Through the years, Staten Islanders have looked across to New Jersey with mixed emotions. Many people regularly make pilgrimages to shop and swim, but there has also been great disdain for the odors and sounds from those areas of the Garden State where chemicals rather than flowers grow.
Borough President Guy V. Molinari is one Staten Islander who is plainly fed up. Two specific "insults" have his dander up: what he characterizes as a potentially toxic polluter in the form of a hazardous-waste incinerator in Linden, less than three miles from the Arthur Kill, and noise from air traffic to and from Newark International Airport.
Mr. Molinari says the need for an incinerator, planned by the GAF Corporation, is no longer justified. He released figures from the Federal Environmental Protection Agency showing that from 1987 to 1991 there was a 78 percent reduction in the amount of hazardous waste transported to treatment or disposal sites from sites in New Jersey.
Three months ago, a New Jersey court ruled that GAF could build the plant if a separate exit ramp off the New Jersey Turnpike was built, thus bypassing an area with several schools.
Court Challenge Planned
The ramp would be used exclusively for hazardous-waste transport. "The building of an exit ramp with taxpayer funds and toll receipts exclusively for a private corporation would be an unprecedented and unbelievable spendthrift move," the Borough President said. He added that he would challenge the ramp proposal in court.
GAF has "substantial documentation" showing the need for the plant, which the company wants to build in Linden because it would be within 25 miles of 50 percent of the state's industrial waste, said a GAF spokesman, Michael Kempner.
Mr. Kempner added that it would not be the first time a private ramp had been approved. "Although it was never built, a ramp was O.K.'d for the Bergen County Utilities Authority," he said.
Petrochemicals and 'Ill Winds'
Mr. Molinari said: "The biggest problem is the petrochemical industry right across from Staten Island and what I call its ill winds. We have a respiratory disease and cancer rate that's one of the highest in the country."
Mr. Molinari admitted that "we may not be without sin ourselves," alluding to his borough's mountainous garbage dumps that New Jerseyans could easily complain about. "The prevailing winds go the other way," he contended.
But he noted that discarded newspapers and other debris have found their way to New Jersey waterways, "befouling their shores." He said, "Skimmer boats regularly search the waters to keep this from happening."
Mr. Molinari issued a challenge: "I'll make a deal with New Jersey -- we'll take the debris back if they'll take away the pollution from their petrochemical plants."
A vice president of an environmental group on Staten Island, Jim Scarcella, with the Friends of the Clearwater, said he was happy that Mr. Molinari was fighting the incinerator but expressed surprise because, he said, the Borough President favors incinerators in general.
"Instead of burying it in landfills, which, as Borough President of Staten Island he has some knowledge about, he favors incineration," Mr. Scarcella said. "There are already six incinerators operating in that part of New Jersey. I don't understand why another is needed."
Besides, he said, incineration reduces waste by only 40 percent, leaving 60 percent as toxic ash, "which may be worse." He asked, "What happens when it blows around?"
GAF rebutted those numbers, saying that only a minuscule amount is left as ash, not toxic ash.
But getting rid of potentially toxic hazardous waste is exactly why GAF wants to build this plant, Mr. Kempner said. "The alternative of burying it is worse because of potential leaching into water supplies."
He said that GAF has been trying to build an incinerator for seven years but that it is only recently that Mr. Molinari has focused his attention on it.
Air pollution is not all that may threaten Staten Islanders these days. A Federal Aviation Administration plan to reroute aircraft to Newark International Airport might send more planes over Staten Island.
Mr. Molinari contends that today the noise from more than 300 aircraft daily flying about four miles from the end of the airport's runway 22 at altitudes between 850 and 1,500 feet over northwestern Staten Island is already too much.
The proposed change in flights is intended to have planes go over open ocean and away from populated communities. Flight patterns that were changed in 1987 have disturbed residents in areas of New Jersey that had never before had to contend with airplane noise. Residents' opposition resulted in the proposed new flight patterns.
Plan Called 'Ridiculous'
But not everyone agrees that the over-the-ocean plan is workable. Mr. Molinari characterized it as "a crazy plan, ridiculous."
"Ocean routing," he said, "means Newark air traffic will avoid affluent New Jersey neighborhoods and instead fly at altitudes of less than 500 to 1,000 feet over poorer, urban Elizabeth and northwestern S.I. on their way to open ocean."
All this has motivated Staten Island to request the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airport, to conduct its own airplane noise-routing study. This is by way of equal time. A New Jersey group, N.J. Citizens Against Aircraft Noise, has been granted $100,000 by the Port Authority for its own air traffic study.
But parties familiar with the F.A.A. plan expressed confusion. "There was an F.A.A. comment period for issues to be raised and many organizations did -- like N.J.C.A.A.N.," said an aide to Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, who favors the over-the-ocean plan. "But now we're near the end of the process, and the New York delegation is getting interested."
New York members of Congress, including Representative Susan Molinari, Republican of Staten Island and Mr. Molinari's daughter, have voiced concern about the plan.
"Not only does Staten Island suffer from airplane traffic emanating from a New Jersey airport, but we also breathe the toxic emissions produced by hundreds of that state's petrochemical facilities," Mr. Molinari said. "The S.I. community deserves to receive some offset for bearing the brunt of so many New Jersey problems. It is high time for New Jersey to bear some responsibility for the conveniences of modern life."
