I think everyone agrees that the Gowanus Canal is a severely contaminated site that is not currently appropriate for human habitation nearby unless something is done about it.
Reports from Tuesday night's meeting at PS 32, a community forum about Superfund status for the Gowanus Canal, confirmed that the Environmental Protection Agency is more than convinced that the area is in need of this designation.
Representatives from the EPA, the community and plenty of politicians were there. I am guessing that quite a few of the City Council candidates for the 39th district were in attendance.
According to Katia Kelly of Pardon Me for Asking: "Mugdan, U.S. EPA Director of the Emergency and Remedial
Response Division, suggested there can be no rational discussion about whether
the canal needs to be cleaned up. The meeting last night was more about
the when and how. The
primary objective, Mugdan explained, is to identify the sources of the
contamination, clean up the sites along the Gowanus, and then to
dredge the bottom of the 2 mile long canal."
Note that Mugdan said that the land next to the canal must be cleaned first. I am wondering who is responsible for that clean up? Other questions are: who pays for the clean up, how long will it take and when will it happen?
Apparently there's a long list of sites with Superfund designation that have yet to be cleaned up. Who's to say that the Gowanus Canal will be a high priority for the EPA. And have they said whether they would pay for it?
Found in Brooklyn, a blog written by a Carroll Gardens community activist, reports that there was a representative from Bloomberg's office at the meeting, who expressed Bloomberg's opposition to Superfund designation and thinks that developers like the Toll Brothers, who have apporved plans to build condos, townhouses and a promenade along the canal, should pay for the clean up.
She writes: "A representative
from Mayor Bloomberg’s office appeared and burst the feeling of “YES!
finally some sense is being spoke here” and said that the Mayor was
against the superfunding and that developers have invested 400 million
dollars in doing the same clean up as the EPA."
The sides are drawn and the argument seems to be: who is better suited to responsibly take care of the clean up of a severely toxic site like the Gowanus Canal? There are those who say it is the private sector developers (who are huge financial supporters of many NYC politicians) and are motivated and eager to make big money off of the site.
Others believe that a government agency like the EPA would do it in the most thorough and responsible job. But from my reading about Superfund, the designation does not come with funding. Originally the idea was that the polluter had to pay for the clean up. But that "polluter tax" expired in 1995 and attempts by Democrats have tried to reinstate it but it was opposed by the Bush administration.
What does Obama think and will the polluter tax be reinstated under his administration?
That said, it worth noting that the first site to get Superfund designation was Love Canal near Buffalo, New York. In the late 1970's, horrible chemicals, which caused birth defects and miscarriages, started seeping up through the ground into basements
and a school, burning children and pets in that large residential area. Unknown to the occupants at the time, the neighborhood was later revealed to have been built
on a 19th-century canal where a toxic mix of more than 80 industrial
chemicals had been buried.
According to the New York Times in a 2004 article, Love Canal is what motivated Congress to pass the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, which came to be known as Superfund.
The law provided for the establishment of a priority list of dirty
sites, and created a mechanism for the cleanups to be paid for by the
companies that created them. A ''polluter pays'' tax was also set up to
pay for cleanups at abandoned hazardous waste sites.
That
tax expired in 1995, and Democrats in the Senate have tried to
reinstate it. The most recent effort was last week, when the bill,
opposed by the Bush administration, was defeated, 53-4
Superfund status, while incredibly validating for all who believe that contamination in the Gowanus Canal is unhealthy for children and other living things, does not insure a speedy clean up. Or a sugar daddy that will take care of it.
I'm curious about the details and how long this will take. It seems about time that the Gowanus get cleaned up so Brooklyn can begin to enjoy that beautiful and historic area.
There are alternatives to the stigmatizing Superfund designation, including the EPA’s own Brownfields program where the EPA would award grants to community organizations for studies and even actual cleanups. They could be a helpful guide and ally to the other governmental agencies that want to work to clean up the canal.
This should be a partnership, not an adversarial process. There are programs detailed on the EPA’s website which involve working with local government.
Why was this done now and in such haste without involving local citizens or elected officials? Why were other alternatives not explored?
The Canal should be thoroughly cleaned up but not on the EPA’s 25 year timetable. Instead the EPA should lend a helping hand and give grants. The cleanup should be done properly in a non adversarial way and NOW, not in 25 years.
Anyone who owns property (including a condominium or coop) within 3 blocks of the Gowanus Canal should consult with an attorney before supporting a Superfund designation. The stigma and burdens are enormous. The lawsuits can drag on for years. The innocent landlowner designation is not clear cut. And even if the EPA does not sue, it is not clear that potentially responsible parties won’t sue all other prps for contribution.
A Superfund designation is probably one of the worst things that could ever happen to property values, not just in the two or three block radius but in all the neighborhoods even near the toxic waste dump.
