Everyone knows that a major cleanup of Brooklyn’s notoriously gunky Gowa nus Canal has long been overdue. Question is, who should clean it?
Actually, there are options. But choosing the wrong one could delay not only the clean-up, but also economic revival around the site.
Plans for a cleanup seemed set — until state Environmental Conservation Commissioner Alexander “Pete” Grannis unexpectedly asked the US Environmental Protection Agency to designate the canal an official Superfund toxic-waste site.
A fast track for cleanup? Anything but.
For one thing, there’s actually no “fund” in the Superfund. The agency files suit against polluters in hopes of forcing them to pay for a cleanup — assuming the companies even still exist.
End result? Endless litigation — and decades before any real work starts.
Moreover, a Superfund site designation carries a stigma that pretty much proves, well, toxic to economic development.
In the case of the Gowanus, such development was already under way: Toll Bros., the nationwide home builder, has committed to a 500-unit residential development along the canal — but says it can’t market them in a Superfund site.
Likewise, banks say they wouldn’t invest in a Superfund-tainted site.
That’s why local officials, including the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, fiercely oppose a Superfund designation.
City Hall agrees — and has developed its own cleanup plan, which would use $400 million in federal and other funding and finish the work in less than half the time of a Superfund project.
The EPA, which is expected to decide on the Superfund designation next month, might reconsider — but only if Albany formally withdraws its request. So far, Grannis — who never consulted with the city before asking for the designation — refuses to do so.
Why not? No one knows.
But with a vacuum at the helm of the Paterson team, some wonder if underlings — perhaps Gov. Paterson’s zealous environmental czar, Judith Enck? — pushed for such a misguided request.
In any case, Paterson & Co. need to send the EPA a big “never mind.”
Before the site is stigmatized — and ruined — for years to come.