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…
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
The #1 problem with the EPA plan is that the money for cleanup is funded by fining the companies that caused the pollution and the city (hello taxpayer dollars). You have 200+ years of manufacturing and industrial companies that have polluted the canal to varying degrees (before anyone fully understood the toxic effects of pollutants on the environment), 99% of whom are no longer in business as manufacturing has left Brooklyn and moved outside the city or overseas during the last 50 years.
Those companies that are still in business along the canal and are barely making profits will be quickly declaring bankruptcy if they are expected to cover $300-$500 million in costs for the huge cleanup being proposed. Goodbye to some of the few manufacturing jobs left in Brooklyn.
Toll Brothers has not closed on the site and is being sued by the seller for specific performance. Maybe that is why it is not even a footnote in Toll’s annual report.
This site isn’t even a footnote in the Toll Brothers annual report.
I’m still waiting for Brooklyn Chicken to have a swim in the canal and tell us how refreshing it is. Better yet, let’s build a nice luxury test condo right on the canal, move the chicken in and do some long range toxicity tests on the test-chicken. Then, if that chicken is running around with normally dividing cells and acceptable levels of heavy metals and other toxic chemicals in blood, we’ll put a thousand more luxury condos up and call it a decade!
What a load of scaremongering nonsense. Sorry Toll Brothers, guess you’ll have to find another neighborhood to take a squat on.
ninethreesix and oldrte10, thank you for your clarification.
Feral, you are too right about the Toll Brother’s miscalculation. What were they thinking?
That mortgage map is complete nonsense! To suggest the mere naming of Supefund site has suddenly rendered the Gowanus toxic–either literally or figuratively to lenders–is laughable. What’s actually going to happen is that the canal will be cleaned (albeit slowly) or cleaner and that will be good for everyone in terms of property values and personal health.
The Toll Brothers are morons for trying to build right on top of a toxic canal.
I may be wrong but it appears that this will only affect FHA loans, which make up about 20% of all loans. It also appears that the loans from banks for new projects will be affected in that a larger cleanup may be called for.
However it looks like the mortgage panic is a scare tactic by the City and developers.
Huh. Well I guess we’ll see. But how will businesses on Atlantic be affected? Again, this regulation only applies to FHA loans for new condos. Not sure how that affects restaurants and stores on Atlantic Ave. Take a look at the letter. The other conditions listed include:
“2. Potential noise issues, where the property is located within 1000 feet of a highway, freeway, or heavily traveled road, within 3000 feet of a railroad, or within one mile of an airport or five miles of a military airfield.”
Um.. I’m pretty sure that already includes all of Brooklyn. So like I said, the Superfund designation changes almost nothing in terms of the FHA mortgage regulations. Again, I’m not in favor of scaring businesses away, but theres really no evidence to suggest that will happen.