Brooklyn residents remain troubled with the cleanup process of a highly contaminated site in Gowanus, with many urging the state to take over the remediation effort from a private group.
Representatives from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Gowanus Oversight Task Force and the developers behind Gowanus Green, a mixed-use project, appeared at a public meeting Thursday to give updates on the cleanup of 459 Smith St., a lot that housed fertilizer and manufactured gas plants until the 1920s.
The former Manufactured Gas Plant site, or MPG, left the soil heavily polluted with cool tar waste, which necessitates the remediation of the site before it can be repurposed for commercial and residential use. National Grid has been overseeing that task, but the cleanup process was halted when the Environmental Protection Agency changed its guidelines in 2024 to focus on containing contaminated groundwater.
Andrew Guglielmi, director of the Division of Environmental Remediation at DEC, said that some 66,000 gallons of contaminated material and non-aqueous phase liquids, or NAPLs, have been collected from the site. The agency and National Grid are trying to align the approach to the remainder of the clean-up process, he said.
“They will remain pumping until they’re no longer collecting material,” Guglielmi said. “If there comes a point where it’s no longer productive in terms of collecting that material and really a remedial system that’s effective, we would then shut down those wells if they’re no longer collecting what we want them to collect.”
He added that the coal tar cleanup needed to be adequately completed to prevent “anything that could possibly go off that site onto someone's property who lives nearby.” If contamination remains on the site, a site management plan is needed to manage it in perpetuity, as well as an environmental easement to manage the site forever.
The site is adjacent to the Gowanus Canal, which the Environmental Protection Agency has designated as “one of the nation's most seriously contaminated water bodies,” because the canal's sediment contains high levels of a dozen contaminants.
At the heart of the controversy is whether the site should continue to fall under the auspices of the Brownfield Cleanup program (BCP), or instead be designated a state Superfund (SSF). The BCP allows the private sector to undertake the gargantuan task of cleaning the contaminated areas, but that program requires residents living in the vicinity of the site to make tax contributions to fund the project.
Residents at the meeting voiced concern over the safety of a BCP cleanup program, with some saying they felt the state was better equipped to handle the mammoth task.
Guglielmi assured that the DEC “would only select a remedy that we also felt like we could implement, that was feasible, that was cost-effective, and that’s what we’re asking National Grid to do here,” adding that he wished the process with the utility -- the entity leading the decontamination and remediation process– moved faster.
He also said he found the BCP was in some ways more explicit in mandating that the site does not impact sites outside of it.
Jack Riccobono, member of the advocacy group Voice of Gowanus, issued a scathing rebuke of the current decontamination program, which was met with scattered applause.
"We would like to hear tonight, what is it that would make DEC do their job and move the site into state superfund?"
Guglielmi said the goal for either program is to protect the site and the surrounding community and suggested that his agency is up for the task.
Meanwhile, plans for the Gowanus Green project were shared by the developers, which includes six mixed-used buildings, approximately 955 units of 100% affordable housing, a new school and a 1.5 acre public park. The project would include a range of storm water management strategies to combat sewer overflows that include planted areas, permeable paving and rainwater harvesting.
Sandye Renz, a Gowanus resident of 35 years and member of the task force, called the plans “hideous,” as the massive buildings jammed into the lot would feel like an “overwhelming monster.”
“I felt like it was soul crushing,” Renz said. “Who wants to live in that place that they’re planning, and why are public housing so dismal failures – it's because they look like that and they are planned that way.”
Renz also thought the current safety plans were not feasible.
“When you have to think that you’re gonna have to monitor something for 50 years, how’s that gonna happen, and who’s gonna do that?” Renz said. “They just need to clean it up. They’re not really gonna clean it up. The taxpayers are gonna pay to clean it up if it happens at all. And it’s the whole system, it’s just inequitable, and I am not against change or development, but they’re not doing it correctly.”
