Months After Hurricane Sandy, Giant Trunks Of Carroll Park's Fallen Trees Finally Removed

Trunk of Carroll Park tree that fell across Carroll Street during Hurricane Sandy, as it lay across the fence since the end of October 2012

And photos taken on Friday, March 29, 2013 while it was finally removed.

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Joe Auer)

(photo credit: Loren Sosna)

The site all cleaned up after stump removal

Carroll Park, Brooklyn's third oldest public park, lost quite a few majestic trees during Hurricane Sandy at the end of October, including two very old giants that had probably been planted when the park first opened in the 1800's. One of them, an elm tree, crashed across the fencing on Carroll Street between Court and Smith Streets. Its branches were almost immediately cut into sections after the hurricane to clear the way for traffic. But its gigantic trunk needed to be removed with special equipment, which is not readily available to the Parks Department.
Finally, this past Friday, a crew arrived with a crane and lifted the trunk over the fence and onto a truck

The second tree was a Linden tree, which had stood in a section of the park along President Street. In November, the branches had already been removed in November 2012, but again, the trunk and the roots were just too heavy for removal.

However, rather than to remove the entire trunk on Friday, the crew just cut off the root ball and left the trunk so that the children could climb on it. After all, it is right next to the giant bolder that was brought into the park from a construction site on Clinton Street at the request of  Friends Of Carroll Park.

Judging by the fun the kids had on the rock and the trunk yesterday afternoon, it was a great decision to leave it where it had fallen.

(photo credit: Joe Auer)
The trunk of the linden tree as it had fallen in a border along President Street

Now, it has been repurposed as climbing equipment for the kids.

My thanks to Joe Auer and  Loren Sosna for the use of their photos.

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Tonight, Share Your Thoughts On Priorities For Post-Sandy Rebuilding In Red Hook And Gowanus

(photo credit: Steven Miller)

This is a topic of interest to all of us in South Brooklyn.  How should we rebuild our waterfront communities after last October's Hurricane Sandy?  Tonight,  Mayor Bloomberg's Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR) is hosting a meeting at PS 58 to get input from residents on pst-Sandy rebuilding priorities for Gowanus, Red Hook and Sunset Park. You will find all the details on the meeting below courtesy of Councilman Brad Lander's office, who will be attending tonight.

Four short months ago, Hurricane Sandy brought unprecedented destruction to New York City. The storm made our shared vulnerability all too clear, and brought home the frightening reality of climate change.

Many are still struggling to recover, contending with extensive storm damage, mold, and rats. Over 2,000 families are still displaced, living in SROs and hotels (sign on here to our petition calling on HUD to immediately issue housing vouchers to let them move into apartments).

While there is much more work to be done to help these households and communities, we must also start planning for our city’s resilience in the face of future storms. We need to make smart investments in sustainable infrastructure, learn from places like the Netherlands that have worked to adapt to the realities of sea level rise and climate change, pay attention to the inequalities the storm exposed, and build upon the remarkable volunteer relief efforts by including communities more deeply in planning.

In January, the Mayor launched the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency (SIRR), which is working to develop recommendations for rebuilding the most impacted neighborhoods and protecting New York City from future climate risks. This Thursday, March 7 at 7:30 pm, representatives from SIRR will present their initial assessment of the Brooklyn Waterfront, followed by break-out sessions where you can give your input on priorities for rebuilding in Red Hook, Gowanus, and Sunset Park. I will be there, to listen to their presentation and hear your comments.

Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Recovery

Brooklyn Waterfront Public Workshop

Thursday March 7, 2013, at 7:30 pm

PS 58, 330 Smith Street at Carroll Street

RSVP:  to RSVPMarch7@nycsirr.org or 212-618-5745

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On Monday, EPA To Speak About Gowanus Flooding At Community Meeting

A Community meeting has been scheduled with the US EPA for Monday November 26 at 6:30 pm at PS 32, 317 Hoyt Street, about Gowanus Canal flooding during Hurricane Sandy.
In attendance will be Judith Enck, EPA Regional Manager of  Region 2, and Walter Mugdan, EPA Region 2 Superfund Director.
The meeting is co-sponsored by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, State Senator Daniel Squadron, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, Councilmember Steve Levin, and Councilmember Brad Lander.
Per Brad Lander's office:
The meeting will be an opportunity for Gowanus residents and business owners to speak with the EPA team about their water sampling results (which you can find at http://www.epa.gov/region2/superfund/npl/gowanus and ask any questions they may have. Information will also be available on resources for those affected by the storm.

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Carroll Park Play Areas Re-Open After Sandy, But Some Sections Still Off Limit

Volunteer Joe Auer with little helpers Finneas and Arianna re-open a section of Carroll Park

Carroll Park has been closed ever since Hurricane Sandy toppled some of our park's beautiful old trees. On Wednesday, the NYC Park's Department was able to send over a crew to begin to cut the fallen trees into sections for removal and to make sure that all the others are still sound.
Crews need to come back to repair fencing that was damaged and in the meantime, the World War I memorial and Valentino Ball Field are still off limits.
Luckily for everyone, the playgrounds and the area around the Acito Park House have been deemed safe by the Parks Department. Members of Friends Of Carroll Park spent some time yesterday afternoon to clean the play areas and opened the gates.

Here is a message from the Friends Of Carroll Park:

Good news! The play areas on the Smith Street end of Carroll Park have been reopened by the New York City Parks Department effective immediately (Saturday afternoon, November 17).
The rest of the park (the ball field and central WWI monument area) will remain closed until the remaining safety hazards can be resolved. We ask visitors to stay out of those areas and to remind others to do the same. It may be necessary to close the entire park again if these restrictions are not respected.
Since it may be some time before the Parks department returns to its normal cleaning and maintenance schedule, please do not leave toys and games in the park and please remove your trash to the full extent possible.
Thank you,Friends of Carroll Park

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Riverkeeper Tests Still Show Extreme Bacteria Levels In Gowanus Canal Days After Hurricane Sandy

Data compiled by John Lipscomb and Andy Juhl of Riverkeeper
click here for a sharper image

Riverkeeper, New York's clean water advocacy group, has been doing a tremendous job of informing the public of the water quality around New York City Harbor in the days after Hurricane Sandy.
On November 2nd, four days after the storm, Riverkeeper conducted it's first patrol to take water samples. The group followed up with additional tests on November 8th.
(To see the results of all testing, click here)

Surprisingly, the result of the tests showed better than average water quality at all testing sites, except for the Gowanus Canal, which indicated extremely high levels of sewage contamination.
The Gowanus samples from November 2nd, which were taken at the Hamilton Avenue Bridge indicated an unacceptable Enterococcus counts of   >24,196 per 100ml. (The US Environmental Protection Agency guideline threshold for primary contact is 104 Entero per 100ml.)

On November 8th, one day after the Nor'Easter, the samples taken at the same location again showed Enterococcus count of  >24,196 per 100 ml.

 See photos taken by Riverkeeper on November 8th at Gowanus CSO outflow.

On November 9th, Riverkeeper checked the same location on the Gowanus again and still observed dry weather flow.  See photos below.

As we all know, New York City still discharges Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) into the Gowanus during heavy downpours. However, Hurricane Sandy, though destructive, was not a significant rain event.  Riverkeeper concludes that "the extreme contamination in the Gowanus Canal is probably due to additional, perhaps ongoing, sewage discharges from CSOs or bypasses into the Canal continuing after the tidal flooding ended."

Below is a more detailed summery on the findings by John Lipscomb and Andy Juhl of Riverkeeper:

We have been sampling to quantify the frequency and severity of sewage contamination around Manhattan and in the Hudson River for over 5 years, so we have a fairly good idea what typical conditions are like, and water quality around NYC is probably better most of the time than most people think. There are intermittent problems, mostly following rain, but also because of occasional infrastructure failures (i.e., broken pipes or pumps). Still, during dry weather, more than 90% of the samples we have collected around NYC are “acceptable” from the perspective of microbial indicators of sewage.

