Finally, Forward Movement
At Monday's Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting, a tentative announcement was made by representatives of our local elected officials that the Gowanus Canal was possibly going to be added to the EPA Superfund list.
As of today, it is official:
Here is the E.P.A. press release which was sent out by Tom Gray, District Director for Council Member Bill DeBlasio. Below is more information.
(New York, N.Y.—Apr. 8, 2009) – Thanks to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to add Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal to the Agency’s Superfund National Priorities List (NPL), the waterway will once again become an asset to local residents. The proposed listing would allow the Agency to further investigate contamination at the site and develop an approach to address this contamination. The Gowanus Canal is severely impacted by contaminated sediments as a result of its history hosting heavy industry. EPA is asking for public input on its proposal to list the Gowanus Canal.
“By proposing to list the Gowanus Canal, EPA can ensure that a thorough investigation into the source and extent of the contamination can take place,” said Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “The sooner we get the listing underway, the sooner EPA can begin its work, so that one day the Gowanus Canal can be used again to benefit the people of Brooklyn.”
The 100-foot wide canal extends about 1.8 miles from Butler Street to Gowanus Bay in Brooklyn, New York. The adjacent waterfront is primarily commercial and industrial, and consists of concrete plants, warehouses, and parking lots, with proposed residential use. The canal is also surrounded by residential neighborhoods. The waterway is used for commercial as well as recreational purposes, and a public fishing area just downstream of the canal in Gowanus Bay is fished daily.
The canal was built in the 19th century to allow industrial access into Gowanus Bay. After its completion in the 1860s, the canal became a busy industrial waterway, acting as the home to heavy industries, including manufactured gas plants, coal yards, concrete-mixing facilities, tanneries, chemical plants, and oil refineries. It was also the repository of untreated industrial wastes, raw sewage and runoff.
Although most of the industrial activity along the canal has stopped, high contaminant levels remain in the sediments. The extent of the contamination traverses the length of the canal. Sampling has shown the sediments in the Gowanus Canal to be contaminated with a variety of pollutants, including pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), metals and volatile organic contaminants (VOCs), and significant contamination associated with coal tar.
With the proposal of this site to the NPL, a 60-day comment period will begin during which EPA solicits public input regarding this action. For instructions to submit comments go to http://www.epa.gov/superfund/
To date, there have been 1,596 sites listed on the NPL. Of these sites, 332 have been deleted resulted in 1,264 sites currently on the NPL. There are now 67 proposed sites awaiting final agency action. There are a total of 1,332 final and proposed sites around the country.
To find out more about the NPL Site Listing Process, visit: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/
Next week, there will be an informational meeting on the nomination. Here is the info:
Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez and Congresswoman Yvette Clarke
Invite you to a:
A Public Information Forum with
US EPA
Regarding the Gowanus Canal Nomination for Superfund
Tuesday, April 14, 7:00 PM
PS 32 Auditorium 317 Hoyt Street (between Union & President Streets)
Bring Your Questions
US Environmental Protection Agency
Will explain how the Superfund program works
and nomination process
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5 comments:
Well, this ought to be good for adjacent property values. I wonder how the banks are going to view refinancing applications, given that Superfund law makes their assets attachable for clean-up costs.
This is a disaster for the community. Superfund sites are riddled with litigation and take an average of 15 years to be addressed. There is also no Federal money for it; it gets funded by suing adjacent property owners whose uses added to the contamination of the canal. During this period, City and State funds that were going to be used to revamp the flushing mechanism, etc. will be frozen because the City is one of the parties that the Feds are going to sue. This could not be worse news.
Katia,
Once again, I want to thank you for your quick action on a very important bit of neighborhood news.
Altho the doom and gloom has already begun, I want to encourage you to continue reporting the facts about our local issues. Please continue to remind everyone that the facts in this case are
going to be presented by a panel of experts next week. Anyone who has questions, comments, or challenges should bring them to the meeting and so we can all learn the true situation.
Keep up the good work!
Best,
Maria
To the first two commenters: why shouldn't responsible parties be held accountable for pollution? It's not like private residents are going to be sued for flushing their toilets. Give me a break.
And what about the people who own the adjacent property that have nothing to do with the pollution?..Not only did there property value drop down 150% , Now they might be stuck with the bill?..BULLSHIT
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