Re: [plots-nyc] Gowanus Canal Clean up - Eminent Domain comments from Eymund on Eastern Effects site

[Eymund Diegel]

Hi Kino,

Thanks for reaching out and asking for comments on the City's plans to take over the Eastern Effects Gowanus Canal site through eminent domain.

I'm speaking here as a neighbor who lives opposite the Eastern Effects site on Sackett and Bond Street. 

I do the weekly water quality testing for the "Gowanus Milkshake" site, the white foam area next to the Eastern Effects buildings, so am familiar with the neighborhood pollution issues and history.

Your question about the City's cleanup strategy has less to do with science than with common sense, or lack thereof.

The City's strategy to close down a  thriving business for a "staging area" when more suitable alternatives exist doesn't make a lot of logistical planning sense. 

It simply is a cynical political move by the City to slow down the cleanup process, and to pressure the US Environmental Protection Agency into cleanup concessions.

By targeting the Eastern Effect site, New York City (primarily through the Department of Environmental Protection)  is strategically trying to stir up political and legal conflict to negotiate down the City's share of cleanup costs.

This is about politics and who will control the cleanup process, not science.

The City's Department of Environmental Protection has lost planning credibility with many local residents because of it's continuous opposition to reasonable clean up plans by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, which the local community CAG have consistently supported as sensible.

The City has also lost credibility because of the nonsense planning figures the City continues to put out.

The fact that the City is estimating 700 million dollars for tank construction costs (basically large underground concrete boxes) when the nearly completed adjacent Gowanus Lightstone apartment development (at twice the size, including land and fancy kitchens) was built for 350 million  establishes that the City's Department of Environmental Protection is not giving reasonable figures or thought out plans in the best interest of the community they are meant to serve.

The City's current cleanup and staging proposal - proposing to displace Eastern Effects - is in bad faith - and badly thought out - and should continue to be opposed by the community.

This does not mean we should not debate the complicated technical issues to find the best strategy for moving the cleanup forward for all parties.

The Bad News:

Both the Thomas Greene Park pool and potentially parts of the Eastern Effects studio site will need to be remediated to get at the big blobs of coal tar underneath them. These are causing the pollution sheens we see in the Canal. 

Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club community education outing on water pollution
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2014 - 13 July -  City of Water Day - Gowanus Canal Conservancy Balloon photography of Manufactured Gas Plant Coal Tar floating on the Gowanus Canal

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With the Gowanus cleanup plan moving forward, the Eastern Effects team should expect some disruptions.It should not have to expect annihilation.

The fact that the soil underneath Eastern Effects site is itself polluted is actually an argument for why it should not be used as a staging area for the City's remediation and tank construction plan. It remains safe for its current filming activities, but appropriate protective measures will need to be taken as cleanup moves forward on the adjacent DeGraw Street area. 

You can get more information on the schematic pollution area shown above in these reports:

http://www.fultonmgpsite.com/key_docs_reports.html

The proposed Fulton MGP excavation work plan is here:

http://www.fultonmgpsite.com/pdfs/Report%20hw224051%202015-3_FS.pdf

The City's cleanup tank "staging" strategy is ignoring the sequence of what needs to be done when to best remove pollutants that affect Gowanus Canal water quality.

Locating the new sewer tank "staging area" on part of the area you need to clean out (including the Eastern Effects  Studio) does not make sense, and slows down the cleanup process. 

The City's "staging plan" is the logical equivalent of painting yourself into a corner, and then realizing you forgot to take out the garbage once you are stuck in the corner. In the map above, we should be looking at the clean staging areas that are outside of the contamination work zone, and work logically from there.

The vacant, already remediated CONED site is the ideal staging area, with both good Butler Street truck access and water based barge access at the head of the Canal. The CONED site is perfect for proceeding with a North to South cleanup plan that will buy Eastern Effects operations some time to come up with sustainable cleanup solutions.

