Tons Of NJ Feces Are Causing A Real Stink In Alabama

Tons and tons of New Jersey feces may have been rotting in Alabama for months. But waste from New York and New Jersey that's caused a real stink in a small town may not move anytime soon.

The Middlesex County Utilities Authority sent the shipment within the last year – but local opposition and a court injunction stopped trainloads of feces from New York and New Jersey in their tracks.

Now, as many as 10 million pounds of feces – possibly including the 1,100-metric-ton New Jersey trainload – have been reportedly stranded in a rural Alabama railyard, waiting to be dealt with.

"It's gotta go somewhere," said Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for the NJ Department of Environmental Protection. "But for some reason, it caused a stink down in Alabama."

The feces is stranded in the small town of Parrish, according to PIX11, and residents want it gone because it's making the town smell.

The town wasn't supposed to have the feces. Waste management facilities in New York and the Middlesex County Utilities Authority have been shipping tons of waste to Big Sky Environmental, a private landfill in Adamsville, Ala., according to the DEP.

That stopped in January, when the neighboring town of West Jefferson filed an injunction against Big Sky to keep the sludge from being stored there, according to PIX11. Since the injunction was successful, the waste moved to Parrish because there are no zoning laws to prevent the storage.

Parrish Mayor Heather Hall said she is doing everything in her power to get the feces out of her town, according to the report. “You can’t sit out on your porch. Kids can’t go outside and play, and God help us if it gets hot and this material is still out here,” she told the media, including CNN.

Patch and CNN contacted Big Sky and they're waiting to receive comment.

The MCUA typically takes its waste to its own landfill, but the authority ships it to Georgia or Pennsylvania when the system is periodically down for maintenance. Last year, the MCUA's shipment went to Alabama.

The Middlesex County Utilities Authority released a statement, saying it has a publicly bid contract with EPIC, a Synagro Company, to transport and manage its processed sludge at permitted out-of-state facilities selected by the contractor.

EPIC has not sent any MCUA sludge to the Big Sky Landfill in Adamsville, Ala. in 2018, according to the authority. Approximately 5,771 tons of MCUA sludge was sent to this facility in 2017.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Alabama Department of Environmental Management have both told Hall the material isn't dangerous and that it's Grade A biowaste, not raw sewage, according to CNN.

But Hall, speaking to CNN, wondered allowed: "If you have asthma or COPD or breathing problems, what is that going to do to you? [The rail yard] is probably less than 50 yards away from homes. What happens if flies get into someone's house? Is that not a public health issue?"

According to AL.com, residents in Birmingham were livid when at least 80 train cars full of the sludge came to a stop in their city in January. Hall said, however, there were 252 tractor-trailer loads of the stuff stockpiled in her town.

"People need to understand that this waste does not need to be in a populated area," she told CNN. "There are places to put it, industrial places. We're a very small town caught in the middle of this, and I feel like that's part of the issue here. This shouldn't be happening."

Here are some of the complaints people have made:

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