Bloomberg Says No to Gowanus Cleanup

I worked on EPA Superfund National Priority sites for archaeology in 1989-1994 after HAZMAT training at Bellevue and in Elmsford, NY. One in particular, the Marathon Battery site in nearby Cold Spring, NY was contaminated by nickel-cadmium heavy metals form the production of batteries for the NIKE missile ABM system that once ringed many cities around the world. The historic West Point Foundry Cove marsh was earthen dammed removed processed with concrete and taken out on the historic rail-bed that once carried the cast iron rifled Parrott cannons in the Civil War and latter steel assemblies used elsewhere to build bridges and skyscrapers in the NY/NJ area by the Chicago Steel and Bridge Co. until about 1912, across from the West Point Military Academy. The operations went apparently quite smoothly and today the marsh, monitored is returning to its prior natural state. I think the federal clean-up of Gowanus Canal would be the best option, though there were contentious levels of acceptable clean-up in Cold Spring, i.e., the State had a cleaner standard in parts per million than the Federal government did at the time.

 

The desire for and expectation of clean water instead of a carcinogenic, pathogen filled cesspool is not exactly a political agenda. As a resident of the Carroll Gardens/Gowanus area, I consider myself a winner once the water is clean. I don't see a developer-driven, half-baked attempt by the City and State of New York to clean Gowanus Canal as something that will acheive my desire and expectation. Only the big guns of the Federal Government have these types of resources and can get this job done.

 

Seriously and please do head this warning The Gowanus area is about to get shafted because of differing political agendas. It is that simple. Please do not see this as anything else. You can read the rest of this if you wish, but please do understand that this is simply one political faction trying to gain control over another and the only one who ever gets shafted when this happens is the neighborhood they are fighting over. The city is already working towards the same goals that the superfund is describing and they are starting to make great headway in a methodical manner. We stood there the other night and listened to yet another government agency say that they want to jump into this process and here is why this is a problem: 1. If they were really going to expedite the clean up efforts and work in a transparent manner everyone in the room would not have been as surprised as they were. When I mean everyone I mean agencies that tax payers have spent millions on that will now be duplicated. I mean the mayors office, DEP, local politicians – EVERYONE! 2. Why now? The problem has been this bad for many years and if they got involved 5 years ago I may feel very differently than I do now. We are ¼ of the way through the game and we are about to start over again and we are about to have three times the amount of players. 3. The biggest question is how do we benefit from this? The mayor and local politicians are not for it, there are processes already under way, there are alternative methods of doing the same exact thing that are already underway (a fact that he very quietly admitted to), and again they are already not working with everyone.

 

Since 2006 Toll Brothers has paid several major firms (Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, and Troutman Sanders LLP, and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP) more than $430,000 in lobbying fees to target our city government-- including the mayor’s office—for: “ rezoning of property bounded by bond st. carroll st, the gowanus canal and 2nd st,” why should we not expect that the mayor’s office would place Toll’s views of a Gowanus Superfund listing, above all other concerns? NYC has had more than 30 years to bring the Gowanus Canal into compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act of 1972. The Bloomberg administration has itself continues the long delays of doing cleanup work on the Gowanus. The city has even delayed the Flushing Tunnel work, first slated to be completed in 2008, because the city DEP did not see this work as a priority back in 2005. And everyone acknowledges that the Flushing Tunnel work —rehabilitating a piece of 1911 engineering—is not sufficient to bring the water into compliance with the Federal Clean water Act. The mayor’s office, has no plan for a comprehensive cleanup! How can the mayor now complain that a Superfund cleanup of the canal may take 30 years? Superfund Listing, will bring a process and method, not a developed driven piece-meal approach, to address the environmental problems of the Gowanus. The developers and their plans are only one part of this process and should not be given priority over the pressing environmental conditions—especially not just because one of them has had such an opportunity to meet with the mayor’s office and make their wished more clearly known to those that govern on behalf of all of us in this city. The only way the mayor’s office can legitimately oppose the Superfund listing is if they put a real cleanup plan on the table that also includes all the tools that Superfund action will bring to the cleanup process. Since the mayor’s office did no such thing when the city was more flush with money; it would be hard to imagine how under current finances, the city could match the action that the EPS is offering to us under the Superfund process. Let’s not allow NYC to delay a Gowanus cleanup further by the mayor’s opposition to this superfund listing. You may submit your comments on-line to: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=090000648094b7d2 or via email at: superfund.docket@epa.gov (Note Docket #EPA-HQ-SFUND-2009-0063)

 

Since 2006 Toll Brothers has paid several major firms (Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, and Troutman Sanders LLP, and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP) more than $430,000 in lobbying fees to target our city government-- including the mayor’s office—for: “ rezoning of property bounded by bond st. carroll st, the gowanus canal and 2nd st,” why should we not expect that the mayor’s office would place Toll’s views of a Gowanus Superfund listing, above all other concerns? NYC has had more than 30 years to bring the Gowanus Canal into compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act of 1972. The Bloomberg administration has itself continues the long delays of doing cleanup work on the Gowanus. The city has even delayed the Flushing Tunnel work, first slated to be completed in 2008, because the city DEP did not see this work as a priority back in 2005. And everyone acknowledges that the Flushing Tunnel work —rehabilitating a piece of 1911 engineering—is not sufficient to bring the water into compliance with the Federal Clean water Act. The mayor’s office, has no plan for a comprehensive cleanup! How can the mayor now complain that a Superfund cleanup of the canal may take 30 years? Superfund Listing, will bring a process and method, not a developed driven piece-meal approach, to address the environmental problems of the Gowanus. The developers and their plans are only one part of this process and should not be given priority over the pressing environmental conditions—especially not just because one of them has had such an opportunity to meet with the mayor’s office and make their wished more clearly known to those that govern on behalf of all of us in this city. The only way the mayor’s office can legitimately oppose the Superfund listing is if they put a real cleanup plan on the table that also includes all the tools that Superfund action will bring to the cleanup process. Since the mayor’s office did no such thing when the city was more flush with money; it would be hard to imagine how under current finances, the city could match the action that the EPS is offering to us under the Superfund process. Let’s not allow NYC to delay a Gowanus cleanup further by the mayor’s opposition to this superfund listing. You may submit your comments on-line to: http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=SubmitComment&o=090000648094b7d2 or via email at: superfund.docket@epa.gov (Note Docket #EPA-HQ-SFUND-2009-0063)