Living a few blocks from a Superfund site is a big deal. We all know that the Gowanus Canal is a toxic and contaminated but making it a Superfund site really validates claims by local environmentalists and community activists who have opposed development along the canal until it is cleaned up.

Yet, the issue is complicated. Superfund status is  not necessarily a panacea. The polluter's tax, which meant that  corporations responsible for the mess had to pay for the clean up, expired in 1995 and its repeal faced big opposition from the Bush Administration.

Would Superfund status actually mean a speedy clean up of the site? One certainly hopes so. Otherwise it's just a name on a list and more years of waiting for a clean up of what is otherwise a beautiful and historic section of Brooklyn.

There is a 60-day comment period about this issue and the public is invited to register their opinions at regulations.gov.

There you will see the Docket title: National Priorites List, Notice of Proposed rulemaking: Gowanus Canal. Make your opinions known!

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.

Find out why Brooklyn is the Bloggiest place in the US at this year's Brooklyn's Blogfest on May 7th at 7 p.m. at powerHouse Arena in DUMBO. 

ABOUT THE PANEL

The centerpiece of this year's Blogfest program will be a panel discussion titled, Why We Blog: Voices, Visions and the Realities of the Blogosphere.
Moderated by Megan Donis, a producer and reporter with BCAT, the panel
will feature five top-drawer bloggers who will talk about their reasons
for blogging; how they define success in the world of blogging; how
they balance their work and personal lives with blogging; and the
future of blogging. 
.

MEET THE MODERATOR

Megan
Donis is a TV producer, reporter and editor with 10 years experience
working in documentary, news and culture programming. Megan is
currently the Senior Producer of News Programs at Brooklyn Independent
TV (www.briconline.org), an adjunct journalism professor at Long Island University and a freelance video producer and editor.  Megan can be found at www.megandonis.com

MEET THE PANELISTS

Tracy Collins focuses on architecture, urban landscapes and street
photography generally, and more specifically on the Atlantic Yards
project in his neighborhood of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.  For the
past 4 years Tracy has been chronicling the changes to the area within
and around the footprint of the project. His photographs can be seen at www.3c.com and his blog is www.freakinblog.com.

Anne Pope is the founder and co-director of SustainableFlatbush.org, a neighborhood-based grassroots organization that promotes environmental sustainability in Flatbush, Brooklyn.

Bed-Stuy Banana has walked every street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, photographing everything from memorial murals to old signs. In her writing, she describes her struggles with gentrification, financial hardship and the joys of being both a parent and a part of her new community.

Melissa Lopata created Hip Slope Mama, a Park Slope community blog. As a former Corporate Marketing VP, who became a stay at home mom almost 2 years ago, Melissa reached out to a growing community of moms looking for advice and inspiration. Now with over 20 regular mom contributors Hip Slope Mama has taken on a life of its own.

Jake Dobkin is the co-founder and publisher of Gothamist, the network of city-specific blogs. He was born in Park Slope and lives in Brooklyn Heights. He attended PS321, JHS51, Stuyvesant, Columbia, and
NYU, where he got an MBA. He has never been away from New York City for more than ten weeks in the last thirty-two years. Surprisingly, his mortal enemy is… milk. You can learn more about Jake at
jakedobkin.com.

.

Greetings, Pub Quiz Adopt-A-Quiz Advocates

There's a lot of heavy stuff in the world.  I talk with you about it sometimes.

There's a lot of local political stuff in this city.  I talk with you about it sometimes.

There's oddball, eccentric, wonderful, confounding stuff coursing through all of lives.  I talk with you about it sometimes.

There are the games of skill and the skill of games, from baseball to Atlantic Yards.  I talk with you about it sometimes.

I've been reading a lot of exasperating comments sections in articles today about the Obamas' choice for First Dog.

"Isn't there anything MORE important to write about?!"  "This isn't news!"  "Get a life!"

Well, I have a life, it's vibrant and curious and looks for boundaries to honor and at the same time lines to cross.

Adopting animal companions from shelters and rescue groups is one of those honored stances.

Honored by me and a lot of you?  Yeah.  The Obamas?  Not so much.

Barack and Michelle Obama
didn't cross-their-hearts and swear-on-a-stack-of-bibles that they'd
adopt a dog.   They did, however, give us real hope and
straight-forward language that they'd do the right thing and adopt from
a shelter or a rescue organization.

Instead, they took the elite road to an expensive breeder who's clients include Ted Kennedy.

running away from a very specific hope…

This was such an easy call.  This isn't Iraq or Afghanistan,
gay marriage, national health care, the economy.  No, this was simple: 
adopt a dog that needs a home and  send a crystal-clear message —
loving dogs means rescuing them.

Malia Obama has allergies.  I get that.  There are hypo-allergenic pooches out there who need a good home.  The Obamas' choice?  A Portuguese water dog.

I went to PetFinder.com and found lots of PWDs (also stands for Poopy Weapons of Destruction).  Here's Pepper, who, amazingly, awaits a permanent home with a rescue group in…yep…Washington, DC.

