Regional Agencies Oppose Railroad Waste Expansion

By Andrew Gorosko

Newtown has gained the backing of two regional agencies in seeking to thwart the Housatonic Railroad Company’s proposal to greatly expand the tonnage of solid waste and increase the types of solid waste that the railroad transfers from heavy trucks onto railcars at its Hawleyville rail terminal for shipment for disposal at out-of-state landfills.

Town representatives attended June 18 sessions of the Housatonic Resources Recovery Authority (HRRA), and also the Housatonic Valley Council of Elected Officials (HVCEO) to explain the town’s opposition to the railroad’s waste expansion proposal.

The HRRA is a regional, governmental, waste management and recycling authority serving eleven municipalities. The HVCEO is a coordinating body of ten municipalities which functions as a regional planning agency with a focus on transportation planning.

The town is seeking to stop the railroad’s proposed expansion of its waste handling, according to George Benson, Newtown’s land use agency director. Prime objections include environmental concerns and greatly increased heavy-truck traffic in Hawleyville.

Besides solid waste handling, the rail terminal is used for the transfer and storage of building materials, including lumber. The terminal at 30 Hawleyville Road (Route 25) has operated since 1995. It has handled solid waste since 2004.

The railroad is seeking approval for shipping via train from its terminal up to 2,000 tons of solid waste daily. Until now, the railroad has handled up to 450 tons of such waste daily. Heavy trucks bring the waste to the rail terminal for reloading onto trains.

Also, the railroad is seeking to expand the types of solid waste which it would ship out from Hawleyville. Until now, the waste shipped out has largely been construction/demolition debris.

In a permit application now under review by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the railroad seeks to also handle contaminated soils, used casting sand, coal fly ash, dredge spoils, ash from resource recovery plants, sludge ash, treated woods, and scrap tires in the form of crumbed tires, shredded tires, and whole tires. The railroad’s DEP permit application indicates that it wants permission to operate the waste transfer station seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

Until the 2008 Clean Railroads Act was approved by Congress last year, the federal government was the only entity that had regulatory power over railroads’ activities. In Connecticut, the DEP now has review powers over the health and safety aspects of the railroad’s proposed expansion of its solid waste handling.

At the HRRA’s June 18 session, authority members unanimously approved a draft motion that reads: “The HRRA supports the Town of Newtown by opposing the operation of the Housatonic Railroad’s existing transfer station and any expansion, as long as the transfer station does not abide by the same regulations with respect to protection of the public, health, safety, welfare and environment as other transfer stations operating in the state…The [HRRA] directs its staff and legal counsel to provide any and all assistance possible to the Town of Newtown in its efforts to protect the public health, safety, welfare and environment from the operation of the railroad transfer station.”

At the HVCEO’s meeting later that day, HVCEO members agreed that Newtown and the HVCEO should be concerned about potential contamination of area soil and water caused by waste handling due to a lack of nearby governmental oversight and enforcement.

Additionally, HVCEO members expressed concern that an expansion of the railroad’s solid waste handling operations would put at risk regional plans to have Danbury serve as the regional center for solid waste handling.

In a June 23 letter to Robert C. Isner, of the DEP’s waste enforcement division, HVCEO members declared their opposition to the railroad’s waste handling application pending before the DEP.

“We request that CT DEP not permit the extension of the existing solid waste facility from the current 450 tons per day to the proposed 2,000 tons per day, and not permit the facility to process materials other than construction and demolition debris,” according to the letter.

“Due to federal regulatory involvement, key aspects of municipal authority over this proposal remain unclear. Both [Newtown] and HVCEO are concerned about potential contamination of area soil and water due to this lack of nearby governmental oversight and enforcement,” it adds.

Mr Benson said this week that Newtown’s land use agency will seek support from the Legislative Council on July 1, and from the Board of Selectmen on July 6 in its drive to limit the railroad to its current level of solid waste handling at its Hawleyville terminal.

The town’s lawyers are reviewing possible enforcement actions that the town may file against the railroad concerning possible wetlands violations by the railroad on its 13.3-acre property and near its property, as well as possible zoning violations, Mr Benson said.

A renewed push to enforce town land use regulations against the railroad comes in the wake of the 2008 Clean Railroads Act.

In a June 11 interpretation of that law performed for the town by attorney Philip P. Pires, the lawyer indicates that the federal law may require the railroad to comply with town wetlands regulations and town zoning regulations in that those rules may be considered to have the legal force of “state requirements” as described in the federal law.

In 2007, the town informed the railroad that its activities violated the town’s wetlands regulations.

