There’s no Southern hospitality for this doo-doo dilemma.
Alabamans are going off the rails over the return of New York City “poop trains” to Adamsville, the same town the trains notoriously stunk up just a few years ago.
Big Sky Environmental — the same company that promised to stop hauling rail cars of New York and New Jersey’s human waste to the landfill in 2018 following locals’ uproar about the stench — appears to possibly be full of it. Despite previously pledging to cease schlepping down out-of-state crap and dumping it in the Birmingham suburb, documents reveal they may have recently restarted doing just that.
On Feb. 1, an Alabama Department of Environmental Management inspector discovered a pile of evidence that the state’s “premier waste hauling” company, per Big Sky, had gone back to its old ways, despite its vow to reform. Namely, they found a new rail spur at the landfill and eight empty rail cars that had been unloaded in the past two weeks, local news site WVTM 13 reported. Additionally, documents filed with the department show that at least three New York and New Jersey wastewater facilities got permission to dump waste at Big Sky’s landfill since November.
“This is a community I’ve lived in 50 years and I want to be able to stay here, but people don’t realize the odor, the scent, the flies,” area resident David Brasfield told the outlet of the possible return of the same dank nightmare the community experienced five years ago.
CBS 42 has acquired documents showing an Adamsville landfill may once again be subjected to the treated waste of other states. cbs42
“Ultimately train cars ended up just sitting and kind of rotting and stenching on people for extended periods of time,” Nelson Brooke, with the Black Warrior Riverkeeper, told CBS 42. cbs42
“Apparently they don’t have a place chosen up there in New York to get rid of it, so they are sending it on down to happy Alabama where we seem to have open arms for poop sludge,” said Brooke. cbs42Brasfield, however, never trusted that Big Sky was good for its word.
“I really never thought it was going to stop, because I knew that Big Sky was very aggressive in getting this waste to this area and making the money they’re gonna make off of it,” Brasfield told the outlet in 2018.
While the company’s promise has been proven likely broken, residents were successful in at least pausing the problem the last time it happened.
Previously, locals said the waste’s stench compromised their quality of life. cbs42
The state’s Department of Environmental Management has promised that it is aware of the situation. cbs42And indeed, the Department of Environmental Management did issue a violation to Big Sky after discovering the rail spur last month, although the company has already submitted a request to change its rail yard permit, which is currently under review.
In a statement to WVTM 13, the department said it will “continue to conduct unannounced inspections (at least quarterly) at the site and will use enforcement tools, when necessary, to compel compliance,” adding a reassuring reminder that, the last time this happened, the crap cars were stored beyond the department’s purview. This time, it has far more power as “the rail yard is on-site and as such is subject to the requirements of their solid waste disposal permit.”
