Julia Vitullo-Martin of the Center for Urban Innovation speaks out against Superfund-ing the Gowanus Canal cleanup in today’s NY Post:
NY Post: Now the neighborhood finds itself with two contradictory government clean-up plans — one federal, one local — and with virulent disagreements about which is better.
The federal Superfund promises big money extracted from the bad-guy industrialists who dumped waste into the canal for 150 years. But the Bloomberg administration, with the Corps, could deliver results far sooner — indeed, the Superfund’s involvement has put the local plans on hold.
There was but one statement in this piece by Julia Vitullo-Martin that held any validity ant that is: “Until recent years, the Gowanus was abandoned by all but neighborhood activists.”
Julia is so right here. Until the EPA announced it’s Superfund investigation the City had pretty much abandoned any idea of cleaning up the canal. Even today the mayor’s office is running around claiming that they can’t do anything about all the sewage that will continue to flow into these waters. And what has the city offered given the state of the area–they have just decided to rezone the are for residential –AS IS!
The city had no plans to address the need for environmental remediation of any kind. And the city’s new scheme is really to do nothing but go ahead with building on the toxic site– this is what they are calling an alternative superfund cleanup.
Bloomberg, with the Corp, could have delivered results (sooner) if the city had been participating with their share of the project costs, but they weren’t. That would have been in violation of their do-nothing cleanup program. Any cleanup program would take time and this administration can’t allow such things to get in the way of residential developments, especially not those that promise some sort of affordability.