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QUEENS WEEKLY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
Willets Point cleanup riles workers
City’s environmental decontamination process is hurting local businesses, owners claim
BY MAX PARROTT
At last week’s meeting
about the progress of
the Willets Point Development
between the city
and the Flushing community
board, a group of
auto workers showed up to
make sure they weren’t left
behind in the aftermath.
The meeting was designed
to be a progress
report centered on environmental
concerns.
The Economic Development
Corporation (EDC),
the group overseeing the
mega-project, presented
its preliminary studies
on the level of pollution in
the area of the industrial
zone that the city bought,
which is known to have
a long history of toxic
dumping.
But workers who remain
in Willets Point
have begun to suffer as a
side effect of this cleanup
work. In coordination
with these studies, the
EDC de-mapped portions
of the southern part of the
neighborhood and erected
gates that block off all
major roads to the area
including Willets Point
Boulevard, 36th, 37th and
38th avenues.
After the EDC presented
at the meeting, three
different Willets Point auto
workers raised concerns
that the gates are choking
off their business and putting
them in peril by blocking
off ambulances in the
case of an emergency.
“The key problem is
that all the displaced
shops are now clogging
the streets. All the poor
shops that are now at the
bottom of Willets Point
Boulevard, are starving,”
said Sam Sambucci a
community board member
and auto shop owner on
Willets Point Boulevard.
During the EDC presentation
on their progress
under the Brownfield
Cleanup program, the
state’s regulatory environmental
purification
framework, engineering
consultant Gerald Nicholls,
Sam Sambucci says that auto workers in Willets Point have struggled after the EDC erected gates as part of the Willets Point Development.
Photo: Max Parrott/QNS
said that the initial
results were promising.
They found what they
expected to find, namely
petroleum contamination
in soil and groundwater,
which he said is relatively
easy to clean up.
But decontamination
will be time-consuming.
Nicholls estimated it
would be another two
years before the agency
could break ground on the
construction of the first
batch of affordable housing–
and that’s just covers
about a third of the land
that the city owns.
After EDC finished
the presentation, which
made clear that it planned
to keep the gates up for
years, three workers testified
about their effects.
Arturo Oyala, an auto
worker who lost his shop
over the last few years and
was forced to work from a
mobile shop, said that he’s
struggling to get by.
A lawyer representing
of the Sunrise Cooperative,
a group of mechanics
and auto-body shops
in Willets Point who negotiated
for subsidies in
2014 after the city took
over their properties, also
spoke on the hardships
that the group had recently
endured as a result of
the gates.
“We understand that
the area is going to get developed.
We’ve been talking
about it for 15 years–
before I was there. Either
or develop it or figure it
out. But while we’re here
you need to take care of the
people,” said Sambucci.
Eleni Bourinaris, a
representative for the
EDC, responded responded
to the complaints that
the roads were de-mapped
and blocked off in order
to complete the remediation
process. The agency
would have to coordinate
with the Department of
Transportation in order
to turn them back into
functioning streets.
Community Board 7
Vice Chairman Chuck
Apelian weighed in to say
that something needs to be
done to help the workers.
“It’s not a technicality
whether it’s a road or
it’s not a road, I think we
need to have some kind of
relief access sic on the
30 foot-wide strip right at
that key ‘V’ intersection. I
think that’s a smart idea.
So we’ll talk about that,”
said Apelian. He then insisted
on adjourning the
meeting so that he and
the EDC representatives
could have this conversation
outside of the context
of the public meeting.
Asked about its plan to
respond to the complaints
of the auto workers in the
wake of the meeting, an
EDC spokesperson said
that “we take the concerns
raised very seriously,” but
neglected to propose or commit
to any plan of action.