NYC NOW - November 15, 2023: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

New York State has a new law meant to penalize real estate scammers who use fraud, harassment and forgery to steal people's homes from them. Plus, New Jersey’s First Lady, Tammy Murphy, is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Menendez. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with reporter Sophia Chang and Willis Elkins, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance, about a highly anticipated project in Brooklyn to convert organic waste into natural gas for heating fuel.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jenei Pierre. Deed theft is a heartless and a merciless crime that steals people's homes, but more importantly, deed theft steals generational wealth from black and brown communities. New York State has a new law meant to penalize real estate scammers who use fraud, harassment, and forgery to steal people's homes from them. The measure was signed into law this week. It makes it easier for prosecutors to flag properties that may have been stolen.

It also halts eviction proceedings during de-theft investigations. Governor Kathy Hogle says the new law will make it easier for victims to get their homes back. Every New Yorker deserves the ability to build that wealth and have that home. But there are some twisted, cruel people out there. Hell bent on scamming vulnerable New Yorkers. And they've been getting away with a lot. Housing attorneys say the law. will help. But they're also calling on state and local law enforcement to aggressively prosecute real

estate fraud. In New Jersey, Tammy Murphy, the wife of Governor Phil Murphy, is running for the U.S. Senate seat held by Bob Menendez. Here's WMYC's Nancy Solomon. Menendez is under federal indictment, accusing him a bribery and corruption. He hasn't yet said if he'll run in 2024, but he's lost the support of New Jersey's political bosses. Tammy Murphy has been an active part of, but he's her husband six years in office, working on maternal health and climate change and raising campaign cash for Democrats across the state. A source with her campaign says she'll get endorsements for many of New Jersey's Democratic county leaders, lining her up to get preferred placement on primary ballots. The source would only speak anonymously since those endorsements hadn't yet

been made. But progressive Democrats say they're being asked to get rid of one politician accused of corruption and instead support nepotism. Stick around. There's more after the break. New York City's food scrap and yard waste collection program is expanding to every borough. But there are questions over whether the city is actually ready to handle all that they collect. Right now, much of the city's organic waste ends up at the Newtown Creek Treatment Plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. But the plant is having some problems converting methane gas from the food scrap, into heating fuel. For more, my colleague Michael Hill talked with Willis Elkins, the executive director

of the Newtown Creek Alliance, and WMYC reporter Sophia Chang. Sophia, tell us about this project. So this project started way back in the Bloomberg years where the city, Department of Environmental Protection and National Grade, came up with this project to channel what is produced from organic waste when it's processed, something called biogas, which is actually primarily methane, which is a pretty powerful greenhouse gas. So for years, the city just burned off that bio gas that's produced at Newtown Creek to convert it from methane into carbon dioxide, which is a less harmful greenhouse gas, but still contributes to climate change. So this project

between the city and National Grid was to capture all that biogas and funnel it into National Grid's heating supply. for the city. So it would be a nice closed loop of a biogas goes into the heating fuel system, and so there's no methane, there's no carbon dioxide burned off. The project was delayed for years. It was supposed to launch in 2015, and it went from a cost of about $14.5 million to more than $47 million over the years. But it was finally unveiled in June, and there was a big ribbon cutting and a lot of talk of how this was the path forward to a more sustainable future for New York City. You know, the hopes were high that this would be an effective way of capturing what could

otherwise be really harmful greenhouse gases and turning them into renewable energy without relying on fossil fuels. Well, what's it like working in Greenpoint as the biogas is being burned off? So when the system is not working and they flare all this excess gas, it means that, you this excessive amount of CO2 that's going to the atmosphere. There's also local impacts because the system creates intense vibrations when it's not working properly. And so the buildings that surround the plant are often shaking during the day when the flares are going off. The community was told many years ago that as soon as National Grid completed the project, the flaring wouldn't be happening and the vibrations thus when it be happening. But unfortunately, all these delays

has made this problem persist. What does the city and national grid officials tell you about the potential benefits to the system? The benefits is that it's an alternative to the frat gas that we use normally to heat our homes and cook our food. So it has some value in terms of it being more renewable and a localized source. So there is potential good out of this project. Our concerns have been about the difficulty in getting it online and also what it means to expand this project citywide. What did you notice that made you think, hey, this project was not operating way it's supposed to? Yeah, we had noticed. So since the ribbon cutting, the system was more consistently online.

We had heard from city officials and National Grid that they would continue to be amping up. So it would be online more of the time. And that was certainly the case through June and July. And then in August, it was not online and there was flares. And there was also flaring. Usually we see just one of the valves that's flaring gathers. but at times we'd seen two valves running at once. So intense amount of gas being burned off.

And, of course, the resulting vibrations as well. So it's not just that we could see it. We could also feel that something was amiss in early August. Sophia, what are the city and National Grid saying about the project going offline? National Grid says it's maintenance and that this is a really first-of-its-kind kind of system so that they are just doing monitoring and maintenance to make sure that it has a continued operation, as they say. The DEP, the city spokesperson, said that the project has presented challenges, which is an acknowledgement of the difficulty this project has had getting off the ground,

but that it is National Grid's responsibility to get it back online. And, Sophia, where else does the city's food waste go? Is there another option to do this kind of work? Well, the city collects food scraps, organic waste, yard waste from schools, and now it's borough wide in Queens and Brooklyn with the rest of the city supposedly getting the service next year. And the yard waste is sent to New Jersey where it's processed. And the other places where the organic waste is sent in the city are Staten Island has a facility where the organic waste is turned into action. compost to be used in agricultural applications. And then there's also a place in Massachusetts that takes some of the organic waste as well. But much of it ends up at Newtown Creek.

Well, the Shirk Group advocates for cleaner air and water in the nearby community. Are you concerned that all about where all this organic waste will go, given the problems at the Newtown plant? Yeah, I think, you know, part of our concern with what's happening is not just specifically this back and forth with the City of National Grid about the delays and the timelines. It's that the City of National Grid want to expand this technology, this RNG, to other sites. And we feel like it hasn't been a successful proof of concept. Certainly, there's much better beneficial ways to use our organic waste. I think a lot of people that have a brown bin and put their food scraps in there think that it's going to compost, which is a major benefit for the environment. But we're in a

climate crisis and we've been burning all this excess organic waste for the past almost eight years now behind schedule and we have to get this right. So if the city or National Grid want to expand this to other places, there needs to be an appropriate forum to talk about all this because our group is not, we're not climate, we're not climate experts, we're not food waste experts. We're focused on the local conditions here, but we feel like what's happening here is important to discuss on a larger stage about food waste, about emissions. clean energy, climate, et cetera. So there needs to be more accountability and thoughtful planning as we,

as the city tries to expand this. That's Willis Elkins, executive director of the Newtown Creek Alliance and WMYC reporter Sophia Chang talking with my colleague, Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.