Development Flows Slowly Along Gowanus And Newtown - As Predicted, Superfund Designation Supersedes Building Plans in Brooklyn by Laura Nahmias - City Hall News

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Superfund designations at Newtown Creek on the Queens/ Brooklyn border in October and at the Gowanus Canal last March incited panicked waves among developers and city administrators worried over the impact the label could have on growth in the city's most populous borough.


And the worries have only continued to fester, like the gonorrhea in the Gowanus.


The designation at Newtown Creek did not spur as much vocal debate as the Gowanus designation, but there is still potential for the label to have an adverse impact on the city’s hopes for economic development in the area, in Brooklyn and Queens, according to Marc LaVorgna, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office.


The Bloomberg administration openly opposed the Superfund designation at Gowanus, advocating for an alternate cleanup plan that would allow prospective developers to voluntarily contribute funds for the work.


The 140-year-old, four-mile-long canal is lined with thick sludge from years of toxic dumping, most from untraceable sources.


At Gowanus, Toll Brothers planned to stop building a $250 million development if the designation were approved, and when it was, they did. The Bloomberg administration was not pleased.


The parties responsible for the pollution at Newtown, on the other hand, are well known—ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron, along with several industrial companies along the waterfront. The city supported the designation at Newtown because there was “no other way to clean it up,” Lavorgna said.


One reason the designation at Newtown may have been less openly controversial is that locals already associate the neighborhood with toxicity. There is nothing wrong with the neighborhood’s water, but residents still use Brita filters anyway. The neighborhood is downwind from one of the city’s sewage treatment plants. Locals call the area “Stinkpoint.”


More importantly, awareness has been growing of the massive oil spill, under the neighborhood’s northern end, since it was first discovered in 1978; over the past several years, environmental impact studies, news articles and a lawsuit from the attorney general’s office have helped publicize the presence of oil—an amount scientists have estimated to reach 17 million gallons, or three times the size of the Exxon-Valdez spill.


According to Assembly Member Joe Lentol, who represents the part of Brooklyn affected by the designation, the Super-fund label is a relief.


“People are optimistic that something is finally happening,” he said of his constituents.


Lentol, who grew up in Brooklyn and says he swam in Newtown Creek as a child, used to believe the designation would drive down property values in the area, he said.


“My misgivings were that, you know, I don’t want the people of Greenpoint to think they’re living in such a contaminated place that they’re going to move out. I don’t want them to think that their property values would be lowered. It’s a delicate issue for people who live here. A lot of people remember Love Canal, and when they think of Superfund, they think of contamination. They think of people dying from cancer,” Lentol said.


A report issued by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests the impact of the designation on property values is mixed, and changes from site to site, with some sites’ property values rebounding after designation, before the cleanup is complete. The exact costs, extent and time frame for cleanup at both sites is speculative until more research is done, said EPA regional spokesperson John Senn.


Knowledge of the pollution and the Superfund label have not impacted average home prices in Greenpoint yet. Sales prices for two-family homes have risen over the past year from $771,449 to $799,386. The number of total home sales dropped off though, by about half, according to records from the city’s Department of Finance.


But the city is still concerned over the future of development near Newtown Creek, according to the mayor’s office. There are 184 blocks and two miles of waterfront still developable in Greenpoint, as well as the possibility for up to 7,000 additional units of housing and 7.9 acres of open space along less than a mile of waterfront, LaVorgna wrote in an e-mail. Those plans are contingent on private investment to reactivate the East River and Newtown Creek waterfront.


One part of the designation that has received little consideration is how it will affect the Queens side of the creek, specifically Hunter’s Point South, which was rezoned for development in 2008, LaVorgna wrote.


The area is cited for 5,000 housing units, a new public school, $175 million worth of utility and road infrastructure and 10 acres of waterfront park, he added.


Perhaps most crucial are $500 million in planned capital improvements for the area. Those projects could stall as the area comes under federal control, Lavorgna said.


The cleanup might not be controversy-free even if it began that way. In mid- October, Queens politicians, including Borough President Helen Marshall, Assembly Member Catherine Nolan, Assembly Member Michael Gianaris and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer, issued a letter to the regional EPA coordinator taking the agency to task for what they perceived as a lack of attention to cleanup in the borough.


Few of those issues were raised by constituents when the EPA opened up the designation to public comment, Senn said.


“I will say that we got a lot more comments from the public about possibly putting the Gowanus Canal (more than 800) on the Superfund list than we did about possibly listing Newtown Creek (several dozen),” Senn wrote in an e-mail.


