COURIER LIFE, F 6 EBRUARY 12-18, 2021
‘Unprofessional’
EPA guru in hot water over
Gowanus pollution concerns
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
A federal environmental offi cial
found himself in hot water after alerting
locals to the environmental challenges
for a planned affordable housing
complex in Gowanus above a mound of
toxic pollution — prompting a scathing
response from his state counterparts,
who accused him of using “fl ippant, unsubstantiated”
language that drums up
unnecessary fear.
“I hope you will agree that such fl ippant,
unsubstantiated statements have
no place in a public forum where public
servants from coordinating state
and federal agencies are providing factual
information to the public,” wrote
Michael Ryan of the New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation
in a letter obtained by Brooklyn
Paper.
Ryan’s Dec. 7 letter comes after federal
EPA rep Christos Tsiamis suggested
at a community meeting that the
site at Smith and Fifth streets — where
the state is cleaning up the remnants of
a former gasoline plant, and the city is
looking to build an affordable housing
complex known as Gowanus Green — is
potentially dangerous, as toxins could
rise up from deep underground and
spread inside the proposed structure.
In response to Tsiamis’ warnings,
Ryan called the remarks “misinformation”
in his letter, and accused the EPA
rep of “unprofessional conduct.”
“This unprofessional conduct is not
only inappropriate but dangerous, as it
publicly questions the sound remedial
program that NYSDEC has rightly determined,
with EPA concurrence, will
protect public health and the environment,”
Ryan wrote.
The site, currently called Public
Place, is polluted from a century’s-worth
of work by Citizens Manufactured Gas
Plant, including the toxic byproduct
coal tar, which offi cials have found there
at depths of more than 150 feet.
Utility fi rm Nation Grid is currently
excavating and fi lling in clean soil at
depths between 2- and 22-feet as part of a
two-year Brownfi eld Cleanup Program
set to wrap this summer, and the city
plans to give the publicly-owned site to
a group of developers to build a 950-unit
below-market-rate complex with a waterfront
park and space for a school as
part of the proposed Gowanus rezoning.
At the December meeting, Tsiamis
said that the coal tar — known by locals
as “black mayonnaise” — will have to
be pumped out of the ground for years to
come, likely at the point where it accumulates,
below the proposed waterfront
park.
“From my experience standing
around those wells when they are
pumped is not a pleasant experience,”
he said at the time. “I don’t think children
— or even adults — should be playing
around when this is happening.
Pumping of the tar will occur certainly
for our lifetimes.”
The developers behind the Gowanus
Green affordable housing site — Fifth
Avenue Committee, the Bluestone Organization,
the Hudson Companies, and
the Jonathan Rose Companies — have
applied with the state’s cleanup program
in case further remediation is needed
after National Grid is done, and ahead
of them breaking ground. However, details
of any potential follow-up cleanup
have been scant in the city’s presentations
on the project.
While Tsiamis was giving his nowinfamous
warnings, a state rep tried to
jump in — saying locals should direct
their concerns to the state agency’s project
manager, John Miller.
Tsiamis countered, however, saying
that his own decade of experience
working on the Gowanus enabled him
to give better insight than other offi cials
who haven’t been working in the area as
long.
“I have a depth of knowledge in the
project that — with all due respect —
other people present at DEC right now
they don’t have,” Tsiamis said.
Those comments were “deeply concerning,”
according to Ryan, who also
accused Tsiamis of confusing the state’s
current cleanup with a potential future
remediation by the developers, and providing
false claims about the site’s history,
which offi cials have been trying to
redevelop since the Michael Bloomberg
administration.
Ryan added that DEC’s plan had been
approved by the state’s Department of
Health and the federal EPA — and that
the national agency indicated in an August
2017 email that they had no comments
on the remedy.
Ryan also demanded the EPA disavow
Tsiamis’s comments.
EPA honcho Pat Evangelista responded
to Ryan’s letter on Jan. 6 saying
he “appreciated” the concerns, and
would try to coordinate better with the
state in the future — while offering to
meet with them and iron out the details
sometime that month.
“We could discuss how EPA and NYSDEC
can reassure the community of
our joint expectation that the efforts
performed by NYSDEC and the developer
will protect public health and the
environment at the site,” Evangelista
wrote in the letter.
The federal offi cial did not directly
comment on whether Tsiamis’s statements
were factual, nor did he offer to
retract them.