New York City Sludge Stalls In Alabama

Writing for Mental Floss in 2015, Emily Becker finished her article on the twenty-year export of New York City’s wastewater sludge to Colorado with the words “there are no plans for the New York City poop train to leave the station again.” Fast forward to 2018 and the wheels are once again rolling.

As reported by the Washington Post, an injunction to keep New York City sludge out of West Jefferson, AL, had stalled a train carrying treated wastewater sludge from New York City in the small town of Parrish. Bound for the Big Sky Environmental LLC landfill in Adamsville, residents were up in arms over the stench as the train sat idle by the neighboring little league baseball fields for more than two months before Parrish mayor Heather Hall was able to arrange for the sludge to be trucked away.