Pepper.  Too far away — not as the crow flies, but as the politician shifts…

The
Obamas just didn't try very hard on this one.  Twenty-five percent of
dogs and 24% of cats that enter animal shelters are adopted.  One in
four.  That's pretty awful.  Barack and Michelle Obama, honestly,
should have told the kids "you can have a dog, but not until the right
one needs a home."

Bo, as the new First Dog has been named, was as far from a
date with the gas-chamber as a dog in America can be.  In fact, he was
a gift from Senator Kennedy, who's bought his PWDs from the same kennel
that bred Bo.  Kennedy should have known better.  Politically, if not
morally, it's gonna be a headache Obama doesn't need.

Same for the Humane Society of the United States.   Rather
than staying on message — adopt and rescue — the HSUS weirdly
applauded the Obamas for adopting a "second-chance" dog.  This, because
Bo had been purchased by a Washington DC family and was then returned
to the kennel.

It's shockingly uncool for the HSUS to equate a well-cared-for
custom-bred trendy-breed puppy with the millions of pooches trapped in
the nations' cement-walled pens.  It's like saying someone on the Upper East Side is a homeless refugee because they couldn't get a table at Le Cirque.

Or…maybe it's the cash the Obamas are donating to their local HSUS.  We didn't do the right thing, but here's a wad of bills, will this make it go away? It sure reeks that way, a sad state from both the Obamas and the HSUS.

It's a very Bloomberg and Ratner tactic — do the
wrong thing, disappoint a lot of folks, contort yourself silly trying
to spin it, and finally throw money at your critics so they'll go easy
on you.

As for puppy mills?  They'll go into hyperdrive, churning out PWDs by the truckfull.  You know, I was maybe gonna go down to the shelter and rescue a dog, but hey, the President didn't, so why should I?

Goose, comma, good.  Gander, comma, bad.

I like the Obamas. 
But they did a bad job on this one.  Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be Bo's
big unveiling.  The Obamas will certainly try to say the right things. 
But how can it come out as anything other than "do as I say, not as I
do?"

Maybe this will help the Obamas better remember what's at stake:

* * * * * * * *

It was a rainy Saturday morning but the Bed-Stuy Meadow event went on as planned. Forty or so volunteers showed up at 11 am and hurled "seed bombs" onto vacant lots and tree stumps in that neighborhood. The idea: to plant wildflowers (sunflowers and black-eyed-Susans) everywhere.

The reaction, according to WNYC, was mixed. Longtime residents and members of Brownstoners of Bedford Stuyvesant, a neighborhood group,  were miffed that organzer Deborah Fisher, an artist who creates site-specific work, didn't reach out to the community in traditional ways. One local resident, who spoke to WNYC, wondered why she didn't speak to the Community Board and get more local residents involved.

Deborah countered that she had more volunteers than she knew what to do with. Many noticed that the volunteers were mostly white and mostly newcomers to the quickly gentrifying neighborhood. 

The blogger who runs Bed-Stuy Blog was a proud sponsor of the event. Last week she shared her thoughts about an article that appeared in the Daily News that highlighted the controversy:

The article really gets interesting when they interview the
president of the Brownstoners of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Ava Barnett. (The
Brownstoners are probably best known for their annual Bed-Stuy House
Tour that takes place in autumn.) Ms. Barnett isn’t very enthusiastic
about the Bed-Stuy Meadow project, and comes off sounding very anti-wildflower.
In fact, the good Ms. Barnett calls the project a “wildflower invasion”
and says that wildflowers will not look good in an urban environment.
She mentions that several blocks in Bed-Stuy have received recognition
in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest,
which implies that the neighborhood is looking just dandy and doesn’t
need any additional beautification projects taking place, thank you.

Ms. Barnett is obviously in a South Stuy state of mind and probably
hasn’t ventured north of Lexington Avenue in years to see what her
neighborhood really looks like beyond those Greenest Block in Brooklyn
winners. I thought that the Brownstoners would encourage any type of
beautification project taking place in the neighborhood. Any guess why
a well-intentioned project like this would draw such negativity from
their president?

Is this just an example of "no good deed goes unpunished" or do longtime Bed-Stuy locals have a point? Was this effort to bring wildflowers to the abandoned lots of a neighborhood just another version of cultural imperialism foisted on a community?

Should Deborah Fisher have taken advantage of the local Community Board as a way to insure outreach to those who don't read blogs or get Twitter feeds?

What do you think? And how do you think people would feel in your neighborhood if an artist decided to seed bomb it?

Personally I think it was a cool idea. Not in a do-gooder sort of way but as a 'bring art to the streets' kind of happening. I like the serendipity of it and the attempt, by one woman, to create urban art. I wonder if she plans to do more of this? If so, she may have a thing or two to learn from site-specific superstar, Christo, who has dealt wil local governments for years to make his huge public art projects a reality.

