First off, in regards to the merits of the EPA’s involvement, there is no question that regardless of what clean up approach is taken, the EPA will be involved since any clean up effort will require meeting the regulations and standards as set forth by that agency. In regards to the water quality of the canal, the City has been violation of the Clean Water Act for over 38 years now and there have also been deficient infrastructure problems with regard to sewage overflows for over 70 years. It seems if the city was serious in its environmental and health concerns for the area it would have already begun a comprehensive remediation of the area before the EPA placed the Canal on its proposed National Priorities List. Also, as mentioned in the article, the DEC requested the Superfund nomination after realizing a more comprehensive clean up was needed than it could provide. If the DEC and the EPA recognized this, then how will the City manage a more comprehensive clean up with a non binding, property specific plan with less comprehensive dredging? It also seems ironic that there is a discussion around how lengthy a Superfund Clean up might be, but no counterpoint that the City has not taken any action to expedite clean up, and continues to fail to meet it’s own clean up timetable and even appears to be further responsible for delaying Superfund status by attempting to propose this non-binding alternative plan. Mayor Bloomberg’s advisor, Cas Halloway, is quoted as saying “People who do things willingly tend to do them more quickly” and it appears he is right in this observation and that the City is not doing anything willingly in regards to this clean up and can even be viewed as being obstructionist.

There is much discussion from the City perspective around the merits of a voluntary alternative clean up process that is property specific and developer driven. How would this be to anyone’s benefit except the developer’s and the PRP’s? In addition, there are implications that EPA litigation of PRP’s would further delay funding, but this is not the case. The EPA has already said that some PRP’s are already cooperating with them and that regardless of the level of cooperation they would move forward immediately with clean up plans should Superfund status happen. They have the legal authority to compel all PRP’s to work towards clean up and even if PRP’s went into litigation they would simultaneously work with Superfund’s funds to pay for clean up. What is also not addressed in the article is that the City itself could be considered a PRP and what implications that might have in their opposing Superfund status. Holloway also maintains that the City is not actually opposing the Superfund program, but that seems to be another inherent contradiction based on the City’s actions.

Walter Mugdan of the EPA correctly points out that the Superfund process includes Community involvement, while the City program does not. So another question arises as to whose interests the City plan is really representing? It appears they represent their own and that of the Developer’s who want quick, lucrative real estate development. Neither of these parties actually live in the area, but stand to make a substantial profit or avoid being held as a PRP. The Toll brothers are threatening to abandon their development plans if Superfund status were to be given to area, so how is the community to trust that their best interests would be protected by these same developers in a non comprehensive, lot by lot clean up plan, which they could walk away from if they choose, and does not involve the community in the dialogue? The City has also not been responsible in it’s commitment to fix the infrastructure problems of the Flushing tunnel, which continues to limp along, and they even backed out of their commitment to share the expense of the 2004 Army Corps of Engineers’ Gowanus Ecosystem Restoration Study. Also, unaddressed in the article is that under the Superfund process, the EPA Superfund division has the ability to join forces with the Water Quality Enforcement wing of the EPA to correct the CSO problems in the Gowanus. The EPA also refutes that City sewage clean up plans would be impeded by their work.

Another missing point of discussion in this debate is the threat of large scale flooding in the area and what that might mean for residents caught in toxic flood waters filled with manufacturing contaminants and sewage outfalls when large storms occur. In the article, it is stated that Von Spreckelsen, of the Toll Brother’s, believes that people will have such little contact with the polluted canal sediment that it wouldn’t be worth the cost to remove it. He is quoted as saying “It’s a lofty goal to take that out, but what’s the purpose?” The area is in the 100 year flood plain and is highly susceptible to storm surges and flooding from hurricanes and large storms. With an estimated 16,000 residents living in Gowanus, between the NY Harbor and the toxic canal and in light of the long road to clean up of the canal and growing consensus around record rainfalls, flooding propensity, urban density, antiquated infrastructure, and continuing development, there must be some specific research, planning and remediation done on how these environmental threats could impact the area and surely dredging and a comprehensive Superfund clean up would be a great start. It appears the years of delays on the part of the City to address these serious issues are one of the many reasons the EPA has started to move forward with their Superfund process and remain the area’s only real hope for getting cleaned up. Again, there is further irony in the failure of the City and developers to recognize that without addressing the vulnerability of the area to such catastrophic flood damage no one’s property and economic interests will be safe.

The local Gowanus community was overjoyed with the announcement of the EPA Superfund Listing this spring. After years of trying to get our regulating government agencies to address the conditions of the Gowanus so that it might oneday comply with the Clean Water Act of 1972, we embraced this EPA action. The cleanup commitments that we had up until that point were the constant moving target dates of a rather lack-luster DEP long-term CSO planning project that the city has been under legal consent to order to carryout from more than three decades but has done nothing to date.

The only other cleanup planning was the idea put forward by the CB6 Landuse committee members that by rezoning the Gowanus area for residential use, those new residents would someday muster the force to get government to do the necessary cleanup. This idea must comes out of the experience with Love Canal; you know, you put the people on the toxin land and when people get sick you move them off the land they bought and then do the cleanup. It’s odd how the CB6 members who pushed this ides are now opposed to the EPA coming in and doing a cleanup, BEFORE people move in.

Is it any wonder the community was so overjoyed with the announcement of the Superfund Listing? The community support of Superfund can be seen in the NY Times op.ed. article that ran just after the EPA presentation to the community at the end of May: “At a community board meeting Tuesday night, about 200 people listened as the mayor’s experts argued against a Superfund listing. It was a hard crowd to move. Many wore a button that said it all: “Gowanus Canal: Superfund Me.””

The month of June saw the mayor’s office put on several meetings to drum up their plan. The first, held at the yard complete with PA system, had about a dozen people there–half worked for the city. That is when the city redoubled their efforts to concoct a story that the community was confused about which level of government should run the Gowanus cleanup–EPA of the mayor’s office. This confusion doesn’t exist in the community’s mind. History tells us that the city has never taken any cleanup action on the Gowanus unless forced to by the state of federal level. The city’s renewed interest in putting forward this current plan comes only because of the EPA Superfund Listing. Up until this point of listing, the city was content with the cleanup plan proposed by those CB6 Landuse members—to just move people in now and let them muster the political will to do a cleanup later. The community has no reason to believe that the city plan will get anything done. It is all about time delay, after which, the city would turn the whole bigger mess over to the EPA anyway. There is no good reason to go down that road. We should just begin this effort with the EPA running the show and move forward with the environmental work that must happen here before we consider all those new uses for the area.