The ULURP process for the Toll Brothers' Gowanus project is fast coming to an end. Today, the members of the City Council's Zoning and Franchises Subcommittee will vote on the project before it moved on to the Land Use Committee and then to the full City Council.
The Zoning and Franchises vote should have taken place last Wednesday, but only the chairperson, Tony Avella, was present for the public hearing, so the matter was tabled.
Without having listened to one testimony from the community, the sub-committee members will make a decision which will change our neighborhood forever. Most likely, they will defer to our local Councilman Bill DeBlasio, who has been a cheerleader for the project all along.
DeBlasio is confident that the heavily polluted site can and will be cleaned up to make it habitable for hundreds of new residents.
Below is a report prepared by the Environmental Liability Management Of New York, L.L.C. in 2005 on 363 Bond Street, the Toll Brothers site. It was sent to me by a reader who obviously shares the concerns of many Gowanus and Carroll Gardens residents.
Pretty scary stuff...wouldn't you agree?
Toll Brother’s, May 31, 2005, PHASE II INVESTIGATION REPORT 363 Bond Street,
Prepared by: Environmental Liability Management of New York, LLC.
"On April 15, April 20 and 21 and on April 28, 2005, ELM conducted the Phase II Investigation activities, which consisted of the advancement of ten (10) soil borings, five (5) of which were completed as ground water monitoring wells.
Evidence of petroleum contamination (odors, staining or elevated photoionization detector [PID] readings) was noted in all ten soil borings/ground water monitoring wells installed during this investigation. Soil was noted to be saturated with product in two boring locations: MW-5 and SB-1. Additionally, free product was encountered in two monitoring wells: MW-3 and MW-5; however, no free product was noted in the soil samples collected from MW-3.
Elevated concentrations of VOCs, above New York State Department of Environmental Conservation [NYS DEC] Technical and Administrative Guidance Memorandum 4046 [TAGM 4046] Recommended Soil Cleanup Objectives [RSCO5]) were noted in soil in five sampling locations: MW-3, MW-5, SB-1, SB-3 and SB-4. …….
SVOCs were detected in soil at concentrations atypical of urban fill material in 6 boring locations: MW-2, MW-5, SB-1, SB-3, SB-4 and SB-S. One or more soil samples collected from each of these boring locations contained concentrations of total SVOCs above 100,000 ppb. Samples from two of the locations, MW-S and SB-1, contained concentrations of total SVOCs above 500,000 ppb, which is the TAGM 4046 RSCO for total SVOCs.
Pesticides were detected in soil above TAGM 4046 RSCOs in two boring locations: MW-2 and MW-5. Pesticides were also detected in ground water above Class GA Standards in MW-5.
Metals were detected in soil above TAGM 4046 RSCOs in all 20 soil samples collected. …. Mercury was detected at concentrations one order of magnitude greater than the TAGM 4046 RSCO of 0.1 ppm in soil collected from five boring locations: MW-2, MW-4, MW-5, SB-1 and SB-5. ….Lead was detected in soil at concentrations exceeding the upper limit of the average background level in metropolitan areas in one or more samples … Arsenic and lead were detected at concentrations above their respective Class GA concentrations in ground water collected from monitoring well MW-5." |elm|
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3 comments:
So what is your solution to the problem? Never build anything on there?
Come on, Anon 9:41. Your question is silly. Would you in all honesty live there knowing what contaminants are underground? I think not, unless you want to make yourself part of a clinical trial a couple of decades down the road. There's no way that the Toll Bros can adequately clean up that site, and tragically for us, they will not realize this until they've done major damage to our environment and then abandon the entire project as undoable. And then what? Another Three-Mile Island scenario? Please.
The point is; are we qualified to evaluate whether or not they can clean up the site adequately for housing?* And, assuming that this blog is populated by authors and readers who are environmental clean-up specialists, chemical scientists or some hybrid thereof, then what CAN be done with the site? Because they have to be allowed some economically viable use of their property.
Why is it safe to allow workers access to the site now, but not residents in the future? Why can I walk down 1st street, if the contaminates around me are so deadly? Mercury, Lead and Arsenic are COMMON chemicals. I bet if I dug up my backyard I could find traces of it. Granted, the levels at the Toll site are alarming, but come on people, lets be a little realistic. If you don't like the project fine, say do, if the density is too great, fine, say so, but don't resort to arguments that have no merit or that we are unqualified to debate.
* And yes, what is the difference between living on the 8th floor of the proposed Toll Bros project and living on the 2nd floor of that disgusting Scarano abortion across Bond?
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