The reason for the limited feedback was not clear, he said.


But legislators say the designation in both areas cannot ultimately be held responsible for stagnation in development.


Lentol acknowledged that 45 planned building projects have stalled in Greenpoint since the recession began. Those developments were the byproducts of two rezonings—one in 2005 to open up the waterfront to high-rise condominiums and increased affordable housing, and another in 2008 to entrench the lowprofile post-war housing in the neighborhood’s center.


At Gowanus, Toll Brothers planned to stop building a $250 million development if the designation were approved, and when it was, they did.


The Bloomberg administration was not pleased.


Council Member Brad Lander, whose district encompasses parts of Gowanus, said he thought the developer might have had to pull out anyway, given the state of the economy. Other planned developments for the area, such as speculative plans for a Whole Foods, were never as concrete as the Toll Brothers housing development, he said.


Both Lander and Lentol suggested the designation would ultimately be good for their neighborhoods. Lander hoped the EPA could contract out cleanup work to local firms, stimulating the local economy. Lentol hoped the Newtown Creek designation would clear the way for eventual residential rezoning of the areas directly adjacent to the waterfront. Those sites are currently industrial, but the waterfront has been desolate for years, Lentol said.


“Everybody was waiting for industry to come back, and guess what?” Lander said. “It wasn’t ever coming back.”

Reconsidering-Gowanus? by Daniel Bush - QueensLedger

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Planning the redevelopment of an urban industrial neighborhood as promising and complex as Gowanus takes time. Luckily, everyone involved in the effort has ten to 12 years to figure it out.

That's the length of time the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has estimated it will need to carry out a Superfund cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. The timetable-inspired fierce debate from Superfund opponents lasted through most of last year, however, now that the EPA's plan is in place a new consensus is emerging around the redevelopment prospects of the gritty canal-side neighborhood.

Yes, uncertainty over the scope and logistics of the Superfund cleanup will delay the long-sought-for transformation of the area, which is sandwiched between several affluent neighborhoods. But that might not be such a bad thing, after all.

At a recent CUNY forum aptly-titled “Reconsidering Gowanus,” public policy makers, real estate experts, and community groups that are taking the long view described the ten-year pause brought on by the Superfund cleanup as an opportunity to reassess the neighborhood's future before moving forward with plans to change it.

The high-profile conference was the first large meeting of stakeholders since the EPA announced its Superfund listing last month.

Its timing, and the sweeping report on the neighborhood unveiled at the forum, were intended to shift the focus of public discussion from the science of cleaning the canal - which is now firmly in the hands of the federal government - to the surrounding community.

The report identifies Gowanus, population 28,000, as an area bounded by Bergen Street to the north, Fourth Avenue to the east, the Gowanus Expressway to the south, and Court Street to the west.

The data on business, housing, and demographic trends shows the tiny community - which is defined by the canal and its industrial heritage, as well as by its proximity to transportation and desirable communities such as Carroll Gardens and Park Slope - is poised to explode, if new residential and commercial development can successfully be mixed in with the neighborhood's existing industrial base.

After a steady post-war decline, Gowanus experienced a major resurgence in the 1990's, according to Harry Schwartz, one of the co-authors of the report, which relied mostly on data from the 2000 Census. Since then, property values have increased, and the neighborhood's residents as a whole have become increasingly prosperous and better educated.

And thanks to an influx of creative young professionals and artists, the community has gained a reputation for its under-the-radar arts scene; Marty Markowtiz, Brooklyn's borough president, called the area the “indie adjunct” of Brooklyn's better-known BAM cultural district.

But is Gowanus a true “Soho in the making if left alone” in the coming years, as Staurt Pertz, a former member of the City Planning Commission, suggested at the forum. And how will it respond to the development boom that is sure to follow the Superfund cleanup?

“Gowanus is going to become more like its wealthy neighbors like Park Slope and Boerum Hill and so on,” if the current wave of gentrification continues, said Schwartz. However, he said, “there's a chance we can change that trend.”

That's the challenge facing community groups, which will use the next several years to argue for a comprehensive neighborhood rezoning that includes plenty of affordable housing, space for local businesses and artists, and public parkland along a revitalized canal corridor.

The city drafted plans to rezone 25 blocks inside of Gowanus several years ago, but put them on hold last year after the EPA became involved with cleaning the canal. The plan would have set aside more land for manufacturing uses, while creating broad swaths of low and high-density mixed-use zones to encourage development.

