Thursday, April 30, 2009

City can't clean up Gowanus by itself

From the Daily News:

Battling a plan to designate the canal a federal Superfund site, the Bloomberg administration is trying to convince the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to help pay a portion of the $150 million pricetag to dredge the entire canal.

City officials are also pinning their hopes on getting canal polluters to voluntarily pitch in and pay to clean up the high levels of coal tar, PCBs and heavy metals that are in the waterway instead of facing years of litigation under the Superfund program.

But a top federal environmental official said the city's plan to get financial help from the Army Corps and private polluters is unrealistic.

City officials are scrambling to come up with an alternate cleanup plan to avoid having the canal placed on the Superfund list - a lengthy process that could take decades to complete and could drive away $400 million in private development planned for the banks of the canal.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hold your breath for what these people will do voluntarily. They put the crap in the water to begin with. It was part of their cost of business off-loaded onto the general public.

Superfund it, find who is responsible, and make them pay their share of fixing the problem.

Anonymous said...

THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IS NOT THE DEVELOPERS OR THE POLS. ACTUALLY, I HAVE RESPECT FOR THEM BECAUSE THEY DO WHAT THEY SET OUT TO DO.

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE PRESERVATION COMMUNITY, TOOTHLESS AND LOST AS THEY ARE, BECAUSE THEY HAVE WHAT THEY WANT FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES SO HOW CAN YOU BLAME THEM (JUST DONT DONATE)

THE PROBLEM IS WITH THE ENVIRNMENTAL GROUPS THAT TAKE MONEY FROM DEVELOPERS AND FOLLOW A SCRIPT GIVEN TO THEM BY THE CITY.

THEY SHOULD BE AT THE BARRICADES, NOT EXCHANGING THEIR REPUTATION FOR A KAYACK DOCK AND A FEW BIKE LANES.

LOSERS.