Clearly, Deborah took a more guerilla approach. Next time, maybe, Fisher will engage the community more directly. That way, her process will be more transparent and inclusive in an interesting way. Christo's work is as much about the final product (Running Fence, Valley Curtain, The Gates) as it is about the buracracy, the politics, the public reaction and the many years it takes to complete:

Instead of getting defensive, Fisher should now compile the various reactions to Bed-Stuy Meadow – positive and negative – and seek to understand what it tells us about community and the process of making art. Therin lies the seeds to understanding between groups that often feel at odds in a gentriying community.

Kathy Malone
Age: 43
Lives: Park Slope
Type of design work: Women’s clothing
Cost of products: $50-$90
Web sites: Fofolle.com and fofolle.etsy.com

The Brooklyn Indie Market is actually your brainchild. How did it come about?
We
were an online community of indie designers and we were doing these
one- or two-day events in different locations, and it was so much work
for one or two days. So we found the tent and it was the perfect
location. I have a big organizer streak in me.

What’s your goal for BIM?
The goal of the space
is for each individual designer to get a chance to make sales. I have a
place to sell my own line, but also there is that important community
aspect. I’d say it’s 50% business, 50% socializing for me. It feels
like a club — not a snooty club, but it’s my social life.

An  article by James Barron in the Times' today reports on new bus shelters for the B23 bus, which goes through Kensington. Apparently that's one of the bus lines that the MTA wants to discontinues. So what gives? Why are they putting up new bus shelters? Is this just an example of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing or is there a chance that the bus line won't be going away? An ex-Park Sloper is even quoted in the article citing the bus as one of the things "that made the move tolerable." The bus goes from Flatbush Avenue and Corteylou Road to Boro Park, making stops along Ocean Parkway. Richard Grayson must know all about that bus.

Two bus shelters on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn — one at Ocean
Parkway, the other at East Fifth Street — were replaced this week with
shiny new steel-and-glass structures that can keep passengers on the
B23 bus line dry on rainy days and unmussed on windy ones.

But the B23 is one of six bus lines in Brooklyn that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority says it will eliminate unless it gets a financial lifeline from the State Legislature.

Asked
why new shelters were being installed along a line that could soon
disappear, Seth Solomonow, a spokesman for the Transportation
Department, noted that the proposed service changes were not definite.
“But we will postpone any further installations on affected routes
until the situation is clarified,” he said.

Soccer afficionado Hermann practicing on the beach with the Coney Island pier in the background.

I just got word from a parent of a student at PS 10, here in Brooklyn that PS 10 is organizing a special concert to raise money for the school. This parent writes:

Browsing the list of Guggenheim  Fellowships in an ad taken out by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation I noticed quite a few Brooklynites in the crowd. The Guggenheim's are a coveted award given out every year to artists, scholars and scientist in all fields. This year they granted 180 fellowships picked from a list generated from hundreds of recommendations from panels and juries. The trustees of the Guggenheim Foundation include Robert A. Caro, Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Hirsch and Ellen Taafe Zwilich.

And the Brooklyn winners are:

John Haskell for fiction
Joann Malinowska, fine arts
Stefanie Snider, fine arts
Julia Loktev, film
Thomas L. Bradshaw, drama and performance
Jordan Harrison, drama and performance
Anne Wasburn, drama and performance

Heather Hendershot, film, video and radio studies

As reported in the New York Times, a humpback whale was spotted at around 11 am on Thursday about 1 mile from the Verrazano Bridge.

Petty Officer Annie Berlin, spokeswoman for the Coast Guard, is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “It is fairly close to the shipping zone.  We want to make sure that not only the animal is not in danger,
but that the vessels traveling in and out of New York Harbor are also
safe.”

She said the whale was not too far from Brooklyn. “It’s
right near Bay Ridge,”s he added. “It’s right off of Belt Parkway.” By
1:15 p.m., the whale had moved near Coney Island, the Coast Guard reported.

Brooklyn Heights blogger, Self-Absorbed Boomer has a nice story about the Brooklyn humpback whale, too.

It's supposed to rain. But that's not going to stop the 200 volunteers of the Bed-Stuy Meadow project to show up and "throw seed" all over abandoned land in Bed-Stuy.

In fact, the rain is great for the process and organizer, Deborah Fisher, is enthusiastically recruiting more people to come to Bed-Stuy Saturday morning at 11 am to participate in this unusual event.

For this project, the neighborhood has been divided into zones and volunteers are being assigned to varoius zones. If you are interested in participating, it's important to register and RSVP so that organizers can place you in a zone.

Apparently an article in the NY Daily News raised some issues about the project and included some quotes from members of the community who are concerned that the free throwing of seeds will fall unwanted on private yards and gardens, of which there are many in Bed Stuy. In fact, the Greenest Block in Brooklyn usually includes many Bed-Stuy prize winners. In a recent email, Deborah wanted to assure people that the project is "about abandoned land, and that throwing seeds on yards,
tended tree pits, or other zones that are obviously under someone's
stewardship is totally uncool!" Here's an excerpt from Deborah's recent email about the event: