Lifelong Carroll Gardens resident writes to the EPA

FRIDAY IS THE LAST DAY TO WRITE TO THE EPA!!

Here is a letter to the EPA from a life long resident of Carroll Gardens and a CORD Co-Founder to the EPA Rita Miller:

"My name is Rita Miller. I am a third generation lifelong Carroll gardens resident and property owner living just a couple of blocks away from the Gowanus Canal.

I have served on the CAG since its inception representing CoRD, an organization I co-founded several years ago. I am also a member of FROGG, the larger South Brooklyn Coalition and the 2nd Place Community Transit Garden.

Other than the two residential properties I own on Second Place, I have no other holdings or business dealings in the community. I am, however very interested in the fate and future of the Canal. 

It is with a confident and enthusiastic heart that I offer my full support to your Proposed Plan. I totally approve of the Plan which accomplishes the goals we set together from the start--

---a clean and capped Canal bottom, a halt to toxic compound seepage into the water from the surrounding uplands and a solution that addresses, at their source, future chemical recontamination via the CSOs with a bonus for us to boot--since the proposed retention tank solution will alleviate the now constant unhealthy pathogen laden pollution of the canal as well.

Those tanks are the key to satisfying the community's and the CAG's well documented longing for the elimination of CSO discharges. And the proposed locations couldn't possibly be more thoughtful or logical.

I understand the need to disrupt some of the amenities offered currently at the MPG site location at Thomas Greene Park in order to accomplish the necessary upland and water remediation. I do not view this as "losing a park", as some have claimed. Instead, I see this as a positive and much needed cleanup of an unhealthy and unsafe area which unbelievably just happens to be used for recreation at the moment.

I have confidence that we, as a community, can work with EPA, NYS, NYC and National Grid to come up with first a temporary replacement and a more permanent solution later on, for the pool and whatever other amenities are necessary while the toxins are removed and the site's problems properly addressed.

 As a parent myself, I find the complete and total remediation of this recreational area an absolute necessity--anything short of that--a fruitless waste of time and money. Frankly, I cannot understand anyone taking a different position. What parent is happy knowing that their child is playing somewhere that is unfit, unsafe and unhealthy? What parent would advocate keeping that when the alternative is something so much better?

In regard to the CDF proposal, my understanding is that this one particular piece of the Proposed Plan will, as it should, be entirely up to the Red Hook Community.

In closing, I want to say that as both a CAG and individual community member I have found our EPA Region 2 team to be top notch in every way. I want to thank you for that.

 So, you go Region 2--- I eagerly await the Record of Decision and look forward to the Remedial Design phase. This has been the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to our community and I want to see it through to the end. Thank you again. Let's keep moving forward!"

Sincerely,

Rita Miller