“We believe that we've come up with a pretty balanced approach,” Purnima Kapur, the director of City Planning's Brooklyn office, said at the forum. She said the city is “waiting to see how the Superfund will affect the city's plans” before resuming the rezoning process.

Whenever it does, the city must also contend with the neighborhood's growing polarization along racial and socioeconomic lines. While Gowanus has improved in general in the past two decades, several sections of the neighborhood have been left behind.

For example, the CUNY report found that in the two largely Hispanic census tracts situated in the rougher pockets of Gowanus east and southeast of the canal, the number of people living below the poverty line rose 32 and 62 percent, respectively, between 1980 and 2000.

In contrast, during the same time period, poverty declined by 38 percent in the two mostly-white census tracts northwest of the canal, situated in affluent Carroll Gardens,

Overall, the data shows the richer, whiter areas of the neighborhood have become wealthier, while the southeast section of Gowanus is home to a growing number of low-income Latinos.

A third of the mostly African-American residents in the neighborhood's public housing developments live below the poverty line, according to the report.

New Monitoring At Newtown Creek by Kaitlyn Kilmetis - Queens Tribune

Queens Tribune

Last week, the Department of Environmental Protection declared it will open a new microbiology laboratory on the shores of infamously polluted Newtown Creek.

On March 9, DEP Commissioner Cas Holloway announced the creation of a new $2.3 million facility that will serve to improve operational efficiency and enhance monitoring of local waterways.

The 2,000 square-foot lab, located at Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Brooklyn, will feature state-of-the-art equipment including modern incubators, sterilizers and purification systems.

Prior to the lab’s creation, water testing was performed at 14 different wastewater treatment plants; with the new lab, bacteriological analyses will be consolidated at one center so the staff will have the ability to analyze an increased number of samples on a daily basis and compare samples more efficiently.

“One of our core responsibilities is to make sure that wastewater is effectively treated, so that it has as little impact on our receiving waterways as possible,” Holloway said. “This new microbiology lab will substantially increase our monitoring and testing capacity, giving us the vital information we need to meet and exceed treatment standards, and continue the resurgence of New York City’s waterways that is central to Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC vision.”

According to Holloway, DEP will begin to take additional bacteriological samples within Jamaica Bay beginning this summer to assess water quality and also monitor several tributaries to evaluate ambient improvements resulting from combined sewer overflow retention investments.

Newtown Creek, a highly-contaminated urban waterway that traverses Queens and Brooklyn, is currently in a Superfund designation public comment review period.

Gowanus Canal Labeled Superfund Site, Over City’s Objections by Mireya Navarro - NYTimes.com

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The Gowanus Canal is contaminated with noxious pollutants, and some of its banks, like at Carroll Street, are dumping grounds. More Photos »

The Environmental Protection Agency designated the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn a Superfund site on Tuesday and announced plans to clean up more than a century’s worth of noxious pollutants there.

Life Along the Gowanus - Slide Show

A minke whale in the Gowanus Bay near the canal in April 2007. Police boats tried to encourage it to move out to sea, but it died after a few days there. Photo: Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

The decision ended a contentious debate and was a blow to the Bloomberg administration, which had proposed a cleanup without such a designation. The city had argued that the label could set off legal battles with polluters, prolong the dredging operation and spook developers leery of the stigma of a Superfund listing.

But in a conference call with reporters, Judith A. Enck, the E.P.A. administrator for the region, said the Superfund designation would guarantee the best result for residents and the environment and ensure that the polluters cover all the costs.

“We believe that it would get us the most efficient and comprehensive cleanup,” Ms. Enck said.

From Gowanus Bay to New York Harbor, the agency has found contamination along the entire length of the clouded 1.8-mile canal in a preliminary assessment, including pesticides, metals and the cancer-causing chemicals known as PCBs.

The agency estimates that the project will last 10 to 12 years and cost $300 million to $500 million. The city estimated that its approach would take nine years.

The E.P.A., which proposed the Superfund designation last April at the urging of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, made its decision after a public comment period that involved more than 50 meetings with city officials, developers, community groups and others. Nine other Superfund sites across the country were also designated on Tuesday.

“It was the right thing to do,” said Marlene Donnelly, a leader of the neighborhood group Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus. “It’s the beginning of a plan to start the restorative process for the Gowanus area.”

City officials expressed disappointment but struck a conciliatory tone and pledged to cooperate with the cleanup.

“It’s disappointing,” said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. “We had an innovative and comprehensive approach that was a faster route.”

