Long Island needs a real solution for the Brookhaven Town landfill

The Brookhaven Town landfill is closing. Long live the landfill.

The town's operating permit for the landfill expires July 11, and the town has asked the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for a five-year extension. If the extension is approved, which will almost certainly happen, the landfill will continue to accept up to 1,500 tons of ash daily until 2031 or until it reaches maximum volume, whichever happens first.

Long Island's 3 million residents who generate about 7,000 tons of garbage daily need a real solution.

Sometime in the coming years, Cell 6, the last and final section of the landfill, will close. But "closing" the landfill depends on how different people define "close."

The landfill will stay open as a recycling center and transfer hub for household solid waste. Tanks of leachate — water that carries contaminants after seeping through landfills — will continue to operate, and gas collection and control systems will be monitored. Trucks carrying solid waste will keep moving in and out of the Horseblock Road facility, and employees and monitors will remain a daily presence.

That's a far cry from what was pitched in 1970. Residents were told the landfill would one day become a ski slope with "a meadow for picnics," according to a local newspaper article published in 1970.

The landfill is a significant but easy to overlook part of Long Island's economy and daily operation. It collected 324,812 tons of ash generated from waste-to-energy incineration last year and made $5.8 million net revenue for Brookhaven. Brookhaven accepts incinerated ash generated from solid waste from Hempstead, Huntington and Islip towns. (Babylon Town's ashfill takes about 55,000 tons of ash annually.) Officials for decades knew Brookhaven would face a fiscal cliff when it closes, not to mention a void for how solid waste would be handled.

In a 2017 Newsday news division story, then-Brookhaven Town Supervisor Edward P. Romaine compared the issue to the 3,100 tons of floating trash in 1987 dubbed the Islip garbage barge: "It's going to make the garbage barge pale by comparison."

The garbage barge made the Island the butt of national jokes. And here we are again.

The Beaver Dam Creek plume, which initiated several lawsuits, is another reason the landfill won't truly be closed. Hazardous contaminants dumped in the landfill's Cells 1, 2 and 3 entered the creek, likely as the result of leachate originating from the landfill. The town is currently suing in state Supreme Court to show it is not liable for emerging contaminants that may have entered the creek before updated landfill requirements were adopted.

The town uses leachate storage tanks to treat rainwater that leaks from the dump for "forever chemicals" and ammonia before it enters the creek. That process will continue indefinitely. The town is holding a public meeting this month to review the plume investigation findings.

REGIONAL ISSUE

Long Island's 13 towns and two cities handle waste management on their own. New York State requires municipalities like Brookhaven to create a Local Solid Waste Management Plan rather than lead the region on the issue. Yet the state maintains oversight of the landfill through required permits.

The result is a system of waste management fiefdoms rather than a cohesive integrated solid waste management strategy that forestalls emergencies like the Brookhaven landfill's future.

Some towns transport solid waste directly off-Island while some haul it to incinerators on-Island and then pay even more to have the ash brought to Brookhaven. The Island is crisscrossed daily by trucks bringing solid waste and ash back and forth.

Long Island's geography makes hauling large quantities of ash or solid waste upstate or out of state too expensive. The roughly 3 million people living in Nassau and Suffolk counties generate a lot of trash every day. Where else can it go?

Brookhaven Town Supervisor Dan Panico suggested state and even federal oversight to fix the regional problem. "Regional struggles are state struggles," Panico told the editorial board. "... Neither I nor anyone similarly situated can do it alone."

There are no "magic bullets," and all options require residents to hold their noses, literally and figuratively. Zero-waste goals, recycling, reusing ash for construction projects and roads, trucking ash or hauling it off the Island by rail car ... none of these solutions individually fix the immediate problem of just what to do with all this garbage.

The Town of Brookhaven Ad-Hoc Committee for Solid Waste Disposal, in a February 2021 report, listed several options and ultimately settled on recommending the landfill close "on or about December 2024 ..."

That volunteer committee of residents and experts spent tireless hours investigating the landfill's problems and causes. The report, like so many other warnings, was unsuccessful in forcing regional planners, who have little firepower, to do the tough work required.

Now, Long Island needs the state or federal government to intervene.

Local elected officials either don't have the authority or political will to enact feasible solutions. It's time for Albany and perhaps Washington to step in and manage — in partnership with Long Island's elected leaders — a solution to this regional crisis before Long Island itself becomes the Islip barge.

NEWSDAY EDITORIAL BOARD WARNINGS

June 3, 1982

"The Nassau-Suffolk area needs a coordinated aquifer protection program, and that means officials in all 13 towns must be prepared to make tough decisions."

March 21, 1991

"If the landfill closes, Brookhaven's taxpayers will probably have to pay to have the excess tonnage hauled off Long Island."

July 12, 2015

"Ten years. ... Sounds like a long way off? It isn't. For Long Island's leaders, who need to deal with the solid-waste problem that's coming, 10 years is tomorrow."

Dec. 6, 2020

"This crisis for Long Island comes with a due date: December 2024. ... We have no time to waste."

Read these editorials at newsday.com/brookhavenlandfilleditorials