Residents sue to force city and NYOFCo to fix their plants
By Stephen Baron
spbaron@hotmail.com
Like many Hunts Point residents, Tanya Fields, who lives on Fox Street, has been upset for years about the smell that oozes through her neighborhood. She describes it as like “horse manure and sulfur,” and says, “In the summer, it is like you can taste the air, the odors are so thick.”
Now the 27-year-old mother of three has joined nine other Hunts Point and Longwood residents in a lawsuit aimed at the city, which runs the sewer plant on the East River, and the New York Organic Fertilizer Company, which turns sewage into fertilizer pellets at a factory adorned with a distinctive red and white smokestack on Oak Point Avenue.
The lawsuit, filed on June 8 on behalf of the 10 residents and the local advocacy organization Mothers on the Move by a national environmental organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council, demands that the city Department of Environmental Protection and NYOFCo change the way they operate their plants to eliminate the smell.
The suit does not aim to shut down the two plants, which process about 70 percent of the city’s raw sewage, according to lawyer Albert Huang, of the National Resources Defense Council.
But it contends that for years the plants have operated in ways that violate state laws and regulations, denying residents “fundamental legal rights to use and enjoy their private property and neighborhood public spaces free from noxious and offensive odors.”
“We just want a reasonable way for them to help residents,” said Fields at a July 9 press conference at Barretto Point Park, which is next door to the city’s Hunts Point Water Control Plant where the waste of 600,000 city residents is treated.
“They could adjust the sludge delivery schedule, how they process it through the stacks and how often they open and close the bay doors,” said Adam Liebowitz of The Point Community Development Corporation at the press conference.
There was no smell on the hot and breezy Tuesday when more than 50 people showed up at the press conference, including representatives from Rep. Jose Serrano’s office, Mothers on the Move, The Point, the Citizens Advice Bureau, Sustainable South Bronx and Rocking the Boat. Residents said there have been few odors since the outdoor Floating Lady Pool opened at the park on June 27.
But, the people assembled said they have been battling the city for decades and NYOFCo for years over noxious fumes.
Mothers on the Move has organized protests; The Point enlisted the Columbia Law School Environmental Law Clinic to prepare a damning report on NYOFCo; children at St. Athanasius School kept “smelly calendars” to document when the odor was foulest; Sustainable South Bronx and other community groups bought stock in NYOFCo’s parent company Synagro to gain access to company officials.
“We’ve tried all the proper channels to reach a solution,” Fields said.
“I can’t have cookouts because I’m embarrassed to invite people, but I can’t sit on the stoop because it stinks,” said Lucretia Jones, a 53-year-old Hunts Point resident. “You smell it on the weekends and walking at night. I have to close my doors.”
In affidavits filed as part of the lawsuit, residents also complained that the odors have made them sick, and they have trouble paying electric bills since they are forced to run air conditioning all day during the summer. Hunts Point schools have closed windows and kept students indoors on hot days to reduce exposure to odors that could trigger asthma attacks.
NYOFCo is operating with the permission of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, but without a permit from the agency. Since 2004, DEC has fined NYOFCo more than 75 times for violations of laws, regulations and permit provisions, according to the lawsuit.
Residents have voiced complaints about the city sewer plant at least since the 1980s, according to Community Board 2 District Manager John Robert. Last November, in exchange for her vote in favor of expanding the sewer plant, Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo got the DEP to fund a study of the odor’
s sources. But the DEP has refused to make the results public.
Citing the lawsuit as a reason for withholding comment, DEP spokesman Mercedes Padilla issued a statement saying only that the agency had worked with the community board to conduct odor surveys and with 311 to improve its response to complaints.
The Point will host an information session on July 15 at 6 p.m., and a public hearing on the NYOFCo permits on July 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. at 940 Garrison Avenue.
To report odors, call the DEP hotline at 347-239-9791.