IN THE GOWANUS
kicks off Canal Superfund dredging
EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez celebrates the launch of the Gowanus Canal Superfund dredging
at the First Street waterfront esplanade on Nov. 16. Photo by Kevin Duggan
What to expect from the cleanup
COURIER LIFE, NOV. 20-26, 2020 5
after EPA designated the
Gowanus a Superfund site in
2010 following fi erce battles
with the then-mayor Michael
Bloomberg, who opposed the
federal intervention, fearing it
would scare off $400 million in
residential development.
A decade later, the feds are
here to stay and the city once
again eyes more residential
development with a neighborhood
wide rezoning for Gowanus
slated to launch into public
review early next year.
Area Congresswoman Nydia
Velazquez praised the community’s
unyielding activism to
push Washington to take over
the site, saying it was the only
way to remediate more than a
century of industrial pollution.
“This is happening because
of you, your activism,
your commitment to fi ght for a
cleaner environment because
our communities and our children
deserve better,” Velazquez
said. “Some in the real estate
community thought that the
designation would disincentivize
people from coming in, and
that was so wrong.”
After the designation and
years of preparation, EPA ran
a pilot project to test the dredging
methods along the Fourth
Street Turning Basin in 2018,
pulling out some 17,000 cubic
yards of contaminated sediment
from that offshoot of the
canal.
The project is likely to last
at least another decade to scrub
the entire 1.8-mile canal of more
than a dozen contaminants, including
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
polychlorinated
biphenyls, and heavy metals,
such as mercury, lead, and copper.
Contractors will dredge
most of the sediment before
stabilizing the remnants by injecting
concrete and capping it
with a protective layer.
On top of that, more than 360
million gallons of raw sewage
and stormwater runoff fl ush
into the canal during heavy
rain annually, so the feds have
separately tasked the city’s Department
of Environmental
Protection with building two
massive stormwater retention
tanks to reduce the amount of
pollution from so-called combined
sewer overfl ows.
Uncle Sam has accused the
city of violating several federal
orders by delaying progress on
the two catch basins, after Big
Apple bureaucrats recently
asked for an extension of up to
18 months due to COVID-19-related
budget shortfalls.
EPA denied that request,
warning that the set back could
cost city taxpayers $62 million
in added cleanup after capping,
which could also risk damaging
the protective layers.
The agency still plans to
meet with its city counterparts
to hash out a new schedule to
get the tanks built by the same
time the dredging wraps up,
but Lopez said the feds would
be willing to go to court if DEP
continues to delay progress.
“Certainly no one wants to
be at a point where we’re litigating
and seeking court action
and putting punitive penalties
on them but that is possible
because we have the weight of
the law, the federal Superfund
law and ultimately they need
to comply,” Lopez said. “We’d
rather not do that, we’d rather
work with them as willing partners
with open minds and open
hearts and just proceed, because
it’s the right thing to do.”
Photo by Kevin Duggan
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The federally-supervised
cleanup of the Gowanus Canal
kicked into high gear this
week as the Environmental
Protection Agency launched
their full-scale dredging of
the upper portion of the toxic
waterway on Monday.
The more than $1.5 billion
cleanup effort will cleanse
the 1.8-mile canal in three
phases, starting with the
stretch north of the Third
Street Bridge that will wrap
up in mid-2023 and cost $125
million.
Barge-mounted excavators
will scoop out 72,400 cubic
yards of the putrid, poisonous
sediment at the bottom of the
canal known locally as “black
mayonnaise” — a volume of
gunk that could fi ll roughly
22 Olympic size swimming
pools!
Dredging will start just
south of the Carroll Street
Bridge, before continuing up
to the Union Street Bridge,
and then further south to the
Third Street Bridge.
Barges small enough to
navigate the narrow canal
will bring the piles of fi lth
to a staging site at Huntington
and Smith streets, where
they will drain out excess water,
before transferring it to
larger barges for shipping out
of the Gowanus and across
New York Harbor to New Jersey
to be processed.
Once in the Garden State,
the slimy sludge will be
screened for larger materials
like tires and wood, before
being recycled for new uses
such as landfi ll cover, according
to the EPA.
After dredging the gunk
from the waterway, contractors
will inject the canal bed
with cement to solidify and
stabilize the native sediment,
before installing a multi-layer
cap to catch remaining contaminants
from percolating
back into the water.
The EPA also plans to restore
the First Street Turning
Basin, a defunct and fi lled-in
offshoot of the canal that the
agency wants to revitalize as
a wetland area.
During the work, there
will be frequent openings
of the Union Street, Carroll
Street, Third Street, and
Ninth Street bridges to allow
the barges through, and
parties involved will coordinate
traffi c with the city’s
Department of Transportation.
Huntington Street east of
Smith Street will be closed
through September 2021,
and additional closures are
possible depending on the
work progress, according to
EPA. There will also be restrictions
on recreational
boating and canoeing north
of the Ninth Street Bridge.
Monitors will regularly
survey air quality, noise, vibration,
movement, and water
quality during the cleanup,
and readings will be posted
online at www.gowanussuperfund.
com.
EPA has established a community
hotline that you can
call 24-7, and during work
hours complaints and concerns
will be relayed to an onsite
supervisor and EPA (718)
403–2451.
For more information
about the site, you can also contact
EPA’s community involvement
coordinator Natalie Loney
at (212) 637–3639 or loney.
natalie@epa.gov.
/www.gowanussu-perfund.com
/www.gowanussu-perfund.com
/www.gowanussu-perfund.com
link
link