By Betsy Scheinbart
Carol Gresser, a candidate for borough president, and city council candidate Saundra Pope teamed up Friday to protest several toxic sites in southeast Queens and demand that the city clean up an apparent waste transfer station in South Jamaica.
“This is an outrage,” Gresser said, standing among sewer pipes, tires and large scraps of metal in a dusty lot at Baisley Boulevard and 172nd Street in South Jamaica.
Gresser was alerted to the dump by Pope, a South Jamaica resident and environmentalist who has previously spoken out against the existence of the garbage-strewn lot.
Pope said she believes the site is an illegal waste-transfer facility owned by the Rochdale Village apartment complex, leased to the city and used by a contractor called CAC Industries Inc.
It is not clear what CAC Industries is doing at the site. A CAC truck was parked on the site Friday, where a worker appeared to be welding metal. Neither CAC nor Rochdale returned calls by press time.
“What we need here is senior housing, a school or a park — not a dump,” Pope said. “There are 10 acres of land right here in the middle of our neighborhood that could be put to much better use. We’re demanding action.”
Back in January, the site was full of several story-high mounds of dirt. At that time, Pope was under the impression the city was using it as a base of operations for a sewer project.
Now the area is being leveled, and Pope and Gresser said they have heard that work will end there Sept. 1. They are working to get the city, Rochdale Village or CAC to pledge that in writing.
Gresser, a Douglaston resident and former president of the Board of Education, mentioned other southeast Queens sites in need of cleaning.
The St. Albans Veterans Hospital on Linden Boulevard has been contaminated since 1969 and still has not been purged, Gresser said.
Others include the former West Side Factory on 107th Avenue and 177th Street in Jamaica, one of the most contaminated sites in the state, and the Douglas Street transfer station, a sore spot for Jamaica residents.
“Jamaica’s economy has come a long way. We’ve seen a lot of improvements, but these dump sites present the area with a stinking, uphill battle in continued economic expansion,” Gresser said.
When asked where else the city should dump its trash, Gresser said there was too much waste disposal in one area and dumping should be regulated.
For example, a dump site must be fenced in by law. But the South Jamaica lot is not and it presents a hazard to neighborhood children, Gresser and Pope said.
A handful of residents joined the two candidates in the South Jamaica lot Friday.
“We’ve seen this place deteriorate,” said Ruth Patterson, who has lived in the area for 40 years. “With two schools nearby I am concerned about the kids.”
Another South Jamaica resident, Robert Homer, said he would like to see the site used for something beneficial to the community, such as a school or affordable housing.
“I spoke to a representative from Rochdale Village who said he was looking into housing, but I think it is a perfect area for a school,” Homer said.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