“But we are going to work closely with the E.P.A. because we share the same goal: a clean canal,” he added.

Carved out of tidal wetlands and streams in the 1860s, the Gowanus evolved into a busy waterway for oil refineries, chemical plants, tanneries, manufactured gas plants and other heavy industry along its banks. Industrial waste and raw sewage gushed into the canal for over a century.

Most of that flow has halted since the 1960s as maritime shipping faded. Today the 100-foot-wide canal is used for commercial and recreational purposes by neighborhoods bordering it, including Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook.

Yet even as kayakers glide alongside the banks and fishermen catch striped bass for sport at its mouth at Gowanus Bay — the fish are too contaminated to eat — residents complain about the odors from continuing discharges of sewage and unsightly debris from scrap metal yards and other industrial enterprises.

The E.P.A. has already identified the city, the Navy and seven companies, including Consolidated Edison and National Grid, as potentially responsible for the past discharges. It is seeking additional information from at least 20 other companies so it can map out the financing of the cleanup.

“This is a historical puzzle we’re putting together here,” Ms. Enck said.

Caswell F. Holloway IV, a former mayoral aide who helped design an alternative cleanup plan for the Gowanus and is now the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, said he had no estimate of New York’s financial liability for what federal officials said included contamination from various facilities, including an asphalt plant and an incinerator in the area. He said the city would work with the E.P.A. to ensure that costs are recovered from all responsible parties.

“The city has an obligation to ensure that the burden is shared fairly,” Mr. Holloway said.

He noted that the administration had already committed $150 million to reducing odors and preventing sewer discharges and had shared the cost of a feasibility study for an environmental restoration project by the Army Corps of Engineers. E.P.A. officials said they saw those projects as complementary and expected them to continue.

Mr. Holloway said it was uncertain how the Superfund designation would affect economic development in the area.

One developer, Toll Brothers, said it would scrap its plan for a $250 million project with about 450 housing units and retailing space on three acres by the canal. “We wouldn’t be able to obtain financing to build, and we’d have difficulties obtaining insurance,” said David Von Spreckelsen, a senior vice president with the company, citing factors like uncertainty on how long the cleanup would take.

But Gowanus Green, a $300 million project for 774 units of new housing in nine buildings as well as retailing and community facilities, mostly financed by the city, is going forward.

“We’re in full support of the project, and we’ll work with the E.P.A.,” said Aaron Koffman, a spokesman for the Hudson Companies, one of the companies in the project’s consortium.

Eager to preserve such development potential, the city had proposed an approach under which the federal agency would allow the polluters to pay for the cleanup voluntarily.

But Ms. Enck said the city’s plan lacked “financial certainty” because it relied partly on federal allocations that would require Congressional approval. Agency officials also worried that having the Corps of Engineers and the E.P.A. both tackle the cleanup would complicate an already messy challenge.

In advocating for a Superfund listing, Ms. Enck had rejected arguments that it would keep investors and lenders away.

“Banks look at the environmental conditions of the properties,” she said at a meeting with reporters last week. “It is not a secret in Brooklyn that the Gowanus is contaminated. The notion that Superfund is going to create a stigma just doesn’t hold up.”

Agency officials said the cleanup, which will focus chiefly on the sediment in the canal, had effectively begun, with sampling already under way.

The timetable calls for completing the sampling and assessments of human and environmental risks by the end of the year. A full cleanup plan is to be drafted by 2014, with the work then unfolding over at least five years.

Walter Mugdan, the agency’s regional Superfund director, said that most of the canal would probably be dredged.

Additional steps include eliminating all sources of continuing contamination, like overflowing sewage and the migration of contaminants from groundwater under old industrial plants.

Press Release: Weiner, Velazquez Call for Newtown Creek to be Designated as a Federal Superfund Site

Newtown May Be Eligible for $15 Million in Federal Funding - Up to 90% of the Average Cleanup Costs

Lead, Mercury, Cancer-Causing Agents, Heavy Metals among Chemicals Cited

New York City - Newtown Creek, home to the largest coastal oil spill in American history, could soon be designated as a federal Superfund site and receive federal clean up support, according to Representatives Anthony D. Weiner (D - Brooklyn and Queens) and Nydia Velazquez (D - Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens). The Representatives released a letter to the federal Environmental Protection Agency today, calling on them to conduct preliminary tests at Newtown Creek. If these environmental tests find high levels of toxic chemicals, the entire Newtown Creek area could be included on the federal Superfund list and may be eligible for federal funding of up to 90% of the cleanup costs. Based on the average Superfund site cleanup cost, this could be up to an estimated $15 million in federal funding.

