The city’s Department of Environmental Protection on Thursday will look to take another step toward installing a permanent odor-abatement device on the shore of Howard Beach’s Shellbank Basin.Because of great depth differentials in the basin, it does not flush completely with Jamaica Bay’s tides. When temperatures are warmer, sun-exposed water remains above the cooler water at the basin’s bed — a phenomenon known as stratification — marine life below suffers from a lack of oxygen and the basin’s notoriously putrid odor is released. In the summer, when this temperature differential is greatest, the basin’s smell worsens.
A temporary destratification facility in the parking lot of Captain Luna’s Marina at 158-35 Crossbay Blvd., on the basin’s west shore, releases fresh air bubbles through the water from perforated diffuser lines suspended along the bottom of the basin. They mix the basin’s water column and oxygenize its deepest water, keeping the crab and fish populations vibrant and preventing the release of the basin’s odor.
“Sometimes it can smell really bad, depending on how hot it is. But it (the destratification facility) does help,” said Howard Beach’s Sue Kaplow.
The only one of its kind in the city, the facility has operated for the last six years between late May and late August.
Because of its success, the city is seeking to construct a permanent apparatus on the basin that would be roughly twice the size of the existing one. At its April meeting, Community Board 10 endorsed the city’s plan to construct the facility in the Starbucks parking lot at 157-41 Crossbay Blvd. On Thursday, the department will again make its pitch at a land use hearing at Borough Hall.
Dan Andrews, a spokesman for Borough President Helen Marshall, said that because the community board approved the proposal, it would probably gain the Land Use Committee’s approval as well. But the new facility may not be operating in the basin for some time.
According to department spokesman Ian Michaels, the temporary facility could still be used as late as 2011.
The city currently rents the space at Captain Luna’s, but it anticipates purchasing the 40-by-50-foot plot in the Starbucks parking lot. According to Michaels, the move to Starbucks was planned because the owner of Captain Luna’s did not want such a large facility built on his property.
It will consist of two electric-powered air compressors in a sound-insulated 380-square-foot, 15-foot-high building and two one-inch diffuser lines that will extend approximately 2,000 feet along the bottom of the basin.
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