Gowanus Canal cleanup schedule: Summer 2019 edition

Just because the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group voted in June to take the summer off for their meetings, doesn’t mean that cleanup constructions and plans have taken a hiatus too. Here are the current projections as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) moves forward with the project:

1. Construction of the Fulton Manufactured Gas Plant cut-off wall (from the top of the canal to Union Bridge, on the eastern bank of the canal), which will prevent tar from the former Fulton Manufactured Gas Plant site from contaminating the canal. Mobilization in the canal for this project will begin this month. EPA expects completion of the wall by mid-summer of 2020.
2. Construction of several bulkheads in the upper canal (RTA1), during the same timeframe as above, by private owners under consent orders with EPA for the purpose of supporting the dredging and capping of the upper canal.
3. Construction of a dredge support bulkhead in front of the New York City pumping station property and the Flushing Tunnel discharge outlet by the potentially responsible party group under EPA’s oversight.
4. Completion of the design of the Combined Sewer Overflows retention tank at the top of the canal in the fall of 2019.
5. Beginning of dredging in the main canal in late summer of 2020.
6. Continuation of dredging and capping in RTA1 through 2020 and 2021 and anticipated completion of dredging and capping from the top of the canal to the 3^rd Street bridge by early 2022.

Elías Rodríguez, the acting chief of the media relations branch at the EPA’s Region 2 Office, did note to us – via email on July 15 – that all Superfund site cleanup work schedules are subject to change.

Photo courtesy of EPA

George Fiala

George Fiala has worked in radio, newspapers and direct marketing his whole life, except for when he was a vendor at Shea Stadium, pizza and cheesesteak maker in Lancaster, PA, and an occasional comic book dealer. He studied English and drinking in college, international relations at the New School, and in his spare time plays drums and fixes pinball machines.