Another overlooked staging area is the City owned Canal itself. A floating deck or temporary pier would be a much cheaper alternative than expropriation or use of other upland areas.Such large work barges are already used by the concrete factory at the Public Place site (at the former Citizens' MGP site)

The (potential) Good News:

Eastern Effects site will have to be remediated to prevent ongoing Canal contamination. It may not have to be demolished to do so. The Eastern Effects parcel (former  Fulton MGP canal side site) should be the last site to be cleaned, over a 5 year process. We are talking about the soil underneath the building, not the building itself. I don't think it is necessary to destroy a great neighborhood business to accomplish that cleanup.

By locating the staging area on the CONED site, the scenario is opened that the contaminated soil area underneath of the Eastern Effects Studio, mainly the north west corner of the building next to DeGraw Street, with high coal tar levels, could be remediated without demolishing Eastern Effects investment. 

This could be done by shoring and excavating the contamination area from the DeGraw Street side (see Figure 12 for pollution details of the the proposed National Grid / GEI March 2015 remediation plan for the site)

With the core of the pollution concentrated under DeGraw Street, this street will most likely be needing excavation for a proper cleanup. This makes truck access to the City's current proposed staging area on DeGraw Street difficult and illogical.

Selecting the  Eastern Effects site as the "best" staging area doesn't make sense. The Butler Street corridor, with the CONED site, is the better planning logistics site.

WILL THE PROPOSED COMBINED SEWER OVERFLOW TANK ACTUALLY WORK ?

It is absolutely necessary to find a way to prevent the average million gallons a day of contaminated sewage sediment from City pipes getting into the Canal, and recontaminating the EPA's cleanup work.

I am however one of the rare community members who think locating the sewer holding tanks at the head of the canal flood zone is a bad idea. They should be located in the upland areas, before rainwater runoff accumulates to become overwhelming. That does not mean we don't need them - just that there are better engineering design solutions on more strategic sites. The City's (and the EPA's) current tank plan is only addressing the symptoms of the problem, not the cause. It is a band aid solution.

As a flood zone, the infrastructure of this low lying Gowanus area will always be overwhelmed whenever there are heavy rains. The tanks, where they are now proposed, will never be able to completely eliminate overflows. They are in the wrong place, and don't have sufficient capacity.

As anyone who lived through the Sandy Flooding can tell you, sewer holding tanks in bathtubs simply don't work.

Example of the 29 million dollar Alley Creek CSO Tank, with 62 million gallons of combined sewer overflow pollution per year into Little Neck Bay  - after construction. This NYCDEP created "expected sewer overflows" table shows a normal rainfall, with no flooding scenario.

A "with flooding" scenario will be even worse: 

 

15 December 2012 GLAM Balloon Aerial Sewer overflows from the Butler Street Sewer Pump Station Failure after the Sandy Flooding

The aerial shows the milky streak of sewage contamination. This will happen again.

The idea of locating major flood overflow infrastructure under Butler Street was tried once already, in 1891, and it failed (bad planning). It did however leave behind a massive already built holding tank under Butler Street, leading to some head scratching of why we are now building the same badly thought out civil engineering solution a second time.

BUTLER STREET IS ALREADY A HOLDING TANK 

WHY CANT UNDERUTILIZED CITY STREET RIGHT OF WAYS NOT BE USED AS TEMPORARY STAGING AREAS & TANK SITES ?

 
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2013 - 13 September Gowanus Butler Street Storm Sewer Tunnel (Nevins to Third Av), with an existing holding volume of 2 million gallons - photos by Steven Duncan

Locating a 8 million gallon tank (what the City and EPA wants to build at the head of the Canal) would roughly require the space of 4 city streets, 2 blocks long. 

(why not Butler, Douglass, Degraw. Sackett, between Nevins and Third Avenue ? )
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FLOOD PLANNING

I personally think that Thomas Greene Park, after excavation and remediation, should be returned to its more useful historical role as a flood park, to help reduce future flood damages to local property owners. This would mean not filling it back in once the coal tar contaminated soil is removed.

