New York Daily News

NOT HEAVEN-SCENT

Residents nervous as Soundview Park compost site to reopen

- BYDANIEL BEEKMAN dbeekman@nydailynew­s.com

URBAN decay of a different kind is coming back to the Bronx.

The city plans to reopen a controvers­ial 12-acre composting site in Soundview Park late this year, the Daily News has learned.

The waterfront site, located along the Bronx River adjacent to a public housing developmen­t, can churn out 6,000 cubic yards of compost annually. But it was previously blamed for noxious odors in the neighborho­od, with local residents comparing the stench with the smell of garbage.

The 12-year-old site closed in 2007 when the city’s leaf-collection program was suspended. But the program is slated to resume this fall, allowing the site to reopen, and officials are claiming that the composting was never responsibl­e for the hated odors.

The city first received complaints about the smell in 2003, said Vito Turso, spokesman for the Sanitation Department, the agency that runs the facility.

Sanitation officials initially attributed the aromas to combined sewer overflow or a nearby sludge processing plant. But in 2010, under community pressure, they linked the odors to a broken sewer line under the site, Turso said.

The sewer line has since been repaired, but some Soundview residents are still fearful that the terrible stench will return.

“It worries me,” said Janet White, 54. “Maybe it was the sewer. Maybe it was the compost site. I don’t know. But it smelled like feces. I have my granddaugh­ter living with me now. I’m going to move if that stink comes back.”

The compost site has also been the subject of criticism related to its location in a public park. When the facility first opened, the Sanitation Department signed a pact with the Parks Department to use the land, claiming it had no suitable property of its own.

In return for a permit to operate the facility, the state Department of Environmen­tal Conservati­on required the Sanitation Department to remediate 12 acres elsewhere in Soundview Park.

The work was supposed to start by early 2005 but the agency had yet to lift a rake in 2010, when local watchdogs blasted it for not fulfilling the requiremen­t. The Sanitation Department has now met its obligation­s, Turso said.

Rather than restore 12 acres on its own, the agency recently forked over $1 million for a separate project in Soundview Park. It also provided Parks with 33,200 cubic yards of compost and soil worth an additional $1.3 million.

The Sanitation Department would have spent millions more if it remediated 12 acres on its own, fumed neighborho­od advocate Lothar Krause. But Turso said the DEC is now satisfied and has issued the agency a new permit.

Critics have noted that the city has located several compost sites on parkland in low-income neighborho­ods, including a facility in Canarsie, Brooklyn, that closed partly due to odor complaints.

 ?? Photo by Daniel Beekman ?? City plans to reopen Soundview Park composting facility later this year, but some residents are worried that overwhelmi­ng odor could push them out of homes.
Photo by Daniel Beekman City plans to reopen Soundview Park composting facility later this year, but some residents are worried that overwhelmi­ng odor could push them out of homes.

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