N.J. installs giant cage to stop burning, killing birds

Meadowlands capping landfill’s invisible flame

Soon, there should be fewer birds getting burned or killed by a landfill incinerator’s massive invisible flame as they fly over the New Jersey Meadowlands.

Installation has begun of a giant cage-like structure about seven stories tall around the invisible flame at a local landfill to prevent raptors and other birds from flying through and getting singed or incinerated.

Don Torino, president of the Bergen County Audubon Society, has complained about the issue for years to the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which oversees the closed Kingsland Landfill in Lyndhurst.

Torino and other birders who have visited the landfill have seen many raptors with singed wing and tail feathers, and some that were so damaged they could not fly.

The agency had asked for advice from experts and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Most were stumped, but Public Service Electric and Gas Co. came up with a design for a giant cage around the flame.

“It feels good that they’ve listened and are finally doing something about it,” Torino said. “There were no other methods out there that they could copy. They’re giving it a good shot.

“It certainly will help with the bigger raptors,” Torino said. “Small birds might still be a concern. But it’s certainly better than where we were.”

The agency recently paid PSE&G $65,000 to install eight poles, each 75 feet high, to create the frame for a cage around the pipe that burns off methane from the landfill. Bacteria generate methane in landfills as they break down buried waste.

As a regulated utility, PSE&G is not permitted to donate labor and materials, said Brooke Houston, a spokeswoman for the utility. “We are performing the work for NJSEA at cost,” she said.

The sports authority plans to seek bids from contractors to complete the project by installing chain link fencing around the poles from their tops down about 20 feet to the flame. There will be no fencing across the top of the poles like a roof, because the agency didn’t want to encourage birds to land there above the flame, said agency spokesman Brian Aberback.

Birds with injured tail and wing feathers have a tough time hunting for prey and are not likely to survive migration as winter approaches, said Chris Soucy, director of the Raptor Trust.