Colton: Gravesend Bay Garbage Station Plan Is Not Progressive

The following is a press release from the offices of Assemblyman William Colton:

For nearly the past decade, I have been fighting against the City’s proposed marine waste transfer station. This garbage station, which the City plans to build along Gravesend Bay, will adversely affect the quality of life for not only the neighborhoods of Bensonhurst, Gravesend, Bath Beach, and Dyker Heights, but all the surrounding neighborhoods across southern Brooklyn.

The Gravesend Bay garbage station is part of the City’s five borough Solid Waste Management Plan, or SWMP. This plan, including the proposal to build and operate a garbage station along Gravesend Bay, is not progressive or forward
thinking.

The City’s Solid Waste Management Plan is an antiquated plan of the same, old way the City has always handled its trash disposal: spending hundreds of millions of more dollars on more dumping and more transporting garbage to more environmentally impacted residential communities. The proposal to build a garbage station on Gravesend Bay is part of the City’s outdated management of trash. It is now time for the City to create a new, progressive plan with a bold vision for managing our trash. It is now time for the City to recycle and reuse our trash. Instead of creating new ways to dump and transport garbage in residential communities, the new City administration should be creating innovative, modern ways to increase recycling in order to reduce our waste.

For a City that wants to implement new, modern ways of solving our problems and addressing our concerns, it simply does not make any sense why we are relying on old, antiquated ways to manage our waste. The Solid Waste Management Plan, including the Gravesend Bay garbage station, only repeats the outdated, old methods of handling our waste. The Solid Waste Management Plan creates more expensive ways for the City to continue its old, failed practice of dumping and transporting trash. The Solid Waste Management Plan only creates more of the same. It is now time for the City to begin creating modern, innovative ways of managing our trash and reducing our waste. Recycling and reusing our garbage is the answer. Marine waste transfer stations are not. It is time for our City to implement a new, progressive, forward thinking way to manage our waste.

I will continue leading the fight against the Gravesend Bay garbage station in the court of public opinion. Our communities in southern Brooklyn will continue to fight with petitions, rallies, and other grassroots approaches until our voice is heard in City Hall. Our coalition, titled S.T.R.O.N.G. – SOUTHERN BROOKLYN, of elected officials, residents, community leaders, and neighborhood organizations has only become stronger and larger. We have support from every community in southern Brooklyn in this fight.

And I will continue fighting against in the legal court as well; we have received word that the Court’s Appellate Division has decided to grant our motion for us to proceed on the original record in our case. In other words, we can continue with our lawsuit against the Gravesend Bay garbage station without having the burden of making copies of thousands of documents of the original record.

Our fight against the Gravesend Bay garbage station continues! If you would like to help or become involved, please contact my community office, located at 155 Kings Highway, Brooklyn, NY 11223, or call us at 718-236-1598. You can also visit our coalition’s (S.T.R.O.N.G. – SOUTHERN BROOKLYN) official website at strongsouthernbrooklyn.net, where there is an online petition available to sign.