Photo Credit: Peekskill Herald
As the freshly elected Westchester County Executive in 1974, Al DelBello inherited a slightly problematic situation: the 500-acre Croton Point Dump, a landfill that had been gathering county rubbish since 1927 and was situated along the Hudson River (Smith, 2020). When a horse was put to death at the dump in 1971, it caused public outrage and raised questions about the landfill’s effects on nearby communities and natural resources. As the federal government sued Westchester County for serious Hudson River contamination in 1972, the worries increased (Johnson, 1972). The court ordered prompt action, including boosting cover soil production, stopping the admission of industrial liquid waste, and developing a dike system to stop further leachate leaks into the Hudson. A countywide search for alternate waste disposal technologies and solutions resulted from this.
DelBello submitted a plan in 1974 to phase out the Croton Point Dump and develop cutting-edge waste treatment facilities as part of an innovative collaborative endeavor with the state’s Environmental Facilities Corporation (McKibben, 2019). The original concept was changed in 1976 to call for pyrolysis, a high-temperature, oxygen-free method of garbage decomposition, to take the place of incinerators (Bennett et al., 2018). Due to the Ocean Dumping Act of 1972, Westchester County also had to deal with problems involving sludge, a byproduct of sewage treatment. Alternatives including incineration and composting were investigated as dumping sludge into the Atlantic Ocean proved impractical (Hammer & Hammer, 2012). DelBello suggested barging the county’s sludge to Peekskill for composting, but this idea was strongly opposed. Eventually, the county was instructed to look into alternative locations and sludge disposal options.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
The city of Peekskill, New York, was in a terrible economic state in the late 1970s. City officials suggested building a waste-to-energy facility at the Charles Point location as a solution. They guaranteed that this plant would boost local industry, increase tax revenue, and offer affordable electricity, all of which would boost the local economy. Officials from Westchester County quickly embraced this concept after finding previous trash disposal facilities designs to be unworkable. In order to address two waste disposal problems at once, the Peekskill facility, a private organization with an early cost estimate of $90 million, was designed to incinerate all of the county’s solid and sludge trash. Additionally, it would produce 35 megawatts of cheap electric power, promoting local industrial development. The strategy was formalized at the start of 1979. The county’s garbage disposal plan was first supported by Peekskill, and conversations about integrating a recycling facility on the property started. When enough municipalities signed contracts to deliver the annual trash tonnage required for the plant’s operation in late August, final permission was postponed. The Peekskill factory came to be thanks to the 100,000 tons of garbage each year that the City of Yonkers contributed. Construction began in 1982, and testing at the plant started in early 1984 despite financial instability and early operational difficulties. By this time, the project’s total cost had risen to $237 million, although Peekskill benefited greatly from it, receiving $1 million a year in place of reduced electric bills and growing payments in place of taxes.
Photo Credit: Brick Collecting
During the construction process, Wheelabrator, the project’s contractor, collaborated with Signal, Inc. and John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance to form the Westchester Resco Company, a name still used by local residents when referring to the plant. Despite the controversy that surrounded the waste-to-energy plant, it was a significant solution to the waste management issues in Westchester County and brought notable economic benefits to Peekskill. Years later, the plant, now known as Wheelabrator Westchester, takes in over 700,000 tons of waste per year and has become an integral part of Peekskill’s economic landscape. The city’s inhabitants initially had mixed feelings about the plant due to concerns about air quality and other environmental impacts. However, many recognized its financial benefits, particularly its role in stabilizing Peekskill’s tax base during an economically challenging period. In summation, the transformative trajectory of Westchester County, transiting from the tribulations associated with the Croton Point Dump to the establishment of a waste-to-energy infrastructure in Peekskill, embodies a pivotal metamorphosis in the domain of waste management. Al DelBello, in his capacity as the County Executive, employed innovative strategies and a proactive disposition in addressing the manifold environmental and fiscal dilemmas confronted by the county, thereby laying the groundwork for contemporary, sustainable waste treatment modalities. In the face of formidable impediments, such as robust public dissension and the intricacies inherent in sludge management, DelBello exhibited unwavering commitment to the pursuit and execution of avant-garde waste disposal methodologies, an endeavour that would ultimately prove fruitful. Notwithstanding the initial controversies shadowing its inception, the construction of the Peekskill facility has, in the fullness of time, demonstrated its value as both an effective answer to the waste disposal conundrum plaguing Westchester and a significant catalyst for economic revitalization in Peekskill. Currently, the facility, rechristened as Wheelabrator Westchester, is instrumental in the management of an appreciable quantity of waste, the provision of affordable electricity, and the fortification of Peekskill’s economic resilience. Overall, this narrative underscores the transformative potency of innovative solutions in tackling intricate environmental and economic predicaments in our home county of Westchester.
Sources:
Bennett, P., Perugini, F., Pistolesi, V., & Sgherri, A. “Pyrolysis as a Technique for Separating Heavy Metals from Hyperaccumulators. Part I: Lab-Scale Pyrolysis Systems.” Waste Management, vol. 72, 2018, pp. 37-46.
Hammer, M. J., & Hammer, M. J. Water and Wastewater Technology. Prentice Hall, 2012.
Johnson, R. “Westchester Is Sued On Dumping of Garbage.” The New York Times, 20 April 1972.
McKibben, B. Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? Henry Holt and Co., 2019.
Smith, J. A World of Waste: Politics, Economies, and Ecologies of Waste in the Early Twentieth Century. Routledge, 2020.