That’s the good news, the bad news is that we do see widespread sewage contamination following rain, which is not an uncommon event. 

We have heard a lot of concerns about water quality following Hurricane Sandy. Not only do we generally see the frequency and levels of contamination in the Hudson rise following rain, but because of the flooding, there were a large number of people who would have been exposed to the water, if it was contaminated. So there was justifiable reason for concern. 

Unfortunately, we don’t have any data from during or immediately after the storm. Given the amount of rain (approximately 1 inch overnight), it is possible that there would have been sewage discharges from CSO’s. It is also possible that the enormous volume of water associated with the high tide and storm surge would have diluted any sewage inputs. Without data we cannot say which of these is most likely. 

Given what we know about sewage contamination following storms, we expected that if there were high levels of sewage contamination during the storm, it would be relatively short-lived. The system tends to clean itself out after a sewage input event after 3-4 days although it is variable depending on location and conditions. The exception would be if there was continuing discharge, for example from pipes or pumps that were damaged by the hurricane, or if there was additional precipitation. 

One can speculate and extrapolate all you want, but there really is no way to answer any of the questions about water quality without going out and sampling. You need good data, so we went out and collected some. On Friday Nov 2, 4 days following the storm, John Lipscomb from Riverkeeper was able to collect a few samples from near Manhattan, and I was able to collect a few samples on Nov 6 (once our power came back) from the shore in Rockland Co, north of NYC. Taken together, those samples show acceptable water quality at 7 of 10 locations. The three locations with unacceptably high counts of Enterococcus were Sparkill Creek, Newtown Creek, and Gowanus Canal, all places where we see very frequent contamination problems. So taken together, these limited data suggest that if there was widespread sewage contamination following the hurricane, conditions were reverting back to normal. Unfortunately, for some locations, normal conditions are contaminated. 

Looking at the data in more detail, there is another story that can be identified. The Gowanus sample several days after the hurricane was remarkably high. With an Entero count of  >24200, the water in Gowanus was more than 230 times the threshold where you would close a water body for swimming. We suspect that this sample indicates that there was a continuing release of sewage into the Gowanus canal. This is the level of contamination we see during a rainstorm while CSO’s are flowing, or if there was a broken pipe, pump station, or some other infrastructure problem that caused ongoing release of raw sewage. It is possible that this extremely high level of contamination was related to hurricane damage to sewage treatment infrastructure that has not yet been repaired. 

So we had some evidence for infrastructure problems that might be Hurricane-related, but we had no idea whether that was widespread. We may have caught one instance (in Gowanus), but there could be more, so in the face of continuing concern from the public and the media, we decided to do some more comprehensive sampling on Nov 8th. So that’s more than a week after the Hurricane. Just to make things complicated, the night before our Nov 8 sampling trip, the area was hit by another strong storm, that dumped anywhere from 1 to 6 inches of snow and rain on the ground. We predicted that this winter storm would lead to fairly widespread sewage contamination, as happens just about every time we get precipitation. 

In fact, we did see evidence for widespread sewage contamination on Nov 8., more than 2/3 of the samples we collected had unacceptably high counts of sewage indicating microbes. Because some of those stations were OK a few days earlier, we think that these results are dominated by the impacts of the overnight snow/rain storm. We hope that this highlights the fact that we have a pretty common sewage contamination problem. It’s not necessarily because of big events like Sandy, it happens all the time. Because this type of sewage contamination is common, it really should be more of a concern than the concern we are seeing now about sewage contamination following a big, rare event, like a direct hit from a hurricane. 

