Trash Fight: The Long Voyage of New York’s Unwanted Garbage Barge

SEATTLE (Waste Advantage): The tugboat Break of Dawn was one of hundreds of modest working vessels that plied the waters off the U.S. East Coast during the year 1987, and this was just another job: hauling a 230-foot-long bargeload of 18-foot-high commercial garbage from New York to North Carolina.

Every day, New York City routinely exported 25,000 tons of garbage that its landfills no longer had room for. Most of it was trucked overland hundreds of miles to landfills in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and other places. Whenever costs and location came together to make a sea voyage feasible, the stuff went out on a barge like this one, the Mobro. Skippered by Capt. Duffy St. Pierre, the Break of Dawn left the pier at Long Island City in Queens on March 22.

Down in Morehead City, N.C., trash hauler Lowell Harrelson was waiting to offload the Mobro’s cargo for burial in Jones County.

Then North Carolina’s environmental watchdogs thought to ask the City of New York to certify that this load of trash contained no toxic wastes or other harmful materials.

The truth was that city officials had no idea. Only some of the garbage came from the city itself. Most of it had originated in Islip, L.I., having been turned away from that town’s nearly overflowing landfill. Pressed on the matter, about all that state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Henry Williams could say was that he doubted the load contained anything dangerous. Probably most of it was construction and demolition debris, he said.

This response did not suit North Carolina, which instructed the Jones County landfill not to accept the load of New York trash. Then officials went to court and got an order prohibiting the Mobro from unloading anywhere in their state at all.

Like a rejected suitor, St. Pierre put out of Morehead City on April 6, bound for  well, Louisiana, he thought.

It was 1,400 miles around Florida and across the Gulf of Mexico to Avondale, not far from New Orleans, and even as the Break of Dawn steadily sailed on, the ruckus raised by North Carolina was wafting westward toward the Mississippi River.

Now the Avondale landfill operators got a letter from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, informing them that accepting this load of uncertified and no doubt suspicious New York garbage would constitute a violation of their state operating permit. Mississippi, Alabama and Texas then joined Louisiana in deciding to deny the Break of Dawn entry.

Where was the garbage going to go? Just in case the Break of Dawn figured it could perhaps slip into Mexico, the Mexican government dispatched two naval vessels and a number of aircraft to keep an eye on the tug’s course. The military of the Central American nation of Belize was ordered to put the barge and its cargo under surveillance too. The Bahamas also said no.

Courtesy: https://wasteadvantagemag.com