The image of the neighborhoods around the Canal will forever be tainted, despit the fact that they are safe to live in. Those who own within a few blocks of the Canal will be most harmed and will have trouble selling and refinancing. The law is complicated and is somewhat explained on the EPA’s website. Even lenders may fear being held responsible.
Think of it, would you ever move to Love Canal? Would you care that the house you were considering purchasing was three blocks away from Love Canal? The Love Canal neighborhood was forced to change its name to Black Creek Village although that never fooled anyone.
If anyone owns property that is or ever was industrial, they risk being forced to do a cleanup, under the threat that if they don’t they will have to pay treble damages. The EPA tried to assure people that they would be OK. Try getting that in writing. Their site states
“This Policy does not provide for an exemption from potential CERCLA liability for any party; it is a statement of the Agency’s enforcement discretion. Liability is governed by Section 107 of CERCLA. Under Section 107 (a) (1) of CERCLA a person is liable if it is the owner or operator of a facility. 42 USC 9607 (a) (1). (I think a tenant should qualify as an operator of a facility.) Under Section 101(9) (B) of CERCLA, a facility is defined to include any site or area where a hazardous substance has come to be located.” 46 U.S.C. Section 9601 (9)(B). (See http://www.epa.gov/compliance/resources/policies/
cleanup/superfund/policy-owner-rpt.pdf)
Instead of working with local politicians and the Army Core of Engineers and the city, Nydia Velazquez and the EPA have rushed into a process that will probably last at least 25 years, if the GE contamination in the Hudson River river is any guide.
Walter Mugdan of the EPA proudly announced that they were going to do the cleanup of the Upper Hudson River. He conveniently forgot to mention that the Upper Hudson GE site was added to the Superfund list in 1984! And in this case, GE was the responsible party. Here things are more muddled. The EPA will sue all the potentially responsible parties which include those who had nothing to do with the polluting.
Who benefits from a Superfund Designation?
1.Not anyone who owns property in Carroll Gardens or Cobble Hill or Boerum Hill
2.Not anyone who sincerely wants to see the Canal cleaned up quickly so that it becomes safe to use within the next couple of years.
3.Not anyone who owns or operates any kind of facility or has used any property in the area for any use other than wholly residential uses
4.Not anyone who would like affordable or low income housing
5.Not anyone who is interested in the jobs that the development would bring
6.Not local businesses who would benefit from additional customers
7.Not anyone who would like to see the raw sewage flows stopped
8.Not anyone who is interested in saving energy, stopping global warming or who believes it is better if people live in urban walkable communities well served by public transportation instead of in suburban sprawl where they have to drive everywhere.
The people who will benefit are people who don’t care about cleanup liability because they have no assets to be seized, who want the brownfields to remain a home for rats and a stinky blighted area innundated with raw sewage every time it rains. (Each rainfall brings more PAHs that leach from our asphalt roads.) They want the sewage and the rats and the contaminants to stay because they want to rent and occupy industrial space at dirt cheap rates.
I love your blog but the piece above is riddled with inaccuracies and misinformation, starting from the very sentence.
Not everyone agrees that the Gowanus Canal is a severely contaminated site that is not currently appropriate for human habitation nearby unless something is done about it. To wit, the Toll Brothers, whose representative on the project stated as recently as last week that the canal is “really not that dirty” (http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/04/10/2009-04-10_gowanus_developer_to_pull_out_if_epa_designates_polluted_canal_a_superfund_site.html).
This is the Alice in Wonderland up-is-down, down-is-up logic we’ve been living with near the Gowanus: “Hey, let’s put luxury condos right on top of the canal, and then it’s bound to get cleaned up!”
You’ve also repeated the laughable figure of $400M developers have supposedly pledged for cleanup. That’s the figure of development dollars, not cleanup. That’s how much they’re going to spend on the condos!
It’s incredibly frustrating to read well-intentioned people falling for the mayor and developer’s scare tactics. “But-but–we were about to clean the canal anyway! We don’t need the feds!” Please. Give me a break. They’ve had years to do it and accomplished nothing.
That a solution may take time is reality. It’s time we get used to it, and clean the canal properly–as a whole–and not in piecemeal promises from developers that never seem to materialize.
The canal has started cleaning itself ove the years, and the propeler has helped. The problem is the bottom of the canal. A lot of History a lot of pollution but it is getting better. I still find it difficult to belive when I bike down there and go over the Carroll St. bridge there are people living almost on top of it ( with kids) in a older converted building. Someone is building a disgusting looking high rise right over it as ell I hope that never gets done, that’s a blight even if it was a luxuery building. They say there will be afforadable housing along with Market priced Housing along the canal, we’ll see but I doubt it not for people paying a million plus dollars for a tiny house to live mearby. We can hope for the Beaty of Buddy Scotto’s venice, but it will take awhile. it has to be cleaned up- sorry Yuppy families .