What happened to the ball field cleanup?

Red Hook’s baseball fields adjacent to the Rec Center have been closed for many years. Red Hook was told last year by the Parks Department that work would be started to clean up and reopen the fields starting last fall.

Of course, any sane person walking by the fields, on either the Bay or Lorraine Street sides, will tell you that the fields haven’t been touched in ages.

We called Parks to find out what is going on, and were referred the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who ordered the original cleanup.

“The EPA is in the process of reviewing the revised construction submitted by NYC Parks to ensure

all previous EPA comments have been addressed in the final versions,” Elias Rodriguez, public

information officer at EPA, said. He claims that the review will soon be complete.

EPA reviews all plans in their entirety as required by the enforcement agreement between EPA and

Parks Department. The main purpose of this review is to ensure that all plans meet EPA requirements for worker protection and to ensure safety of the surrounding community.

“For the construction plan, this involves EPA review of construction schedule, and plans for equipment and materials staging, decontamination, site security, traffic control, environmental monitoring and transport and disposal of materials,” Rodriguez added.

EPA has reviewed the draft of the construction plan previously and submitted their comments to NYC Parks and their contractors.

In this final review process, the EPA will the latest version of the construction plan to make sure EPA’s comments have been incorporated into the final version.

During the last public meeting in October of 2018 the EPA submitted comments to NYC Parks regarding the construction plan. The EPA just received final responses to the comments for review

during the week of February 4.

During this process, Soccer Fields One and Six will stay open with a fully funded, long-term remediation plan and Soccer Fields 2-3 are currently closed. Ball Fields 1-4 are closed to allow reseeding, and a fully funded, long term remediation plan is being developed for these fields.

The Star-Revue will keep readers updated on the park progress. Perhaps work will start this year.