Long Island landfill gets expansion OK

The Town Board of Brookhaven, New York, has awarded a contract that will allow it to expand and extend the life of its landfill.

Brookhaven, located in Suffolk County on Long Island, accepts construction and demolition (C&D) debris at the landfill and also stores the ash from its municipal solid waste (MSW) incinerator there.

According to an online report by the Long Island-based newspaper Newsday, the contract, announced at a meeting in early February 2016, is worth $10 million and has been awarded to Gibson & Cushman Contracting of Port Jefferson, New York.

According to the Town of Brookhaven’s website, its 40-year-old landfill is the final option in its waste and recycling hierarchy strategy.

As described by the Town’s Department of Waste Management, collected MSW is taken to a Covanta facility in Nassau County described as “a modern incinerator equipped with state-of-the-art pollution control devices,” and “electricity is generated from the energy contained in the garbage (waste-to-energy incineration).”

The department continues, “In return, the Town accepts the incinerator ash generated by the plant and landfills it.”

Also still accepted at the Brookhaven Landfill, according to the department, are “unrecyclable and unrecovered materials from [the] construction and demolition of buildings” plus “a small quantity of rejected materials and residues from the Materials Recycling Facility.”