Kellner Invites Mayoral Candidates To UES Marine Transfer Station

Assemblyman Micah Kellner

The Democratic candidates for New York City mayor should be receiving a letter this week from Assemblyman Micah Kellner asking them to tour the site for a marine transfer station at East 91st Street in Manhattan.

The controversial project was intended to help ship out more trash by barge and to spread such facilities more evenly across the five boroughs, but local lawmakers have argued that truck traffic and exhaust would harm children playing at the adjacent Asphalt Green recreational facility. And post-Sandy, they say waterfront development is a clearer risk.

“This project is going to extend into whoever the next mayor’s term is, and we want to get all the Democratic candidates to come up and look at the situation and see it firsthand, to recognize that this isn’t the right place to put a waste transfer station,” Kellner said. “In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, water flowed not just into the avenues around there, damaging some buildings, but actually flooded and damaged parts of Asphalt Green.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney, state Sen. Liz Krueger, Assemblyman Dan Quart and Council Members Dan Garodnick and Jessica Lappin also signed the letter.