(NEW JERSEY) New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey's administration has stopped talks with New York City about constructing a transfer station for the city's waste in Linden or another site on the New Jersey waterfront.

In December, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell said the administration was working with New York City officials to explore locations where containers filled with New York City waste could be loaded onto freighters and shipped out by sea. He noted that the effort was in its early stages, but that three New Jersey sites were under review, along with several New York sites.

At the time, Campbell said that by getting involved early, the administration could help speed up the move to halt New York's current practice of sending waste through New Jersey. In addition, the administration's involvement could steer New York away from rail-hauling waste through New Jersey, another method opposed by McGreevey's administration.

But officials for McGreevey said that Campbell's discussions with New York were unexpected, and instructed Campbell not to hold any further talks with the city. New Jersey, McGreevey officials said in the Newark Star-Ledger, is not looking to take any more of the city's waste than absolutely necessary.

Currently, nearly 11,000 tons of New York waste passes through New Jersey each day, headed for landfills in the South and Midwest. In December, Campbell said the state environment department was helping New York identify potential sites for a marine transfer station. But more recently, he said the DEP would be less involved in the process, only going so far as to keep a close eye on the development of the city's solid waste management plan. And in another reversal, Campbell ruled out any chance that the McGreevey administration would support a transfer station at Linden's Tremley Point.

An earlier New York City proposal had called for waste to be brought by barge to Tremley Point, repackaged into shipping containers, and loaded onto trains that would move through central New Jersey and out of state. But that plan stalled and eventually died amid community opposition and state investigations of conflicts of interest surrounding the ownership of the site.

In December, Campbell said the Linden site was one of the three sites under consideration for New York City's newest marine transfer plan. "If the ethics issues were resolved through a change in ownership and the proposal were for marine rather than rail transport, that would certainly be an eligible site," he said at the time. But more recently, he said even a change of ownership would not be sufficient to resolve ethics issues surrounding the site.

For more information, contact the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, (609) 984-6650, www.state.nj.us/dep.