Now this really stinks!
The feds’ Superfund cleanup of Brooklyn’s toxic Gowanus Canal could sock taxpayers with a bill of hundreds of millions of dollars.
The US Environmental Protection Agency yesterday released its draft proposal for cleaning up the purple- and green-hued waterway, and it includes calling on the city to halt its century-old practice of allowing sewage and storm-water runoff into the canal.
The proposal is opposed by the Bloomberg administration, with the city’s Department of Environmental Protection issuing a statement saying, “The evidence clearly indicates that the primary sources [of canal contamination] are the former industrial plants on the canal, and not ongoing sewer overflows.”
The EPA is looking to recoup the cost of an expected $500 million Superfund cleanup from property owners that contaminated the waterway and soil along the canal for decades, including the old Brooklyn Union Gas company, which is now National Grid.
But the report’s more shocking news was its call on the city to deal with sewage and storm water flowing into the canal, generating 259,000 pounds of “suspended solids” annually.
The city would likely have to redirect the sewage elsewhere, such as the East River, or build massive retention tanks to collect runoff during heavy rains.
The city last year opened a $404 million retention plant at Brooklyn’s Paerdegat Basin in Canarsie, and sources said building a similar Gowanus facility would be far more expensive.
EPA spokesman Elias Rodriguez called sewage overflow “a major source of canal contamination that will need to be addressed.”
The city is currently embarked on its own $180 million project to boost the Gowanus watershed with upgrades of the Gowanus Pump Station and Flushing Tunnel, which will increase canal oxygen and reduce sewer overflows in order to reduce bacteria levels.
The public will get a chance to formally comment on the EPA report’s findings during a meeting to be scheduled in the next few weeks.
Various Gowanus activists contacted yesterday said they needed time to go through the massive document before commenting.