The community has long ago spoken about the dangers of redevelopment in Gowanus’ contaminated coasts.
The Gowanus Canal is located in a once industrial area of new York city Brooklyn, where factories dumbed manufacturing byproducts into the water.
The canal was designated a superfund site (around 2013?) which means the EPA would be cleaning out the canal for years to come (estimated completion is 2019 according to federal EPA representative Christos Tsiamis). While there are doubts around whether the canal will ever be safe to use for fishing for example, the goal by the Superfund is to return the site to a productive use.
As the cleanup progresses, the filth, heavy metals and sewage that has settled on the bottom is brought up to the surface. What has been called 10 feet of “black mayonnaise” is being dredged from the bottom of the canal- largely consisting of coal tar that has also sunken into the ground near the coastlines. Plumes of rainbow from oil on the surface, and a strong smell of garbage and sewage can be smelled when the cleanup is in progress.
As the cleanup process has been ongoing, billionares have been buying up land with the anticipation of developing 82 blocks of 3000 affordable housing units around the canal.
A rezoning lawsuit by Voice of Gowanus, Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus, and individuals in the community, filed stating that the city violated environmental laws when it had approved the rezoning from manufacturing to mixed use 3 months back. They argue the development is unsafe for the residents who will live in the developments to come.
On March 15th, 2023 the EPA announced the started building of the 12-million gallon sewage tanks that will serve to protect the community from further contamination and pollution during future storms. Still, as happy as the community is with the tanks finally starting construction, a news interview on Spectrum news with Martin Bisi, a Voice of Gonawus member states, “…it’s not enough to take care of the environmental problems in Gowanus, it does not address the profound contamination that we have in the sites around the canal” Those that agree state that there are at least 30 sites that will recontaminate the canal and endanger those living in the proposed future housing developments. The sewage tanks that are built are stated by the VoiceofGowanus organization website to be inadequate, them saying, “…the retention tanks are only meant to deal with the current number of residents in the community; they don’t take into account the additional sewage that will be produced by 20,000 planned future residents…Without the required retention tanks, and given increases in rainfall as a result of climate change, sewage will (and has) backed up into people’s homes”(voiceofgowanus.org).
The VoiceofGowanus blog page also links to a publication as recent as March 9th 2023, exposing that the NYS DEC discovered and failed to report residents of the cancer-causing toxic fumes rising into the building of the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, which were discovered a year prior. The fumes come from an industrial solvent, found at “10,000 times the allowable amount under New York State Department of Health guidelines” (Gothamist). This particular chemical’s vapors are linked to kidney and liver cancer. Concerningly, many around the venue having been exposed to it for years.
There has been no plan to remove all the underground toxins, as would have to be done to be in compliance with state standards. And as the ground water under the Royal Palms club flows towards the Canal, leaching of contaminated water into the canal would continue even after the Gowanus Canal is cleaned.
The Gothamist has quoted Dr. Ana Navas-Acien, professor of environmental health sciences saying, “If you have a very large population living in an area that is affected by this chronic exposure then you’re really putting a lot of people at risk.” We’ve reached out to her for further comments but heard no reply.
Looking to create and inform citizen activists, the VoiceofGowanus twitter is actively posting and campaigning people on their website to plea for governor Hochul to remediate the toxic sites around Gowanus canal to pre-disposal (of toxic chemicals) conditions, all to keep future generations in the coming inevitable developments safe.