By AMANDA HOFFMANN
To report a nuisance odor complaint, call the DEC's 24-hour odor hotline at: (631) 444-0380.
The Department of Environmental Conservation has fielded some 30 odor complaints since lawn clippings started piling up at the Town of Hempstead landfill on Long Beach Road in Oceanside, according to DEC spokesman Bill Fonda.
On June 10, more than a dozen angry Oceanside residents, sporting masks to cut the odors and armed with signs that read "Stop the Stink," rallied outside the front gate of the facility.
The landfill serves as a transfer station for landscaping debris dropped off by villages, sanitary districts and private landscapers, which pay $73 a ton to drop bagged waste and $55 a ton for loose debris. According to the Town of Hempstead, which manages the facility, the town spent $4 million during fiscal year 2008 on hauling and disposing of landscape waste and is budgeted to spend $4.6 million for 2009.
“We’re here because of the odor,” said one protester, Mary Delape, who lives in the Oceanside Cove apartment complex on nearby Daly Boulevard. “We can’t even leave the windows open. Lately it’s almost every day. It’s just horrible.”
The group was led by Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who said he started getting calls from concerned residents in April that prompted him to drop by the facility, where he photographed a mound of decaying lawn clippings — which he said is proof that the facility wasn’t taking proper steps to contain the odors. Toback contends that the landfill still hasn’t cleaned up its act, despite a May 15 letter from the DEC advising it to take immediate action to try to minimize and contain odors.
“Things have not been resolved here,” said Toback, who is no stranger to the facility, having organized protests about the same odiferous clippings in the spring of 2003. Locals contend that the stench comes back each spring as clippings start piling up there. This year, with warm weather and lots of rain, the smell seems to be stronger than usual.
“They jury-rigged a temporary response, but as you can smell for yourself, it isn’t working,” Toback said. “If the town can’t control what goes on in this facility, they need to close it.”
Town of Hempstead spokeswoman Susan Trenkle said that the town, in working with the DEC, has instituted several short-term solutions: the installation of a tarp to cover the transfer station opening and limit the escape of odors; the conversion from a “wet” sweeping operation to a dry process; the elimination of landscape waste deliveries from private landscapers on Saturdays; and ensuring that the contractor the town works with has enough trailers available for waste removal from the facility.
Trenkle said that the town, which hasn't taken dumped garbage at the site since 1989, is also trying to come up with long-term solutions. “The town has contracted with an engineering firm to study the physical facility and town operations to make recommendations for any improvements,” she said.
In the short term, however, the odor apparently persists. Since the DEC sent its letter in May, Fonda said, inspectors have been stepping up their activities in Oceanside. “I can say we have been able to verify that some of the odor issues are taking place,” he said, adding, “I can't go into much detail past that” and explaining that the investigation is ongoing. “We are, as we said, doing an extensive monitoring of the Oceanside area now, and we will continue to do that for a while so we can build up enough data and look at a large enough sample. Naturally, we wanted the town to do something soon, which they have done, and we recognize some other things might take a little longer to do.”
Darlene Sperico, a resident of the Ocean Lea section of Oceanside west of Lawson Boulevard, said she is tired of having to hole up inside her house during the summer. “We are trying to combat the same situation with the noxious and offensive odors and smells every season,” said Sperico, who stood with Toback to protest the facility six years ago. “It just seems relentless. Hot days are the worst, but a faint odor is always lingering somewhere.”
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