Environment DEC
From the September 2004 issue
Statewide Waste Tire Cleanup to Begin this Fall
Governor George E. Pataki announced that the state has completed a comprehensive plan that will result in the cleanup of 95 waste tire stockpiles, or 29 million tires, throughout New York State. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) will partner on an initiative to recycle scrap tires for use in state highway projects.
Stockpiled tires can cause
dangerous fires, such as at
the Mohawk Tire facility
"Scrap tire piles create potential health and safety hazards that threaten the well-being of our communities and natural environment," Governor Pataki said. "This comprehensive plan is a major step forward in the state's efforts to eliminate potentially dangerous waste tire piles from our communities, and protect our air and water for our children and generations to come."
Mohawk Tire
Governor Pataki also announced that contractors soon will begin removing approximately 8 million tires from the Mohawk Tire facility in Waterford, Saratoga County. More than 2.5 million discarded tires were removed from this site in 2000 and 2001 through a contract issued by the DEC. The tires remaining at the site continue to pose a threat to the surrounding community and businesses. Mohawk Tire's proximity to the Hudson River also concerns state and local officials. The tire abatement project at Mohawk Tire will require that the remaining tires be removed from the property within three years.
Waste Tire Management and Recycling Act
The "Waste Tire Management and Recycling Act of 2003" was enacted to ensure the proper management of waste tires in New York State. It required DEC to prepare and implement a comprehensive plan designed to abate all noncompliant waste tire stockpiles in the state. It also required that this comprehensive plan be completed by September 10, 2004, and DEC expects to initiate stockpile cleanups this fall. Funding for this program is provided through a $2.50 fee added to each new tire purchased. Fees are deposited into a Waste Tire Management and Recycling Fund to be used for the cleanup of waste tire stockpiles and to develop markets for newly generated waste tires.
To develop this plan, DEC undertook an enumeration and assessment effort to verify the existence of suspected waste tire stockpiles and estimate the number of tires at each noncompliant site. During September 2003 through May 2004, DEC inspectors visited 162 locations that were identified as potential waste tire stockpiles.
The plan seeks to eliminate all 95 noncompliant waste tire stockpiles in the state by a combination of site owner/operator efforts and DEC efforts, should the site owners/operators fail to clean up their noncompliant waste tire stockpiles in a timely manner. In the event that DEC must assume abatement responsibility, we will seek beneficial uses for the discarded tires.
Noncompliant Waste Tire Sites
The five largest noncompliant waste tire stockpiles represent approximately 85 percent of all stockpiled tires. In addition to the Mohawk facility, these sites include the Fortino site in West Monroe, Oswego County; Hornburg Tire in the Village of Sinclairville, Chautauqua County; New York Tire in Smithtown, Suffolk County, and Cycletech in the City of Hudson, Columbia County. These sites represent the highest priorities in New York's tire abatement program and the state is currently developing and accepting bids to initiate mitigation activities at these sites.
Reincarnated Tires
The discarded tires must be used in a beneficial manner to the greatest extent possible as required by the Management and Recycling Act. Unwanted waste tires have been used in the past in steel production, as crumb rubber for rubberized surfaces, and as tire shreds for use in civil engineering applications, including road construction and landfill construction. DEC expects similar proposals to handle the discarded waste tires at the facilities named.
In cooperation with DOT and the New York State Thruway Authority, DEC is investigating beneficial ways to use discarded waste tires in road construction activities. Shredded tires will be used in a variety of DOT projects as embankment filler to help reduce the amount of gravel necessary for many highway projects. Tire shreds are lightweight, compact, and drain better than conventional gravel material used on highway embankments.
Shreds are placed in one-foot-thick layers, compacted up to a total thickness of 10 feet, and covered on the sides and top with soil and pavement. First the shreds are wrapped on all sides with a material known as "geotextile," a type of very tough cloth, to prevent the soil cover from infiltrating into the tire shred layer.
DEC and DOT Partnership
DEC, responsible for the tire-shredding operation, is finalizing a series of contracts with companies across the state to begin shredding tire piles for use. The first DOT project that will use the shreds will eliminate a bridge on Interstate 87 in Clinton County. The bridge will be replaced with a large embankment consisting of 10,220 metric tons of tire shred-the equivalent of 1 million scrap tires. Subsequent projects could use as many as 25 million tires.
DEC Commissioner Erin M. Crotty said, "DEC looks forward to working with other state agencies to carry out this high-priority effort to permanently eliminate all large stockpiles of waste tires in New York State. This initiative will improve the health of ecosystems across the state and eliminate a significant public health threat from our communities."
Preventing Future Stockpiles
To prevent the creation of new waste tire stockpiles in the state, Empire State Development (ESD) is engaged in developing sustainable markets for tires that have reached the end of their useful life. Already firms have begun developing facilities in New York that will handle hundreds of thousands of discarded tires every year. For more information regarding the Waste Tire Abatement Program, please contact DEC at (518) 402-8000.
