains of trash onto trains bound for landfills in Pennsylvania.  One of the piles was reportedly built so high that it knocked out a powerline and caused a major power failure.

“This is a throwback to the dirty old days when towns throughout the Meadowlands were literally buried under trash,” said Capt. Bill as he gestured to a massive mound of trash next to a railroad siding. “What the railroad is doing is unconscionable and immoral.”

There are several problems that the Captain and his colleagues are most concerned with: the danger that polluted stormwater runoff will contaminate nearby creeks and wetlands, the lack of inspection for hazardous and toxic materials, and the real potential for fires in the large piles of debris that accumulate in the open while waiting to be loaded onto trains.

“We have no idea where it comes from,” said NJMC Director Ceberio. “We have no idea what’s in it and we have no idea where it’s going but either way, the land is not zoned for garbage.”

Because the NYSW claims that federal railroad regulations - written in the mid-Nineteenth Century - trump state and regional environmental protections, it is expected that federal officials will join in an effort to change those outdated rules. The NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and the State Attorney General’s Office have also committed to the effort to close a loophole “big enough for a train to drive through.” 

Despite the fact that the NYSW owns sites, many operators of these sites are unknown, meaning there is no guarantee of waste removal if the sites go bankrupt or the operators walk away. There is also no state check to ensure a site is not connected to organized crime.

“The railroads seem to think they can do anything they want without concern for people’s health, welfare and safety,” said Commissioner Bass Levin. “But that’s going to change.”

At the press event, which was attended by representatives from the Township of North Bergen, Hudson County, the Hudson County Improvement Authority, Hudson Regional Health Commission, North Hudson Regional Fire & Rescue and the North Bergen Health Department, Bass Levin and Sacco announced that they were forming a task force composed of the stakeholders already involved and any others that may wish to join the effort. An open invitation has gone out to the health care community, the business community and to any public interest organization that wishes to join this important fight.

“The Meadowlands and the Hackensack River have come a long way since the days when they were used as everyone’s garbage dump,” said Capt. Bill. “Those days are long gone and despite what these latter-day robber barons want, they’re not coming back!”

Editor’s Note: The New York Susquehanna and Western Railroad is the driving force behind former U.S. Congressman Frank Guarini’s attempt to have the 166 acres of wetlands he (coincidentally) owns in North Bergen exempted from the new Meadowlands Master Plan.