Drilling down into the most recent numbers in more detail, we did see very high counts of sewage indicators coming from 2 of the 3 sewage treatment plant outfalls we sampled. We also again found exceeding high counts in Gowanus canal. Those cases do suggest to us that there may be some ongoing infrastructure problems. They are localized, but they need to be fixed. Those kind of infrastructure breakdowns are the kinds of things we would expect to see following a big event, like Hurricane Sandy. However, we cannot definitely connect these specific cases to the Hurricane.

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Bidding Farewell To One Of Carroll Park's Giants

Carroll Park has been closed since Hurricane Sandy because some of the park's beautiful old trees fell down and needed to be cut into sections for removal and others lost limbs and needed to first be inspected by the NYC Park's Department so make sure that they were still sound.
Early this morning, a crew showed up and started by sawing the beautiful old Linden in the rock garden on the President Street side of the park that toppled during the storm.
It was actually very impressive to see the crew at work, but also rather sad to watch. The tree was certainly more than a century old and represent a bit of Carroll Gardens history.
The community should plant a new one in its place as soon as we can.
As soon as the rest of the trees have been trimmed and inspected, the park can be opened to the public again.

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BRAVO! Councilman Brad Lander Urges Lightstone To Withdraw Gowanus Building Application

700-unit Lightstone Group Development (credit: Lightstone Group)

Lightstone Development site, Canal at Carroll Street during Sandy (photo credit: Margaret Maugenest)

It would seem that Hurricane Sandy and the massive flooding caused by the storm is causing some politicians to take a stand against building in low-lying areas.
I just received a letter from Councilman Brad Lander's office that was sent to David Lichtenstein, COE of Lightstone Group in regards to the company's proposed Gowanus development at 363-365 Bond Street.  The site, adjacent to the Gowanus Canal, is located in a Flood Zone A and was evacuated both during Hurricane Irene in August 2011 and during Hurricane Sandy just two weeks ago.

This is a brave step for Councilman Lander and I applaud him for it.

Below is his letter to David Lichtenstein.

November 13, 2012

Mr. David Lichtenstein
Chairman and CEO
The Lightstone Group
460 Park Avenue #1300
New York, NY 10022

Dear Chairman Lichtenstein:

I write to urge the Lightstone Group to reconsider – and, for the time being, withdraw – the application you have submitted to the New York City Planning Commission for 363-365 Bond Street, on the banks of the Gowanus Canal, in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

As you know, Hurricane Sandy brought an unprecedented storm surge that inundated waterfront neighborhoods, caused billions of dollars in damage, and left tens of thousands of New Yorkers without electricity, heat, or safe shelter. Within my district, many of those most impacted by the storm live and work near the Gowanus Canal, which overflowed its banks and flooded neighboring homes and businesses. As you are no doubt aware, the site of your proposed development was under several feet of water during the storm.

In the wake of the storm, alongside our ongoing relief and recovery efforts, it is essential to rethink our approach to the development of areas along the water’s edge, which are most vulnerable to severe weather – especially those that flooded during Hurricane Sandy. I believe it would be a serious mistake for you to proceed as though nothing had happened, without reconsidering or altering your plans, and putting over 1,000 new residents in harm’s way the next time an event of this magnitude occurs.

I therefore urge you to withdraw your application for 363-365 Bond Street, and to take part in a planning dialogue that engage local stakeholders, elected officials, and public agencies at every level of government to account for the high risk of future storm surges. With this approach, we can turn this moment of disaster into an opportunity for thoughtful planning and infrastructure investments that will lead to sound, long-term, balanced development. Without such planning, we can expect to again see the high costs and, more importantly, the tragic impacts such storms have on our city.

If you agree to withdraw your application at this time, I will be glad to work with you in the future as we develop new plans for the area. If you choose not to reconsider in light of what we have learned from Hurricane Sandy, but instead push forward with your existing proposal unchanged, I will urge the City Planning Commission to reject your application. As I believe you are aware, I also have serious questions about the public process for consideration of “minor modifications,” which does not appear to be based in any applicable legal framework from the City Charter, Administrative Code, Local Law, or agency rules.

