For years, advocates in Brooklyn have warned against the pace of development in the neighborhood around the Gowanus Canal. Now the state is investigating 100 blocks in the neighborhood for potentially toxic air.
Jack Riccobono, a Gowanus resident and father of three, is a member of the advocacy group, Voice of Gowanus. He and Walter Hang, founder and president of the environmental data firm, Toxics Targeting, which works with Voice of Gowanus joined WNYC’s Sean Carlson, host of All Things Considered, to discuss the latest developments at one of the city’s most polluted sites.
Sean Carlson: Jack, let’s start with you. For folks who are not familiar with Gowanus, can you just describe the neighborhood for us and tell us what drew you to live there and decide to raise your family there?
Jack Riccobono: I’ve lived in that area for about 10 years and it’s honestly been rapidly changing over the last decade. It used to be a real industrial hub. And that’s the source of a lot of the contamination problems that we’re going to talk about today. But it’s also like a very vibrant community. A lot of artists move there for the workspaces that they could find. You know, it’s a great community. People really care about each other. There’s a lot of old time residents who are still in the area. And so it has a kind of, you know, real neighborhood feel.
Walter, your firm has been looking at the data out of Gowanus. Can you tell us about the chemicals you’re finding there and how concerned residents should be?
Walter Hang: So, as Jack noted, the Gowanus Canal was this heavily industrialized area. It’s now been redeveloped and the problem is that New York State did not require the cleanup of more than 50 giant contaminated properties. These are called brown fields where tax incentives were offered to try to get the responsible parties to do the cleanup. And the number one compound that’s been identified now in literally dozens of homes, businesses, a church, schools is trichloroethylene.
It’s a very common industrial chemical. It’s a potential human cancer causing agent and it’s highly neurodegenerative. So it’s causally associated with Parkinson’s and it’s so persistent in the environment that it’s literally coming up out of the ground and it’s penetrating into the indoor air of these buildings. And this is just coming to light literally in recent months. And that’s how come this huge study is now underway.
Walter, how did those chemicals get there in the first place?
Walter: So basically these were old industrial sites like 514 Union Street, which is where the saga began thanks to WNYC which broke the story more than a year and a half ago. This was an old industrial facility. So now at that site, they monitor trichloroethylene at 86, 000 micrograms per cubic meter. The allowable amount is 2. [A nearby] shuffleboard club had 43 micrograms per cubic meter in the indoor air.
If you look in this area, there are just so many sites with documented trichloroethylene and we’re just trying to get our arms around the problem and we’re going to try to require these sites to be comprehensively cleaned up, and that hasn’t been done for the last 20 years.
Jack your children have all gone, or currently go to PS32, where some cancerous vapors were found. Tell us about the situation there.
Jack: What’s scary is there’s a number of schools that have been tested in the Gowanus area and we have a sister school, PS372, the children’s school, that is now undergoing emergency mitigation efforts because of what these agencies found in the air there at P.S. 32 they found an elevated level in one area, and you know, for us, we’re really concerned, obviously, for our children, but also for future residents.
And in Gowanus, you know, it’s a drainage area — an area which gets a tremendous amount of water draining down into it. And with climate change, we have increased, elevated rainfall and a lot of flooding problems. And basically that water is moving this contamination around underneath the ground. So this contaminated groundwater is a huge issue for us. We really want the state and the feds at the EPA to get a handle on the contaminated groundwater and stop the spread of contamination.
Walter, is there a way to develop in a neighborhood like Kiwanis in a way that doesn’t potentially endanger residents health?
Walter: Absolutely. You gotta clean up the pollution before you redevelop the site. I mean, that’s how come New York’s laws are so incredibly strict. And the most important thing is that according to the state guideline, “mitigation is considered a temporary measure implemented to address environmental exposures. related to soil vapor intrusion until contaminated environmental media are remediated”
So we need comprehensive cleanup and that is [Gov. Kathy] Hochul’s responsibility. They’re the ones that are granting these restricted residential cleanups that leave so much pollution in place.
Jack, what does Voice of Gowanus want from the state and the city?
Jack: I want to speak as the head of the Health and Safety Committee at the PTA, at PS 32, because we have been involved with the agencies in trying to push them for additional action, you know, and we really feel like, of course, immediate mitigation is needed just to make sure the air is clear in the short term and then additional investigation. I mean, if you find something toxic, you need to look at the source, where is it coming from? We want them to comprehensively test the groundwater and the soil and then create a plan for how they’re going to actually clean up that contamination.
And you know, we’re just sick of it. These agencies do not have any credibility with us right now. If, you know, this toxic contamination coming into, uh, 3K and pre-K classrooms does not wake up these elected officials, I do not know what will.
In a statement, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said the department is committed to the Gowanus community and the comprehensive cleanup of more than 50 sites in the neighborhood, along with the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the state health department.
The department says it’s available to answer questions from community members and is inviting residents to go to its website or attend a September 19th community availability session at P. S. 372.