COURIER L 12 IFE, MARCH 4-10, 2022
SUPER FUNDED
Schumer says Newtown Creek, should benefi t
from $3.5b toward ‘orphan’ sites
BY KIRSTYN BRENDLEN
The long-delayed cleanup of the
Newtown Creek Superfund site needs
to be sped up, and an infl ux of federal
dollars toward National Superfund
cleanup should put the wind in the
sails of the Environmental Protection
Agency and the parties responsible for
funding the process, said Senate Majority
Leader Chuck Schumer on Friday.
“Unfortunately, the polluters, even
when they agree to pay, want to delay
and minimize,” he said at a press conference
in front of the creek. “We want
the polluters to speed things up and
maximize.”
Brooklyn is home to three Superfund
sites — Newtown Creek, the
Gowanus Canal, and the Wolff-Alport
Chemical Company. The heavily-polluted,
often-dangerous sites are usually
a result of years of irresponsible
dumping of waste and chemicals by
large industrial companies. Once the
EPA designates a Superfund site, they
can identify the “potentially responsible
parties,” or PRPs, and force them to
contribute money to the cleanup.
Late last year, President Biden
signed off on the $1 trillion infrastructure
bill with promises of shoring
up the country’s roads and bridges.
Tucked away in the bill was $3.5 billion
for the cleanup of “orphan” Superfund
sites, like Wolff-Alport, which
don’t have any PRPs and rely entirely
on government funding for cleanup.
But Newtown Creek, a tributary of
the East River that cuts divides Brooklyn
and Queens, isn’t an orphan site,
with fi ve PRPs and the City of New
York agreeing to fund the cleanup under
a 2011 settlement with the EPA.
Since then, though, very little has
been done to clean up the Creek. In a
July 2021 community update, the EPA
said they anticipated issuing a cleanup
plan no sooner than 2024.
Schumer called for the “new Biden
administration EPA,” including recently
named regional director Lisa
Garcia, to hustle on the cleanup.
“We’re telling the EPA, we want
you to kick ass,” the longtime senator
said. “And get ExxonMobil, and Texaco,
and Phelps-Dodge, and National
Grid. All of these companies who so
polluted Newtown Creek to get moving
and clean it up.”
The $3.5 billion allocated to the orphan
sites should free up resources at
the EPA to “redouble their efforts” to
start pursuing the polluters, Schumer
said.
The money is a good start, but longterm
policy changes are needed to
keep the program funded and dirty
sites scrubbed, said Michael Lang, a
spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez.
U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer visited Newtown
Creek on Friday, celebrating the allocation
of $3.5 billion to Superfund sites nationwide
and urging the EPA to take action
at Newtown Creek.
“In 2018, Velázquez introduced
legislation to reinstate the Superfund
tax on big oil and chemical companies,”
Lang said. “The Build Back Better
Act includes reinstatement of the
Superfund tax, taking action from the
congresswoman’s bill. This is imperative
to the fund’s long-term outlook.”
Velázquez’s proposed bill would
also create a special loan under the
Small Business Administration to
help small businesses who are suddenly
forced to move their operations
due to Superfund actions, he added.
Local Assemblymember Emily Gallagher
said the work to clean up the
creek goes hand-in-hand with ending
city and state reliance on fossil fuels,
which she said contributes to the ongoing
pollution at the creek as heavy
industry continues along its banks on
both sides.
“Oil is at the root of so many
harms, both human and environmental
and ecological, where we are seeing
so many things suffer because of
our legacy with oil,” she said. “So, our
fi rst step is getting this Superfund
site cleaned up, and our second step is
making sure there is never a site like
this again, and that we move forever
off of oil and gas as a source for anything.
We have other options.”
Cleaning up the polluted industrial
sites that border Newtown Creek
is necessary to keep the body healthy,
said Wllis Elkins, executive director
of the nonprofi t Newtown Creek Alliance,
because the chemicals that seep
into the ground often end up running
into the water.
“It’s not that, necessarily, they
need to shut down their operations,
per se, but it is that the industries that
have created a lot of the pollution still
have pollution on their sites,” he told
Brooklyn Paper. “In a larger sense,
yes, we need to be transitioning to
dirty fossil fuel, because that still is
posing not just a climate threat but
a threat to our local environment as
well.”
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