I therefore urge the Lightstone Group to take strong leadership by withdrawing and reevaluating your proposed project. Working together – with local stakeholders, elected officials, public agencies, and the development community – I believe we can formulate guidelines for waterfront development and create a future for the Gowanus Canal area that turns the destruction our city has seen over the last two weeks into a thoughtful, sustainable, long-term plan for our future.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Brad Lander
City Councilmember, District 39

CC: Kasra Sanandaji, Senior Vice President, Investments, The Lightstone Group
Ethan Geto, Principal, Geto & de Milly
Purnima Kapur, Director, Brooklyn Borough Office, NYC Dept. of City Planning
Craig Hammerman, District Manager, Brooklyn Community Board 6

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Gowanus Emergency Relief Workshop: How To Repair, Rebuild And Rebound After Hurricane Sandy

No doubt this information will be useful to many Gowanus area business owners who are dealing with tremendous loss and damage as a result of Hurricane Sandy.  The information comes via Craig Hammerman, Community Board 6's district manager.

GOWANUS EMERGENCY RELIEF WORKSHOP 

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

3 PM

Build It Green! NYC

69 9th St. (between 2nd Ave. and Smith St.) 

Join the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the Gowanus Alliance, Community Board 6 and Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation at Build It Green! NYC to learn about available business resources in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Confirmed Participants:
Carlo A. Scissura, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce President & CEO
David Meade, Executive Director, Southwest BK Industrial Development Corp.
Representatives from the Department of Small Business Services
Representatives from SBA
Representatives from FEMA

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Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus (FROGG) To City Planning: After Sandy, How Can Department Consider 700-Unit Apartment Complex In Gowanus?

Proposed Lightstone Development next to the Gowanus Canal (credit: Lightstone Group)

Lightstone Development site, Canal at Carroll Street during Sandy  (photo credit: Margaret Maugenest)

Second and Bond Streets during storm (photo credit: Triada Samaras)

Sandy flooding at First and Bond Streets near Canal (photo credit: Carl Teitelbaum)

On November 13th***, NYC's Department Of City Planning will be reviewing The Lightstone Group's application for "minor modifications" to the previously approved land use actions at 363-365 Bond Street on two blocks right next to the Gowanus Canal. One of those minor modifications is to increase the number of units from 447 to 700, which doesn't seem so very minor at all.

In 2009, after a Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP) that was set in motion by Toll Brothers, a national development company, the property was spot re-zoned by City Planning from manufacturing to special mixed-use, which allows housing.
After the Gowanus Canal was declared a Superfund Site by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 2010, Toll Brothers decided to abandon plans for their proposed condo development.

Lightstone revived the project and is planning a 700-unit rental complex. In order to proceed, they just need City Planning's approval.  (It is important to note that Lightstone could start construction on the previously approved 447 unit building immediately.)

Many Gowanus residents have warned that the building site is in a flood zone A and that the infrastructure, especially the sewer system in the Gowanus area is dreadfully antiquated.  

After Hurricane Sandy and the ensuing flooding, these concerns are well founded.

The group Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus (FROGG) just released the  statement below aimed at NYC Planning and Chairperson Amanda Burden to address the 'new reality' about the vulnerability of our shoreline and the risks of bringing more residents to a flood plain.

