Allan Appel Photo
The state has tentatively sided with an Annex waste-processing facility owner’s expansion quest.
Mayor Justin Elicker weighed in on the side of neighbors who oppose it out of fears that the air would get even dirtier in what is already one of the state’s most intensive asthma clusters.
The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection issued a “tentative determination” in favor of granting a permit to Murphy Road Recycling LLC to accept and process household waste from throughout the region at its 19 Wheeler St. facility.
Neighborhood management teams and local environmentalists have opposed various iterations of Murphy Road Recycling’s plan over the past year. Click here, here, here and here to read previous stories about that.
The company originally sought to expand its plant. After opposition it came up with a smaller plan: to retrofit its existing facility to take in 500 tons a day of municipal solid waste from the region, “mist it,” tip it back into trucks, then send it for disposal elsewhere. The company claims that the environment won’t be affected. Former Mayor Toni Harp agreed and endorsed the plant owner’s plan.
In the wake of the state’s tentative determination, current Mayor Justin Elicker issued a statement taking the other side. He called on citizens in a statement released Wednesday afternoon to participate in upcoming hearings on the matter and vowed to “explore our options” as a city.
“This is an environmental justice issue,” the release quotes Elicker as stating.
“The proposed expansion of materials the facility will be allowed to process is entirely for the benefit of our suburban neighbors, given that our own municipal ordinance requires all trash created in the City of New Haven to be processed through the Solid Waste Authority’s transfer station. And this facility is detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood and beautiful Quinnipiac River waterfront.”
New Haven’s east side state legislators issued a joint statement condemning the state decision.
“This tentative approval by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) to process waste at 19 Wheeler Street is directly in opposition to the legislature’s fight for environmental justice and against our delegation’s stated objections. New Haven residents have long suffered environmental discrimination in the placement of these type of facilities and are continuously asked to shoulder these burdens for the entire region,” read the statement, issued in the names of State Sen. Martin Looney and State Reps. Al Paolillo, Juan Candelaria and Roland Lemar. “As New Haven lawmakers, we are unified in our opposition to this proposal and we join with Mayor Elicker in encouraging residents to participate in upcoming public hearings and to have their voices heard. Furthermore, we will continue to explore our options on how to respond to DEEP’s tentative determination and ensure the best outcome for our City.”