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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MAY 5, 2019
Gowanus locals question rezoning plan
2019 * plus tax and season pass.
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
They want a clean guarantee.
The Gowanus rezoning
must not impede the
cleanup of the neighborhood’s
namesake canal,
a community group demanded
at an April 23
meeting.
Members of the local
watchdog organization
the Gowanus Canal Community
Advisory Group
voted to pass a resolution
demanding that the city’s
Gowanus rezoning does not
compromise the cleanup
effort of the Gowanus Canal
Superfund site by allowing
for taller buildings
and more people, according
to one member, who
noted that city and federal
offi cials have yet to
even agree on whether to
mitigate combined sewage
overfl ows coming from the
nabe’s current population
with two tanks or a tunnel.
“Zoning goes in and EPA
and DEP are fi ghting about
tank or tunnel and meanwhile
we still don’t know
what we’re doing. It’s just
silly, the whole thing, when
you just step way back to
the 30,000-foot height and
look at this,” David Briggs
said at the monthly meeting
of the group at the St.
Mary Star of the Sea retirement
home.
A lack of foresight could
end up biting the city in the
back, much like the complex
repair issues affecting the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway,
according to Briggs.
“Don’t do anything that
jeopardizes the cleanup
and do the rezoning so we
don’t have the triple BQE
overpass problem 10 years
from now,” he said.
The city should also not
include its remediation efforts
mandated under the
Federal Superfund program
as suffi cient for the rezoning
proposal, because these measures
don’t accommodate for
future population growth,
members demanded.
A senior Department of
Environmental Protection
offi cial tried to take credit
for those efforts at a March
26 meeting , saying that the
city is doing more than it had
to, one member warned.
“One of my biggest concerns
from when DEP was
here last month was that Angela
Licata clearly thinks
that they are already doing
way more than they’re required
to do under the Superfund,”
said Andrea Parker.
“And it seems from all the
zoning documentation that’s
come out that they’re just
going to say, ‘We’re already
building the tanks so we
don’t need to do anything
additional.’ I think we already
deserve the tanks, we
deserve the fl ushing tunnel,
pump station — all of the upgrades
that we’ve already
been promised should not be
part of this package.”
At last month’s meeting ,
the group demanded the
city halt its rezoning plans
— which would allow developers
to erect 22-story towers
along the banks of the
Gowanus Canal — until the
Feds fi nish the clean up.
The city already has to
ensure that current and future
high density residential
redevelopment does not
compromise the cleanup
under the EPA’s Record of
Decision on the Superfund
site, a spokeswoman for the
federal agency told the organization,
adding that the
feds would come back every
fi ve years to check on their
city counterparts.
“We come back every fi ve
years and review the remedy
to ensure that it is operating
as designed,” said Natalie
Loney.
But another member worried
that the fi ve-year time
frame is not enough and
questioned who the community
should turn to if something
happens within that
period.
“A lot can happen in fi ve
years,” said Brad Vogel.
“What do we do when we see
there’s a violation happening
that’s compromising the
remedy and it’s three more
years until the EPA fi ve-year
intervention. How is it all going
to work, who do we talk
to, who do we hold accountable,”
he said.
Loney said it is in the
city’s best interest to maintain
the cleanup after the
feds leave so that they don’t
have to pay for the remedy
multiple times.
“It’s in their best interest
to maintain the integrity of
the remedy. Nobody wants to
have to spend money twice,
or three or four times,” she
said.
CLEAN DEMANDS: The city’s plan to rezone Gowanus must not compromise
the Federal cleanup of the neighborhood’s noxious canal,
members of the Gowanus Community Advisory Group demanded at an
April 23 meeting. File photo by Jason Speakman