Ruth J. Wilson suffers from asthma and has twice had pneumonia that she
blames squarely on where she lives -- a street less than 200 feet from a trash
transfer station where garbage trucks emit fumes, rodents run rampant and a foul
odor hangs thick in the air on hot days.
For two decades, Wilson and other activists in Brentwood have asked the
District to close the trash transfer station at 1220 W St. NE. She toured the
area with Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) in early 1999 to brief the mayor, then
newly elected, on the pitfalls of living close to the transfer station. She and
other residents are now plaintiffs in a lawsuit charging that the station is a
health hazard and a neighborhood nuisance.
"Why do we have to smell it?" she asked. "How long do they think we can live
here? It's killing us."
In October, city officials pledged to crack down on the city's five private
trash transfer stations in the District and close facilities that failed to
comply with city laws. Garbage is stored in the stations until it can be
transported to landfills outside the city.
To address problems at the Brentwood station, city officials signed an
agreement that required Browning-Ferris Industries, the trash hauler that held
the lease for the station, to cease its operation by Dec. 31. Brentwood
residents considered the problem solved.
But within a week, an owner of the trash site, Wilton Lash, reopened the
transfer station, a move not anticipated by city officials.
Brian Schwalb, an attorney for the site's owners, said that the land was
zoned for a transfer station and that his clients removed a 60-foot mountain of
trash from the property after purchasing it in 1988. The city changed the
regulations after the facility was built, he said.
"It's terribly unfair to tell people who have invested time and money in a
critical aspect of our city's infrastructure that the rules are all of sudden
different from what they used to be," Schwalb said.
City Administrator Robert C. Bobb said he was empathetic when he toured the
community in February with council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5),
whose ward has three transfer stations.
"I absolutely thought it was a nuisance in the neighborhood," Bobb said. "It
doesn't belong because it's a trash transfer station right across the street
from a residential community."
But Bobb acknowledged that court challenges have allowed the transfer station
to remain open.
The residents, in a lawsuit filed by the NAACP on their behalf, claim that
the transfer station operation violates city law, poses a health hazard and is a
nuisance to the neighborhood. A D.C. Superior Court judge threw out most of the
complaints; the issues that remain relate to noise and odor.
Meanwhile, trash trucks continue to rumble through Brentwood. Neighbors say
that rats, opossums and raccoons race through their yards day and night and that
the stench from the station is sometimes unbearable.
Residents also say the city isn't monitoring the station, which remains open
some weekends and late evenings after the required closing time. At 8:30 p.m.
one recent Friday, doors to the station's warehouse were open, and workers using
front-end loaders piled garbage onto a two-story-high mound.
The Rev. Morris Shearin Sr., pastor of Israel Baptist Church, a few blocks
from the station, said: "The church has mice and rats running around here.
Nobody, even the mayor, seems to be able to get this place out of this
community."
Shearin said he felt that an offer extended last year by the transfer station
owners to donate $100,000 to buy computers for neighborhood schools was an
attempt "to buy" the community's support. The offer expired in March.
John Ray, a former council member who also is an attorney for Lash, said the
proposed donation was the site owners' effort to be good neighbors. He denied
that they were trying to buy support.
"No one wants a transfer station," Ray said. "That's just the way life is.
But [Wilton] Lash has been willing to do all he can to make this place as
conducive as he possibly can to be in the community."
Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), who heads the council committee
that oversees the Department of Public Works, said she was confident that city
officials had the authority to close it but later learned of the legal
quagmire.
"Between agreements that mean nothing and the tie-ups in the courts, nothing
happens," Schwartz said. "Meanwhile, the residents have to live with this
abomination."
A 1999 city law requires transfer stations to sit 50 feet back from their own
property lines and have a 500-foot buffer from any neighboring property line to
protect public health and safety. But a D.C. Superior Court judge has called the
setback requirement "bogus," noting that the regulation applies to private
transfer stations but not to city-operated ones, according to court documents.
"The city cannot put rules in that apply to private companies and not
themselves," Ray said. "They can't win this case."
Dorn C. McGrath Jr., a retired George Washington University professor and
Northwest Washington resident, headed a task force that criticized the city's
failure to properly regulate transfer centers. He said the conditions in
Brentwood are deplorable.
"It's going to get worse in the summer when things get really hot," he
said.