The Gowanus Community Advisory Group (CAG) meets monthly to discuss issues pertaining to the Canal Superfund cleanup. At its February 25 meeting, local councilmen Steve Levin and Brad Lander appeared by invitation. The CAG consists of sixty members, many of them representing local groups, such as the Red Hook East and West Tenants, the Red Hook Civic Association, the Cobble […]
Gowanus Canal
Letters to the EPA, edited by George Fiala
One of the most contentious issues Red Hook has faced in some time was an EPA proposal to build a Contained Disposal Facility (CDF) as part of the cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. The CDF would take dredged materials, detoxify them, and create landfill, adding ten acres to the property of the Gowanus Bay Terminal. The EPA stated from the […]
Superfund Project moves on – a Primer, by George Fiala
Last December the EPA published their proposed plan for remediation of the Gowanus Canal. A public comment period lasted through April 27th. For the next few months the EPA team will evaluate the comments and by the end of the summer, they will issue a formal response. The EPA has received approximately 1,400 comments. This does not count names signed […]
EDITORIAL – An unfortunate public display
Walter Mugdan said it out loud in a meeting at the South Brooklyn High School. The east coast head of the EPA said in retrospect, he wished they hadn’t offered the option to bury sludge in Red Hook. We agree. The prospect of free land for any landlord is a great temptation. The EPA proposed to create landfill and donate […]
GBX’s win at all cost strategy backfires, by George Fiala
At a public meeting held April 16th at the South Brooklyn Community High School, Regional Superfund Director Walter Mugdan repeated multiple times that the proposed plan to bury toxic sludge from the Gowanus in Red Hook would never happen. “How many times do you want me to say it? If we don’t have your acceptance – and it seems evident […]
Decision Soon on Gowanus Sludge (July 1, 2012), by Matt Graber and Abby Savitch-Lew
This article originally appeared in the Star-Revue in July 2012. We reprint it here as the deadline for the Quadrozzi option looms: An important decision for the future of Red Hook will be announced this September – the decision about what to do with the 600,000 cubic yards of toxic sludge that will be dredged up from the bottom of […]
Lou Sones speaks at Reg Flowers’ Gowanus meeting last week
Lou reading a statement from GAGS (Groups Against Garbage Sites). This was a meeting in which the EPA was invited to witness in person the Red Hook community’s position on placing detoxified sludge from the Gowanus Canal onto the shore of the Gowanus Bay Terminal, owned by John Quadrozzi, giving his company 450,000 square feet of new land. This land, […]
Red Hook community reacts to EPA plan, by Nic Cavell
On February 13 at Red Hook’s PS 15, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) gave a presentation to address issues of transparency with its proposed plan for cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. In response to the EPA’s clarifications, which concerned the manner in which toxic sludge would be deposited in a contained disposal facility (CDF) here, the community had one message: […]
EPA seeks community input on placement of Gowanus sludge in Red Hook, by Nic Cavell
As reported in the Star-Revue’s last issue, a contaminated disposal facility (CDF) at the Gowanus Bay Terminal (GBX) in Red Hook is under discussion. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed the stable repository for sludge in its plan for cleanup of the Gowanus Canal. The giant piece of concrete-like crust, or “monolith,” as Project Manager Christos Tsiamis describes it, […]
EPA presents Gowanus remediation to skeptical Red Hook audience, by Nic Cavell
A Logical Cycle At a January 24 meeting in the Miccio Center, there was little of the fanfare that met the same EPA team when it placed the Gowanus Canal on its National Priorities List for toxic remediation more than three years ago. This time, the organization delivered their proposed plan for cleanup of Brooklyn’s densely polluted canal to a […]