(The following article by Timothy Puko was posted on the Press of Atlantic City website on May 24.)
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A law that had threatened to allow the construction of an unregulated trash dump in Mullica Township needs to be changed, township Mayor Kathy Chasey told the House Subcommittee on Railroads on Tuesday afternoon.
“With respect to solid waste, we are asking that laws be distributed fairly and without prejudice (and) that the solid waste industry as a whole be required to operate in an environmentally responsible manner,” Chasey said in her testimony. “When it comes to a private industry that operates on a national level, there is only one practical solution — anyone receiving and transporting solid waste needs to be regulated under the same set of rules.”
Chasey joined a group of New Jersey officials asking a very sympathetic House railroad subcommittee to close a loophole in the 10-year-old Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act. The Southern Railroad Co. of New Jersey planned use the loophole to build a trash-transfer station without state approval in Pinelands-regulated territory.
In December, federal court Judge Jerome Simandle granted an injunction, halting construction of the facility while litigation was pending. He also indicated further judgments would likely side with the town and the Pinelands Commission. The railroad company has not pursued the issue further.
“Although we are more fortunate than our non-Pineland neighbors, our relief will never be more than temporary as long as the exemption stands in the law,” Chasey said. “Our fortune to date has not come without a great emotional toll on myself, our governing body and the residents of our town who, of course, had to bear the financial impact of this battle.”
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-6th, testified that in his district, Red Bank Recycling wants to build railroad sidings — secondary tracks connected to the main line — and a solid-waste facility. Red Bank borough officials are opposed.
“The Red Bank proposal and others throughout the state have shown that certain waste haulers are trying hard to avoid environmental regulation and to site facilities in environmentally sensitive locations,” Pallone said.
Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, a member of the House railroad subcommittee, and Rep. Jim Saxton, R-3rd, are working with the railroad subcommittee chairman and Douglas Buttrey, the Surface Transportation Board chairman, to work out a way to close the loophole. Buttrey told the subcommittee that the law’s “misuse is of definite concern.”
Pallone said that New Jersey has nine waste-transfer facilities operating under the federal exemption. U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., said that in the past year five such facilities were opened, most of them in North Bergen.
Chasey said she left Tuesday’s hearing feeling confident that Congress will take action to close the loophole.
“They made us feel very welcome,” she said. “It wasn’t adversarial. We were all on the same page that there’s a problem here and it needs to be fixed.”