Hello from CORD!
Below is a recent post from the Brownstoner Blog indicating what CORD has known all along: that Public Place, the site of future housing, is HIGHLY contaminated!
http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2011/06/epa-gowanus-sit/
"The Post and Daily News have stories about how the Environmental Protection Agency has sounded an alarm about the levels of pollution at a few properties in Gowanus, including the site off Smith and 5th where a development involving more than 750 units of housing is planned. According to the article in the Post, the cleanup plan for the land that’s supposed to one day be home to the Gowanus Green project (old rendering above), with 774 residential units, is “superficial.” The cleanup, which is being undertaken by National Grid, involves digging eight feet into the soil in most spots to remove coal tar, but a rep for the EPA says the gas company should be going down at least 30 feet “to remove contaminated soil and guarantee the tar doesn’t continue seeping into the canal and nearby properties.” However, the Department of Environmental Conservation, which is monitoring the cleanup, says it’s satisfied with National Grid’s plan. Meanwhile, the Daily News reports that the EPA has also found that “site of a Lowe’s home improvement store is still leaking pollution into the canal even though a state-monitored cleanup was supposedly finished before the store opened seven years ago” and the property where Toll Brothers intended to build a big project was more contaminated than the developer’s investigation showed."
