Free Trees for Your Block: Yay or Nay?
In New York City, the more trees there are on the street, the wealthier the neighborhood. That’s according to a recent study published in online journal PLOS One and quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal about trees in Brooklyn.
Trees are all over Cobble Hill and Park Slope, but rare in Gowanus and East New York, according to the story. That’s because requests for the city to plant trees “mainly came from higher-income residents, who tend to be more aware of such opportunities,” according to a U.S. Forest Service scientist quoted in the article.
Closing Bell: Meeting Tonight on Toxic Waste Plume Under Greenpoint Factory
The Department of Environmental Conservation is hosting a meeting tonight on cleanup efforts at the polluted Harte & Company factory at the corner of Dupont, Clay and Franklin Streets, Greenpointers reported. (Yes, this is the same building we wrote about this morning, whose developer wants to preserve part of the 1930s Arte Moderne exterior).
The state Superfund site has a plume beneath it made of phthalates — liquid plastic chemicals — up to five feet deep in some areas. And apparently the plume is moving, contrary to what the developer told the Brooklyn Eagle. This is a map of the plume made in 2013, via Greenpointers.
Gasoline in the Water in Kensington?
A friend who lives in Kensington sent us these photos last night and told us that around 10 pm, she got home and found her water contaminated with gasoline. A fireman she spoke to said that someone may have dumped it into the sewers. Firetrucks came to her block as well (see a photo after the jump), near Dahill Road and Clara Street. Is anyone else who lives in Kensington having this problem?
UPDATE: A spokesman from NYC Department of Environmental Protection tells us that it’s not possible for anything in the sewers to end up in the drinking water, because the water supply is a closed, pressurized system that carries clean drinking water from the Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers. He added that the fastest way to get rid of any discolored water is to run your taps. The water may be discolored because of a change in the flow, or because firefighters were running a firehose. The DEP plans to send someone to the area to investigate the water. Our tipster who lives on the block said the water smelled like gasoline, as did the block.
Group Seeks Funds to Map Diseases, Toxic Sites in Greenpoint
Community advocates and environmental experts want to map disease and toxic sites in Greenpoint. They are seeking nearly $1 million from a $19.5 million environmental fund set aside in a 2010 settlement of the massive ExxonMobil oil spill in Greenpoint’s Newtown Creek to search out clusters of asthma, cancer, heart disease and birth defects in the 11222 ZIP code, the New York Post reported.
Lifelong Greenpoint resident Laura Hofmann told the Post she has an autoimmune disease that she thinks was triggered by pollution, and her family has suffered from several different diseases.
Greenpoint’s industrial past includes somewhere between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil spilled into Newtown Creek (pictured above), toxic vapors concentrated underground from former dry cleaners and metal companies, and toxic chemicals that have seeped from underground tanks at the Nuhart Plastics Factory.
Plans to Map Greenpoint’s Toxic Chemical Sites Proposed [NY Post]
Photo by Pixonomy
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