The Superfund program is the federal government's principal program to clean up the nation's hazardous waste sites Despite containing an oil spill one and a half times as large as the Exxon Valdez spill, Newtown Creek is not a part of the federal Superfund program and has never been tested by the federal EPA for admission into the nation's Superfund program.

To date, an estimated 9.4 million gallons of oil have been cleaned at Newtown Creek. Between 17 and 30 million gallons were spilled over an area which covers 55 to 60 acres. Estimates indicate it will take until at least 2026 to finish the remediation.

Rep. Weiner, a member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials, the House panel with jurisdiction over the Superfund program, together with Subcommittee Chairman Gene Green (D - Texas), Vice Chairwoman Hilda Solis (D - California) and Rep. Velazquez, today released a letter to the EPA identifying four sites along Newtown Creek for priority federal review, including two former hazardous waste facilities, a former copper smelting plant, and a former coal gasification complex.

The designation would trigger a lengthy four-point process. First, the site would undergo immediate stabilization, which includes a one-year clean up to stop any immediate threats to the community, if necessary, such as erecting a security fence or repairing a hazardous waste storage unit. Then the EPA would perform a comprehensive investigation of the site and analyze cleanup options Traditionally this takes months to years. The EPA would then work to develop a plan to clean up the site On average this takes 2 years. Finally, the EPA would clean up the site, or force responsible parties to clean up the site. On average, the cleanup process takes 8-11 years.

The federal Superfund program, created in 1980 in response to the presence of chemical waste in the groundwater and even basements of neighborhood homes and an elementary school in upstate New York, gave the government the authority to take direct action to clean up uncontrolled hazardous chemicals that are endangering public health or the environment. Superfund also provides the government with the authority to compel responsible parties to clean up contaminated sites.

Funding for the Superfund, however, has dropped from a recent high of $3.8 billion in 1997 to only $178 million in 2007. The drop in funding is the result of expired taxes on the oil and chemical industries as well as an expired corporate environmental income tax in 1995.

In order to be considered for the Superfund program, the EPA performs preliminary tests to decide if the site poses a threat, and where the site should rank in priority on the Superfund list While some parts of the Newtown site are being addressed by state Superfund cleanups, there has not been any federal testing or consideration to date for admission into the federal Superfund program.

Working with the EPA, Weiner and Velazquez identified four sites as the highest priorities for federal environmental testing in consultation with Riverkeeper, Inc. on the basis of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and New York State Attorney General records State tests have found the following toxic chemicals and heavy metals in the area: cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and mercury, petroleum-related hydrocarbons, an underground plume and/or tanks containing polychlorinated biphenyls and petroleum waste, and up to 70,000 gallons of PCBs-laden waste oil and additional amounts of solvents.

Rep. Weiner said, "While the oil companies lag in their cleanup responsibilities, the health and safety of Newtown Creek's residents hang in the balance. Testing these four sites will help us find answers to basic questions about the spill's health risks and give this national environmental disaster national attention."

"It's time for the EPA to acknowledge what the people who live here already know: the contamination of Newtown Creek is nothing short of a human tragedy," Congresswoman Velázquez said "The EPA should use its strongest tools possible to begin remediation The time to act is now."

"Riverkeeper continues to fully support Congressman Weiner's and Congresswoman Velasquez's efforts to ensure a comprehensive cleanup of Newtown Creek," said Basil Seggos, Chief Investigator and Hudson River Program Director. "Listing Newtown Creek as a Superfund site would undoubtedly bring us closer toward realizing our shared vision for cleaner waterways and greener communities."

In 1978, the Newtown Creek spill was originally estimated at 17 million gallons - one and a half times larger than Exxon Valdez. Evidence of the spill has been found across 55 acres, seeping into the Creek and settling under homes and businesses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

It is the single most polluted waterway in New York City, a legacy left by more than a century of heavy industrial activity.

In April 2008, the House of Representatives passed language to fully map the Newtown Creek oil spill. The provision requires new field testing and will create a three-dimensional study of the plume location, detailing - for the first time ever - the extent of the Newtown Creek's groundwater, soil, and vapor contamination. Pending Senate passage, the study, the biggest, most comprehensive data
collection to date, would also be completed by the EPA.

In 2007, Weiner and Velazquez released the findings of an EPA study of Newtown Creek, which found that the spill may be larger than originally estimated, but left many questions unanswered.

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