Congratulations To Brad Lander And A Small Reminder...

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Someone told me once that in politics, there are no yesterdays, only tomorrows. With that in mind, I congratulate Brad Lander for winning the democratic nomination in the 39th Council District, which includes Carroll Gardens and a big part of the Gowanus Canal area.

Should he win in the general election in November, I hope that Mr. Lander will be a better, more responsive advocate for our neighborhood than his predecessor Bill DeBlasio, who, it seemed, only remembered that Carroll Gardens was in his district at the end of his second term in office, when he needed votes to move on to higher office.

I also sincerely hope that Mr. Lander will continue to support the Superfund Designation for the Gowanus Canal. Below is his statement of support for the designation from his campaign web site . I am posting it here as a reminder for the future, because even in politics, the promises one makes yesterday, need to be kept today!

From Brad Lander's campaign web site:

Brad supports Superfund Designation & Cleanup of the Gowanus Canal

Calls for coordinated effort, under EPA leadership, to clean polluted sediment, water, and land
May 26, 2009

I strongly support EPA Superfund designation and cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. The Canal – including the sediment at the bottom, the water, and the land around it – is highly toxic and demands comprehensive cleanup. I support the listing of the Canal on the EPA’s National Priorities List so that we can turn the Gowanus Canal area from a toxic remnant of mistreatment of the environment into a sustainable community resource for decades to come.

The EPA’s Superfund process can best provide the framework, research and analysis, assessment of responsibility, coordination, and necessary resources to clean the Canal. The complexity of this process also demands coordinated action by Federal, State, and City government, and both public and private actors. In order to insure that the cleanup be as effective, comprehensive, expeditious, and transparent as possible, I urge that the designation process provide for the following:

A coordinated effort to remediate the sediment, the water, and the land that enables all actors to move forward with remediation efforts

Long-term success depends on cleaning up the toxic sediment at the bottom of the Canal (which is contaminated with PCBs, coal tar, and a range of other toxins), the water in the Canal (which continues to be polluted as a result of combined sewer overflow, or CSO, events), and the land around the Canal (much of which is industrial brownfields).

The EPA has indicated that their first priority will be to address the sediment. This is a welcome focus, as other actors had essentially given up on comprehensive dredging, which is necessary for the area to be fundamentally clean in the long term. At the same time, it is critical that the cleanup of the area be comprehensive, with the full range of actors working together under one umbrella (especially since the City has primary responsibility for actions necessary to address the CSO issue, and the State for the cleanup of brownfield sites). The NYC Department of Environmental Protection plans to invest several hundred million dollars to upgrade the flushing tunnel and to address the water quality and CSO issues. This investment is critical, and should be incorporated into the Superfund plan. The EPA should enable the City to proceed with cleanup as part of its efforts to satisfy its obligation as a potentially responsible party. And the City of New York must not use designation as a way to delay or reduce its commitments, but instead to incorporate them into a comprehensive cleanup plan.

The EPA should also work with the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and National Grid to enable the remediation of the Public Place site to proceed under DEC supervision, simultaneous with the Superfund process. This was long the site of coal gasification, an extremely toxic process, as a result of which it is leeching toxins into the Canal. DEC and National Grid have reached agreement on a plan to remediate the site, and the EPA has given preliminary indication that it is the right approach to cleanup. As part of designation, the EPA should enable the DEC and National Grid to proceed, as part of National Grid’s satisfaction of its responsibility as a potentially responsible party. Once the site is clean, redevelopment can move forward under the “Gowanus Green” plan including a waterfront park, cutting edge sustainable technologies, community amenities, new spaces for local small businesses on Smith Street, and new housing with more than two-thirds of the units affordable to families and seniors at a wide range of incomes.

A process that utilizes consent decrees, litigation, and public resources toward the goal of collaborative cleanup and community health.

Many Superfund sites are places where one or two corporations polluted the site through criminal action. In many of these cases, the EPA litigates against the responsible party and then uses the winnings of that litigation to remediate the site. The Gowanus Canal is more complex, as there are scores of potentially responsible parties (PRPs) who owned the land around the canal and have likely contributed to polluting it over the past hundred years. In addition, the CSO problem is one of our collective making, not the result of a malevolent corporation but of poor public planning for disposal of our waste.

Litigation against some PRPs will likely be necessary to compel them to meet their cleanup obligations, and should proceed if responsible parties do not step forward to accept and satisfy their obligations. But it could take an extremely long time, and it might never provide sufficient winnings at trial for comprehensive cleanup. The designation agreement should therefore provide a framework under which public resources (including Federal, State, and City dollars) can be used to clean the Canal, with resources from litigation used to refill the Superfund coffers as they emerge.

In addition, the EPA should provide a framework under which PRPs – including potential new owners prepared to invest in sites, who did not contribute to pollution but will not be willing to “step into the shoes” of liability without a clear framework for agreement – can enter into consent decrees under which they will satisfy their liability by participating in the comprehensive cleanup. This may involve supervised remediation and monitoring of their own site, and/or payment into the cleanup fund as established under a comprehensive, multi-party agreement.

An inclusive and transparent public process

One problem with efforts to date has been the lack of a clear and inclusive process. Residents have struggled to get the various levels of government to work together and to provide clear information about cleanup plans and standards. Because this issue is one of public health, it is essential that the public has full information and confidence in the investigation and cleanup process. I urge the EPA, DEC, and City of New York not only to work together, but to provide a formal, inclusive structure and process for providing consistent information and community input in all phases of the project (investigation, planning, cleanup and monitoring).

Superfund designation and cleanup by the EPA, especially with these provisions, can turn the Gowanus Canal area from a toxic remnant of mistreatment of the environment into a sustainable community resource for our community for decades to come.

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