Gowanus Superfund Coming to a Head

UPDATE 9:46 am: Pardon Me For Asking is reporting that the EPA has just announced that is has put the Gowanus Canal on the Superfund list. We can’t find a press release or mention on the EPA site though.

UPDATE 10:41 a.m.: The Times has an article up now, complete with this statement: After conducting our own evaluations and consulting extensively with the many people who have expressed interest in the future of the Gowanus Canal and the surrounding area, we have determined that a Superfund designation is the best path to a cleanup of this heavily contaminated and long neglected urban waterway, Judith Enck, the E.P.A. regional administrator, said in a statement.”

With a community meeting scheduled for Thursday (P.S. 58 at 7 p.m.), Crain’s takes a close look at the “To Superfund or Not to Superfund” question that is currently dividing various constituencies along and around the Gowanus Canal. If the site is placed on the Superfund list, it almost certainly will be the death knell of the mega real estate projects slated for the area. Given the way Superfund sites work, it could be a decade or more from now before clean up starts, said David Von Spreckelsen, vice president at Toll Brothers, told Crain’s. We just don’t have that time horizon. We will most likely walk away from the properties. Not only that, it could affect the ability of homeowners within a half-mile of the site to get a mortgage. The developers and other stakeholders in the area favor a plan put forth by the city for a faster clean-up to the tune of $165 million. One such position is taken by Buddy Scotto, longtime neighborhood resident and activist. Here’s what he wrote to the pro-Superfunders in a letter we got our hands on:

I take a back seat to no one with regard to my commitment to our environment and if I believed that you had a better way, I would willingly accept the fact that I might never see the affordable housing and other economic development initiatives along the canal that I long ago envisioned. You, however, come to us not with an open hand bearing gifts but with a hammer growling threats. I willingly reach out my hand to receive the $175 million dollars offered by our City, and I would be more than pleased to accept federal funds to move the remediation of the canal forward, but instead you only offer us the prospect of years of delay through litigation.

Where do you stand on the issue now?

Gowanus Canal Faces Crucial Cleanup Decision [Crain’s]
The Other Dead Zone Around the Gowanus [Brooklyn Paper]
Photo by sahocevar