By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
A group of Bayside neighbors who complained about a mess on their street from a nearby sewer project will see some relief now that the contractor is no longer allowed to use a piece of vacant parkland on their block as a dirt processing site.
About three weeks ago, neighbors on 207th Street started noticing trucks full of dirt going to and from a Parks Department-owned vacant lot that abuts the Clearview Park Golf Course at 23rd Avenue.
The trucks were coming from the 211th Street storm sewer project, bringing dirt to be sifted for rocks at the vacant lot.
According to a letter from the city Department of Design and Construction, the contractor, Maspeth Supply Co., was given a permit to use the lot “for the temporary processing, stockpiling and storage of construction materials excavated from the construction site or intended for the construction site.”
But Queens Parks Commissioner Richard Murphy said the company had overstepped its bounds by storing dirt at the site.
“They had a permit to store piping and things like that, which would’ve been fine,” Murphy said. “But apparently they took it another step and started storing dirt.”
Murphy said the contractor had been given 10 days to vacate the site, with work having stopped Friday.
“It’s closed. Everything is going out,” said Murphy, who estimated the trucks would be out of the neighborhood completely in two months.
Harvey Blatt, an official with Maspeth Supply Co., said the company did not yet have another location to replace the vacant lot at 207th Street.
“We’ll be taking the dirt that’s in there out to the job site in the next few days,” said Blatt. “The Parks Department asked to us to change where we’re working, so we will.”
John Geiyer, a lifelong resident of 207th Street, organized his neighbors into a new civic group, the Clearview Civic Association, in a response to the problem. The new group includes residents from 200th to 207th streets between 23rd and 26th avenues.
“They had trucks roaming here at 4 a.m.,” said Geiyer, who estimated that the vehicles made between 30 and 40 trips a day up and down 207th Street to dump and pick up dirt at the vacant lot.
The trucks left a trail of dust, which after the rain “was pure mud,” Geiyer said. “You couldn’t walk across the street.”
Although residents said City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) got the contractor to sweep the dirt with brooms, they said their street had also been damaged by the weight of the trucks, which they blamed for long cracks in the asphalt.
Neighbors such as Shana McDermott also worried about the dirt’s origins near sewer lines.
“That is the greatest fear, that it is contaminated,” said McDermott, who also complained of dust in her pool.
Worst of all, neighbors complained that the transported mounds of sewer dirt contained rats that were now roaming their yards.
“It started just after they started this,” said resident Andrew MacKenzie. “I was mowing the lawn and they were all over the place.”
Murphy denied that the dirt was contaminated, saying it had not come from within sewer pipes but rather around them.
The commissioner also said that city parkland benefited in the long run from use by construction companies, which were obligated afterward to make improvements to parks that might otherwise be unaffordable.
“We are waiting for the community to give us some input into what they would like to see there,” Murphy said.
Geiyer said the Parks Department first used the vacant area as a dumping ground for dirt two years ago when a pond was built inside the Clearview Park Golf Course.
“We want this area turned back into a nature area,” said Geiyer, recalling the grassy lot where a falcon and a hawk made their homes. “It was like walking through the country.”
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
