Staten Island Council Rejects Landfill Expansion After Months of Activist Pressure

NEW YORK — In a surprise decision that capped months of street-level campaigning and late-night public hearings, the Staten Island Borough Council on Sunday rejected a proposed landfill expansion that had split neighborhoods from Travis to Tottenville and drawn rare cross-borough attention for a local zoning fight, marking what activists hailed as a major victory for demands for a stricter environmental review.

The 7-4 vote against the HarborGreen Waste Management plan came after council members said they were persuaded by new testimony about truck traffic, groundwater risks and the adequacy of the city's environmental review process; the company had sought to add roughly 95 acres to a working refuse site near Fresh Kills, a proposal its backers said would modernize operations and extend the site's useful life. Council President Lillian Mateo, who led the emergency session called Saturday, called the outcome "a pause to make sure we get the facts right for the people who live along Richmond Avenue and the South Shore."

For more than nine months, neighborhood groups organized under the Clean Air South Shore coalition held weekly rallies at the intersection of Hylan Boulevard and Page Avenue, organized high-turnout town halls at the New Dorp Library and staged a prolonged encampment outside the proposed site on Canal Road. "We were told for years that this would be handled behind closed doors; now our children can breathe longer while we keep pushing for answers," said Marisol Vega, president of the South Shore Neighbors Association, as she addressed a crowd celebrating the vote outside Borough Hall on Sunday.

The numbers presented at hearings underscored why residents were alarmed: HarborGreen's draft proposal projected an increase of up to 420 heavy truck trips per weekday onto local streets, an additional 2.9 million cubic yards of fill over 25 years and a budgeted capital expense of $78 million for new containment infrastructure. Activist groups submitted a petition with 18,742 signatures and organized 64 public forum appearances across nine neighborhoods; independent air-quality sampling by community volunteers recorded short-term spikes in fine particulate matter above city guidelines during three separate waste-transfer events in late 2025.

Much of the council's debate centered on whether the project should trigger a full environmental impact statement under the city's review law. Environmental lawyers and local scientists told the council the draft review released by the Department of Environmental Protection and HarborGreen omitted detailed hydrological modeling and long-term leachate scenarios. "The data we received was not sufficient to conclude there's no significant impact; we asked for an environmental impact statement and that's what the council ultimately backed," said Ethan Kwan, lead attorney with the Staten Island Clean Water Project, who testified at three hearings in the past month.

HarborGreen, which has managed municipal solid waste transfer operations in the area for more than two decades, emphasized the jobs the expansion would support and the updated technology it planned to use to reduce odors and runoff. "Our proposal included investment in modern liner systems, methane capture and an on-site job-training program that would create an estimated 140 construction and 86 permanent positions for Staten Islanders," said Priya Desai, senior vice president for HarborGreen, adding that the company was evaluating its legal options after the council's vote. Labor unions representing sanitation and transfer workers had urged approval, arguing the project would sustain local employment as other facilities across the city shutter.

Political tensions ran high. Several council members who had signaled tentative support prior to Saturday's hearings changed their positions after hearing hours of testimony and reviewing newly submitted water-table data. One council aide said the late switch was prompted by a flurry of constituent calls and a set of photos from residents showing nightly truck lines stretching past the Meadowbrook Comfort Inn on Richmond Avenue. The vote itself was secret-ballot by the council's rules for land-use measures, but the result was immediately public, and opponents quickly mobilized to celebrate in neighborhoods from Great Kills to Elm Park.

Despite the victory, activists and officials cautioned that the ruling was not the end of the matter. HarborGreen could pursue administrative appeals or seek relief through state permitting channels, and city agencies still must decide whether to require the full environmental study the council requested. Meanwhile, the Department of Sanitation acknowledged it would need to revisit transfer-routing plans; a senior planner at the department who requested anonymity said officials were preparing a technical memo on alternative truck corridors that could be ready within 30 days.

The controversy has revived longstanding complaints about truck noise, diesel emissions and local infrastructure wear, stretching back to incidents in 2018 and 2021 when residents filed repeated odor and runoff complaints tied to operations near Fresh Kills. Neighborhood business owners along Hylan Boulevard and New Dorp Lane say their foot traffic dipped during periods of high truck volume; small restaurants and bodegas in the corridor estimate revenue drops of between 8 percent and 15 percent on heavy-traffic days, citing internal receipts and anecdotal customer counts gathered during the campaign.

Looking ahead, the council moved to draft a resolution requiring an independent environmental impact statement and a comprehensive traffic-management plan before any expansion could be reconsidered; staffers said the EIS process would take at least 12 to 18 months and likely include additional community sampling, open hearings and binding mitigation commitments. Activists vowed to maintain their presence at public meetings, while HarborGreen signaled it would consult counsel — setting the stage for extended legal and administrative fights as Staten Island neighborhoods brace for another round of debate over how the city balances waste infrastructure, jobs and local quality of life.