HRRA

At the June 18 HRRA meeting, Colin Pease, the railroad’s vice president for special projects, told HRRA members that the railroad would not accept any household garbage or any “hazardous materials” for transfer out by rail.

A building would be constructed within which expanded waste transfer operations would occur, he said. Until now the railroad’s waste handling has been inefficient and noisy, he said. The improved facilities would reduce noise levels associated with waste handling, he said.

Mr Pease said he is willing to meet with HRRA members to address their concerns and reconcile any differences.

Newtown Selectman Herb Rosenthal, representing the town on HRRA, however, told Mr Pease that when he was the town’s first selectman in the past, the railroad had been planning to accept plastic-wrapped household garbage from Stamford for rail shipment out from Hawleyville, but a deal to do so had fallen through.

Mr Rosenthal said he had learned about the railroad’s intentions afterwards, noting that the railroad had never informed him that it was planning to handle household garbage.

Mr Rosenthal added he does not have confidence in Mr Pease’s current statements.

The railroad has damaged and encroached on wetlands, as well as encroached on adjacent private properties, Mr Rosenthal said. “I think it’s been a disaster,” he said, adding that land surveys will be done at the site.

HRRA Director Cheryl Reedy said that the railroad’s receiving construction and demolition debris at its Hawleyville rail terminal has significantly reduced such waste handling at the waste transfer station on White Street in Danbury. Waste haulers are bringing that type of debris to the railroad because it charges lower disposal fees than does the White Street facility, she said.

Thus, the value of the White Street transfer station has decreased, she said. Ms Reedy noted that the HRRA has endorsed the City of Danbury’s efforts to acquire the White Street facility.

Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton stressed that the Danbury facility is intended to be the regional solid waste transfer station.

The railroad is seeking to become an entrepreneur in the waste disposal business, Mr Boughton said.

Mr Pease said the railroad considers the shipment of contaminated soil by rail to be “a big growth business in Connecticut.”

The mayor said that the Housatonic Railroad’s acquiring the waste disposal business of haulers who formerly brought their waste to the White Street transfer station is not “competitive,” but is actually “anticompetitive.”

“It’s a problem. There’s going to be litigation over this. I hope you’re prepared for it,” Mr Boughton told Mr Pease.

HRRA Chairman Mike Gill of New Fairfield observed that the contaminated soil proposed to shipped out from Hawleyville by rail “could be brownfield stuff.” Brownfields are industrial lands contaminated by hazardous waste or pollution.

Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi, who is a HRRA member, said, “I think to get into the transfer of contaminated soil is a bad move for the people of Newtown…As the first selectman of Ridgefield, I would be screaming about this.”

Mr Pease said an organization known as Newtown Transload, LLC would operate the railroad’s waste handling facility.

Mr Rosenthal asked whether the people working there would be skilled in waste handling methods.

Workers at the transfer station now review what waste is being brought there on a load-to-load basis, Mr Pease said.

“You’re getting the stuff that was coming into White Street [transfer station] and it’s not clean,” Ms Reedy said.

Ann Marie Mitchell, a Newtown resident, is a member of the ad hoc Hawleyville Environmental Advocacy Team (HEAT), a group that formed in response to the railroad’s waste expansion proposal.

 Ms Mitchell asked that a waste handling moratorium be placed on the railroad until it cleans up the wetlands in its area. She termed the wetlands “a mess.” The site is in the primary recharge area for the Pond Brook Aquifer, she noted.

Ms Mitchell said the noise level generated by the railroad with its solid waste handling is “horrendous.”

 

HVCEO

At the HVCEO meeting later that day, Ms Mitchell said HEAT will be an “educational advocacy” group regarding the Housatonic railroad’s proposed waste handling expansion. HEAT is concerned about the health and safety aspects of the proposal, she said, noting that the local government has no means to regulate the operation.

Mr Benson said the 450 tons of waste now handled daily by the railroad represents the daily transit of about 45 trucks.

“It’s just not the right location for it,” Mr Benson said.

“Obviously, we’re opposed to it. We feel it’s a regional problem,” he said.

Such a situation could affect any town that has a railroad running through it, he said.

“Hopefully, we will be able to set some precedents,” Mr Benson said in seeking HVCEO members’ support.

“There’s too many things we don’t know about it,” he added. “We, at least, want to limit [the railroad] to what [it handles] now,” he said.

“We have no control at all. That’s the problem,” Mr Benson added.

“DEP is not happy with it either,” he said.

The DEP is expected to take a year or more to review the railroad’s permit application for expanded solid waste handling.