BROOKLYN RESIDENTS, SMALL BUSINESSES BLAST NY CITY PLANNING’S DECISION TO CONSIDER A NEW 700-UNIT APARTMENT COMPLEX IN CONTAMINATED ZONE A

Development would be the first approved since Superstorm Sandy despite being in a flood-prone, mandatory evacuation zone along a hazardous Superfund site; Brooklyners upset at the prospective rise in insurance costs from the eventual bail out of this building in the next storm; City Planning to discuss approval November 13.***

Brooklyn residents and small businesses are outraged that the New York City Planning Commission will consider a proposal to build a gigantic 8 to 12 story apartment complex to house over 1400 residents on the banks of the Gowanus Canal, which is a hazardous federal Superfund site. Their proposed site was under more than 10 feet of toxic, sewage- contaminated water during Hurricane Sandy.
After the mandatory evacuation order for Zone A and the continuing devastation from the hurricane, many Gowanus residents have still not been allowed to return to their damaged buildings. Other high rises in the neighborhood, such as the Gowanus Houses, are still without power and heat a week after the storm. The EPA is currently conducting street-level site sampling to determie whether the cancer-causing contaminants from the canal’s toxic sediments linger and are harmful to citizens. It’s in this dystopian environment that the Lightstone Group is applying
to build an apartment complex. “It is lunacy for the city to consider this project in light of the damage from the hurricane,” says Linda Mariano, co-chair of the community advisory group Friends and Residents of the Greater Gowanus (FROGG). “We are calling for a full moratorium on development and all up-scale zoning changes in any waterfront district.”
A 2010 State Sea-Level Task Force Report recommends " restriction of new development and redevelopment in high- risk areas”. That’s because the costs of dealing with a storm’s aftermath is too costly to New York taxpayers. The dollars to bail out residents during future storm surges raises everyone’s taxes as well as insurance rates.
The NY City Planning Commission will discuss this project at a November 13 meeting at which the public is not allowed to speak. Unlike other proposals for new developments, the Lightstone project is slipping backdoor through a loophole in the city planning process. The proposal will not go through a city ULURP hearing or have to file and environmental impact statement because of
an earlier area spot zoning in 2009. However, given the federal government’s designation of the Gowanus Canal as a Superfund site in 2010 and the incredible damage and displacement
from Hurricane Sandy, it is irresponsible for the City Planning Commission to greenlight such a development at this time.
Lightstone has said that despite the storm, it will proceed with building, claiming that they plan to raise the grade of their development to offer protection to the new residents. However, the surge brought in by Sandy exceeded their proposed elevation changes. And even if their buildings are above the flood plain,  all their of nearly 1400 residents will still need to be evacuated in the next storm– a task made more complicated by the city’s evacuation route also being underwater for high tides during the storm. Furthermore, in Sandy’s wake, new developments can’t only seek to impede a flood by trapping storm water, but also need to be evaluated as to whether they can assist in the speedy drainage of future storm surges, something Lightstone’s proposal does not include.
“Flood water would not only find another path, it would go further up each side of the Canal to find open or other accessible space,” says Diane Buxbaum, a neighborhood resident and environmentalist “It makes no sense to continue building on our shore areas. Creating open areas and trying to restore some link to wetlands is the better choice.”
More than 500 Brooklyn residents and small businesses have signed a petition decrying the development, and it is also opposed by a large number of community groups incluing FROGG (Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus), CORD (Coalition for Responsible Development) and the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, among others.
These allies call upon Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez and Councilman Brad Lander and other elected officials, acting under the power of the current “State of Emergency,” to take the first steps in addressing the effects of hurricane and storm surge catastrophes by calling for a moratorium on development and all up-scale zoning changes in any waterfront district that was affected by the storm surge of hurricane Sandy. They call for Amanda Burden and the NY City Planning to put an immediate moratorium on the review or approval of any pending projects planned for Zone A, including that of the Lightstone Group, until new guidelines for such development have been created. To do otherwise would not only be foolish, but irresponsible and costly to the community as well. As Governor Andrew Cuomo recently stated, “We have a 100-year flood every two years now.” The NY City Department of Planning must acknowledge this fact, and act accordingly.
We must rebuild following Sandy – but not at the water’s edge. Let’s not create new and costly regional flood control problems.

*** The hearing on this development was delayed. The date apeared on NYC Department of City Planning's online calendar prior to Hurricane Sandy, but was removed after the storm. No word yet on when it will be rescheduled.

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