Gowanus Canal faces crucial cleanup decision

Feds expected to designate the Brooklyn area a Superfund cleanup site in move that could push back hopes of development in the area by a decade or more. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to decide this month whether to take over the cleanup of the polluted Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal and designate it as a Superfund site. In December of 2008, the state Department of Environmental... [more]

Feds expected to designate the Brooklyn area a Superfund cleanup site in move that could push back hopes of development in the area by a decade or more. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to decide this month whether to take over the cleanup of the polluted Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal and designate it as a Superfund site. In December of 2008, the state Department of Environmental Conservation requested that the EPA consider putting the canal on its Superfund priorities list, despite the city's own efforts to clean up and develop the area. After initial testing, the EPA decided last April that the city's plan was inadequate and said it would continue to consider the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site. Since then, a business group called Clean Gowanus Now Coalition, which opposes the Superfund designation, has been lobbying the governor's office to reverse its position and withdraw its request to the EPA. The group supports the city's plan to clean up and develop the site. A spokeswoman for the EPA confirmed that a public information meeting is scheduled for Thursday, “to let the community know what has been going on with the remedial investigation of the contamination and what we plan on doing.” But she declined to specify when a final decision will be made on the designation. Some followers thought a decision to designate the canal a Superfund site was going to be made last November, but sources said Clean Gowanus Now's lobbying efforts had convinced the governor's office to ask the EPA to slow down its evaluation and consider the city's proposal. The governor's office could not be reached immediately for comment. Insiders said it's likely that the EPA will go ahead and put the site on the Superfund list despite the lobbying efforts because the state has not rescinded its initial request. Such a designation will stymie any hope for development in the area in the near- and even medium-term. Developer Toll Brothers, which was supposed to purchase three parcels from three different owners on the canal to build mixed-income residential towers, has already said it would abandon its plans if the canal is a Superfund. Toll Brothers is a member of Clean Gowanus Now. “Given the way Superfund sites work, it could be a decade or more from now before clean up starts,” said David Von Spreckelsen, vice president at Toll Brothers. “We just don't have that time horizon. We will most likely walk away from the properties.” Since 2002, the Bloomberg's administration has been trying to rezone the area around the canal from industrial to mixed-use commercial and residential and received support from developers like Toll Brothers, which agreed to build their own sewage systems. The city has also set aside money to begin a broader remediation of the canal and even reached a deal with one major polluter of the area, National Grid—the successor company to the old Brooklyn Union Gas—to contribute to the cleanup. The city planned on generating hundreds of millions of dollars from the private sector for the cleanup. Supporters of the Superfund status argue that the city's plan doesn't achieve the same level of cleanup that the EPA would and puts the public at risk to toxins and pesticides that could be left in the canal. “Today our coalition members are exceedingly concerned,” said a Clean Gowanus Now spokesman. “We feel that we made the case to the state as to why the city administration's plan would clean up the canal faster and cheaper.” Late last week, the coalition released the results of a survey that indicates that if the Gowanus is designated a Superfund site, lending to homeowners within 3,000 feet of the canal will be impossible due to new federal regulations put into place last year. [less]