After Heavy Rains Of Last Few Days, Something Funky Is Floating On The Gowanus Canal

The stench coming from the Gowanus Canal yesterday was rather nasty. I held my nose as I walked over the Union Street bridge. Looking down into the fetid waters of the Gowanus Canal, I could see some incredibly foul stuff floating on the surface. It was raw sewage.

This, of course, is the result of yesterday's and Friday's torrential rains. There, floating by, was the discharge of the storm waters and the domestic sewage that is dumped into the canal from the sewer system's Combined Sewer Overflow points.

This happens every time the city's waste water treatment plants cannot retain and treat large volumes of waste.

I apologize for bringing up such a nasty subject, dear readers. It's just that New York City wants to rezone the Gowanus Canal area from manufacturing to residential. Just a few weeks ago, Toll Brothers, a national development company, was granted a spot-rezoning for a two-block area along the Gowanus so that they can build a residential project on its shores.

Somehow, bringing more people to the Gowanus is supposed to give the city the impetus to fix the sewer problem it has neglected for decades.

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