(Reuters circulated the following story on June 9.)
NEW YORK — Three hundred eighty-eight containers of garbage from the New York City area have been rotting in a Buffalo, N.Y., rail yard since December, reviving memories of New York City’s infamous garbage barge of 1987, when six states rejected its trash because they feared it was toxic.
Referring to the garbage containers in Buffalo, Linda White, an assistant New York State attorney general, said, “At times they stink a lot.”
The rotting trash is just another blow to hit the depressed city which manufacturers no longer prize for its Lake Erie location. Some 500 teachers may have to be laid off because of Buffalo’s latest budget crunch, and the state is weighing seizing control of its finances.
White has sued the shipper, Chem-Rail, and Canadian Pacific Railway
White said the trash containers were overloaded, so the trucks that carried them got stuck in the mud at the rail yard.
But Joseph Jacobi, an owner of Express Intermodal, which was unloading the containers, says the problem was that the shipper, Chem-Rail, ran out of money.
“Chem-Rail didn’t pay Canadian Pacific Railway, they didn’t pay us, they didn’t pay the truckers, they didn’t pay the landfill. So we just stopped working.”
Chem-Rail and Canadian Pacific officials were not immediately available.Unlike 1987, when a barge hauling New York City’s trash to a North Carolina landfill was homeless for months after the state declined to accept it, this time the city which produces 26,000 tons of trash a day is not on the hook.
City officials have no records showing they did business with Chem-Rail, White said. And Jacobi said the trash did not come from New York City but from the area around it, possibly including Connecticut and New Jersey.
White wants the trash hauled away before the summer heat intensifies its odor but that could take years if left to the courts. “But you should know that there are people working on a solution,” she added.
Jacobi agreed a clean-up plan was being worked out, adding: “It’s really not as bad as it’s being portrayed. The containers are sealed, there is no rodent problem. Sure, if you stood two feet away, there is an odor problem. They want it out of Buffalo.”