The New York & Atlantic Railway (NYA) is not supposed to be hauling Municipal Solid Waste (MSW)-by-rail containers that don’t seal and are not leakproof. So why is CURES receiving reports that stinking MSW rail containers are attracting rats from Mafera Park to Calamus Circle?

85% of NYC’s trash is hauled by rail at some point, which the Department of Sanitation of New York (DSNY) points to as being more efficient and less polluting. DSNY’s trash export budget has jumped from $500 million to $600 million in a little over a year — and that was before the US bombed Iran and petroleum prices spiked. At a recent NYC Council Sanitation and Solid Waste Committee hearing, DSNY Commissioner Greg Anderson testified that part of the reason trash export is so costly is that NYC does it right: for example, with sealed, leakproof containment of MSW. However, recent reports from neighborhoods indicate that presently DSNY is not getting what it’s paying for.

What could be going wrong? In the past there have been terrible odor problems due to MSW containers not being sealed and leakproof because they are dented or punctured, like the ones CSX was hauling on the Bay Ridge Line by PS 68 when CURES took this photo.

In railroad terminology these containers are “defective,” since they are visibly punctured and/or dented and, therefore, not leakproof and sealed. Waste Management (WM) shouldn’t have been using them. NYA should have refused to pick them up at WM’s transfer stations: Varick Ave. and Review Ave. And CSX shouldn’t have been hauling them.

When CURES brought this to the attention of WM, they said they were having trouble getting replacement containers, so they were using these in the interim.

Something else that seems to be going wrong is the “dwell time” for these “hot loads” of MSW. The rail containers are supposed to move expeditiously from the transfer stations where they are loaded to a landfill or incinerator for disposal of trash. However, residents from Calamus Circle told CURES that containers are sitting around for days. People living ten blocks away report smelling the stench from them and there have been numerous rat sightings.

The US DOT Federal Railroad Administration has no jurisdiction over these rail containers of waste because it is deemed federally “non-hazardous.” It’s the railroads and WM that are contractually obligated to DSNY to maintain standards.

Does DSNY get the calls that residents make to 311 about foul odors from rail containers? Do DSNY inspectors ever come out to see and smell MSW containers at the transfer stations and in railroad right of ways, say by Mafera Park or Calamus Circle, the way they investigate and enforce residential compliance? In the past DSNY has been responsive.

In 2010, then Queens Community Board-5 Chair Vincent Arcuri, Jr. invited Harry Szarpanski — then DSNY Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Long Term Export — to come out to Middle Village to see and smell what was going on. At that time DSNY and WM were using vented containers that emitted foul odors and attracted vectors, including rats and clouds of flies. Harry took an interest, and talked to the neighbors, WM, and the railroads. Harry negotiated sealed, leakproof containers, which took two years to implement in Queens and Staten Island. NYA enacted a railroad tariff for this. The stench neighbors are smelling now means that some kind of corner-cutting is going on. Nothing lasts forever.

Everything has to be maintained. Once again DSNY needs to step in, investigate, and enforce to make sure NYC taxpayers are getting their money’s worth and that neighborhood health and quality of life are protected.
Residents can help reduce NYC’s odors from rail containers — and export tonnage and costs — by putting all food scraps in their brown bins. The main reason rail containers stink is because more than one-third of black bag trash is still food waste that should not be in there. That extra food waste export tonnage is a boon for rats — and for NYA’s, CSX’s, and WM’s profits — but not for residents who live with waste-by-rail, NYC taxpayers, or DSNY’s budget.

So please, pitch in. Use your brown bin.