Rotterdam Flood Park (SWITCH, 2011)
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Map of the current landfill topography of the Thomas Greene Park Fulton MGP Remediation Site, with the historical stream bed (in blue) on mostly open lots.   Green is the historical tidal flood zone. Pink was the original 4th Ave Drainage Canal built by the Dutch. Contour lines show current soil heights of Gowanus sites above mean sea level.

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Lowering the current grade of the park from its existing 18 feet above mean sea level to roughly 3 feet above mean sea level would help handle future flood surges. (something a sewer holding tank cannot do - even for the City's gold plated $ 700 million price tag)

However I defer to the democratic community consensus that any tank, however badly planned, is better than doing nothing.

2011 - 28 August, Hurricane Irene flooding at Thomas Greene Park Superfund Site, pic via Grace Freedman

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Map of Eastern Effects Site with 1766 Extents of the the tidal flood zone and historic streams:

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The better  sites for new holding tanks are the historical water holding areas upslope, being the landfilled farm ponds that are under City owned school playgrounds and parks, and privately owned parking lots (eg the Key Food parking lot on 5th avenue & Butler Street). These should be designed as street runoff / stormwater holding tanks, rather than sewer overflow tanks.

I had started exploring alternative stormwater holding tanks, as an alternative to the misguided Gowanus Waterfront Sewer Holding Tank Plan.

There are reasonable alternatives not just to the Eastern Effect's "staging area" but to the whole concept of "Sewer Tanks" adjacent to the Canal.

These more sustainable Green Infrastructure friendly (eminent domain free) alternative sites are explored on this map: 2014 Gowanus Watershed Green Infrastructure Draft Siting Plan

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Their current community uses (basketball courts / asphalt playgrounds / parking could easily be restored after tanks are built.

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"Street Creeks" is another concept worth exploring as an alternative to sewer tanks:   http://www.streetcreeks.org/#about

As the current  Sewer Tank concept will not meet "Vision Zero" goal of zero contaminated sewer overflows to the now remediated Canal, these solution oriented "Green" ideas need to remain on the agenda.

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2015 - Johannisbach Street Creek - Aachen Germany - photo by from Steve Duncan

A lot of these cleanup issues are clearly complicated technical debates about how to cost effectively correct some of our past historical mistakes.

Making the further financial mistake of of obliterating a business that has helped revitalize our neighborhood is not necessary.

Better, more sustainable alternatives exist.

Hope that helps in moving the discussion forward.

Best

Eymund 

On Mon, Jun 13, 2016 at 9:10 PM, jheronimus nunca <kino...@gmail.com> wrote:

As the scientists long advocating for the cleanup of the Gowanus canal, would anyone care to comment on the strategy being employed by the city for the cleanup?

http://easterneffects.com/home/sos-update/
http://easterneffects.com/home/

Thanks!

Kino
New York City

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[Liz Barry]

Hi Eymund and Kino, 

Thanks for assembling this set of information. I really had to read it closely. 

If i could take a stab at paraphrasing, what we have here is: 

a story about different levels of government (the New York City Department of Environmental Protection & the federal Environmental Protection Agency) vying for control over a highly impacted (and not fully understood) site by offering competing plans for 1) legacy pollution cleanup and 2) ongoing stormwater overflow management. 

Eymund appeals to the functioning public participation process hosted by the EPA -- the Community Advisory Group (CAG) -- and asks why the NYC's DEP is ignoring this body?

At the end of his email, Eymund discusses the relative technical and financial merits / demerits of the plans being offered, and makes a case for progressive green infrastructure that doesn't "repeat historical mistakes"

I'm getting into this thread because this quote really resonated with me "This is about politics and who will control the cleanup process, not science" -- i think this describes many community research sites that are active in PL (and beyond) where politics and science are wrapped into a Gordian knot and people on the "front lines" are trying to renegotiate these relationships often with their own health at stake. 

Id be interested in hearing thoughts on this, and to pick up corrections if i've mis-paraphrased

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Liz Barry
director of community development
@publiclab

publiclab.org

+1-336-269-1539

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