Not In My Backyard

An inventive excuse for why that trash transfer station is wrong for the neighborhood:

A dredging plan to create a Brooklyn waterfront waste-transfer station could have explosive repercussions, as it could set off anti-aircraft shells lost by the military in Gravesend Bay over 50 years ago, a state Assemblyman charged yesterday.

As the state Department of Environmental Conservation today is set to hold a final public hearing on the Bensonhurst station plan, Assemblyman William Colton (D-Brooklyn) made the revelation.

Colton said his office recently learned that a barge unloading live ammunition from the aircraft carrier USS Bennington capsized in Gravesend Bay in March 1954, taking with it 219 tons of munitions.

The barge turned up a day later but without the more than 15,000 shells aboard. The Navy said it recovered 15,003 shells by January 1955.