Once again, Carroll Gardens/Gowanus and our neighboring communities are going to be punished with unresolved, chemical contamination issues. And the City and State of New York KNOW better!
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has just announced it is altering a key requirement of the remediation of "Public Place" known to be highly contaminated as this is written. These parcels of vacant land along the Gowanus Canal are highly contaminated as coal tar lies underneath the top soil in abundance. Both Public Place and the Gowanus Canal are poisoned with this coal tar that was a by-product from the National Grid gas manufacturing plant located there about a century ago.
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation just announced it will agree to National Grid removing FAR LESS of the contaminated soil on Public Place than previously thought. Residential development is planned for the site with thousands of innocent and perhaps unsuspecting New Yorkers and others who will decide (or not) to live on that soil. Coal tar is a well-known carcinogen, known to cause serious harm in humans. Removing LESS contaminated soil form Public Place makes absolutely no sense. At least not if the use is for future housing.
Katia Kelly, well-know community activist and author of PMFA writes today, in an article entitled,
NYS DEC just degraded the environemntal clean-up at Public Place.
"A few days ago, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. (DEC) sent out two notices about the parcels that make up the heavily polluted Public Place Site, which was once the site of the former Citizens Manufactured Gas Site." LINK
"The notices are orders to the environmental clean-up of the very polluted sites that represent "significant changes" to the original one. It's clear, after carefully reading them, that the state has changed course radically: Public Place is now going to get less of a clean up than was originally promised. Instead of digging up and removing 8 feet of soil across the entire 9.6 acre site as initially planned, the State environmental watchdog decided that they will allow National Grid, the polluter, to only dig up 2 feet of dirt on most of the site and replace that two feet with clean soil, which DEC calls a "cover system"."LINK
This new information is an enormous blow to the Carroll Gardens/Gowanus and beyond communities that has been working tirelessly for years to obtain a comprehensive remediation for both the Gowanus Canal and the Public Place. It is also an insult as the CAG/Citizens Advisory Group for the Gowanus Canal just met with NYS DEC last week. what changed since last week and now?
Kelly continues: "
"And...they're planning this reduced cleanup since DEC says the site clean-up will be good enough for "restricted residential" use. " LINK
The NYS DEC stated last week that vegetable gardens will not be allowed on the land since "restricted residential use" has that caveat.
CORD is wondering why a site unfit for vegetables is fit for thousands of inahbitants?
CG CORD
