EPA At Last Night's Meeting Regarding Gowanus Superfunding: " We Want To Do A Job That We Can Be Proud Of"

Last Night At PS 58

Just days after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it had placed the Gowanus Canal on its list of Superfund sites, Walter Mugdan, Christos Tsiamis, Brian Carr and Natalie Loney of the agency's Region 2 office, came before the Carroll Gardens/ Gowanus Area residents to speak about what it all means, to explain the clean-up schedule, and to answer questions.

Last night's meeting at PS58 started with a rousing round of applause from the audience. Clearly, the community was pleased by the recent announcement.
Walter Mugdan, EPA District 2 Director, expressed the hope that all parties will now move forward with common purpose.
" Our goal its to get the work done quickly and efficiently, while doing it carefully and thoughtfully."

Christos Tsiamis, the project manager for the Gowanus Canal clean-up, gave a brief outline of the work that lays ahead.

The EPA is currently continuing analytic field work that started in January. The Remedial Investigation includes surface sediment sampling, surface water and air sampling, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
All data will be used to do a feasibility study. By the end of 2011, the EPA will be proposing a clean-up plan. By 2012, another public process will commence, which will allow the community to comment formally on the proposal.
By the end of 2012, the EPA will make a final choice on the remedial plan. From then, it will take about 2 to 3 years to design a selected option. Dredging the bottom of the canal will most likely be required.
The actual work will take about 5 years.
The cost of the clean-up is estimated to cost from 300 to 500 million.

The cost for the clean-up will be recouped mostly from Potentially Responsible Parties (PRPs) Early in the clean-up process, the EPA looks for evidence to determine liability by matching wastes found at the site with parties that may have contributed to the pollution.
Nine such PRP's have already been identified by the agency, the City of New York being one of them.
In addition, another 20 companies have been sent informational request forms to determine if they are PRP's as well.
Orphan sites, or sites that have been abandoned by their owners will be cleaned up by the EPA and the cost absorbed by the agency.

The EPA will work closely with both the New York City Department Of Environmental Protection, as well as the the New York State Department Of Environmental Conservation.

This will, in my opinion, be a very exciting decade for this area. Decades of neglect are finally going to be addressed by experts, who clearly only have the best interest and health of the community in mind.

I also hope that, as a community, we will stay involved and will look towards the future. As residents of a soon to be clean Gowanus Canal area, we need to take the lead in shaping this future and not let developers decide for us.





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