Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times
A plan by the E.P.A. to clean the Gowanus Canal has run into protests from residents in several Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Almost everybody wants the Gowanus Canal cleansed of its toxic gunk.
But a $500 million plan by the Environmental Protection Agency to do just that has run into protests from otherwise environmentally conscious residents in several Brooklyn neighborhoods. They want the canal purged of pollutants like PCBs, lead, mercury and raw sewage, but are fighting the methods the agency has chosen.
One neighborhood fears that the sludge taken out from the canal would poison the air over their ball fields, and others worry that the location of a sewage-processing site needed for the cleanup would destroy a beloved swimming pool.
The disputes illustrate a predicament that often crops up in environmental remediation: those affected see the cure as worse than the disease.
One part of the E.P.A.'s plan for the 1.8-mile canal would require the city to build an eight-million-gallon sewage storage tank so that the area's combined waste and rainwater sewers would not overflow during heavy storms and contaminate the canal. But the site the agency has chosen for the tank would place it under a park that has a popular 3-foot-9-inch-deep swimming pool, fondly known as the Double D pool because it is between Douglass and DeGraw Streets.
Sabine Aronowsky, a local activist and mother, said the pool was not just a place for children to cool off during sweltering summer days, but "one of the last remaining bastions of Brooklyn as I know it, a real community gathering place." Children from Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens mingle with those from three nearby housing projects.
"There's nothing like getting into a bathing suit for neutralizing class lines," said Holly White, a mother of two young children who learned to swim at the Double D and caper there much of the summer.
The Bloomberg administration tried to close the pool in 2010 for budgetary reasons, but neighborhood outrage succeeded in saving it.
Construction of the sewage storage tank would close the pool, and possibly an adjoining playground, basketball court and skate park, for years; officials have not said whether they would come up with a temporary alternative. Residents have gathered 700 signatures opposing the tank's location and have suggested an empty Consolidated Edison lot a few blocks away as a more suitable spot. The E.P.A. says that in any case, the pool will one day have to be dug up since it was built above the remnants of a plant that manufactured natural gas from coal and left behind a residue of toxic coal tars.
"Something has to happen to it, and the question is what is that something," said Walter Mugdan, a regional Superfund director for the E.P.A. "Does it include excavation of all the soils in the area? And if it includes excavation, there's going to be a temporary closing of the pool in any event."
The E.P.A. finished taking comments from the affected neighborhoods late last month and plans to publish its final plan before the end of the year. Dredging could begin in 2015 and be completed by 2020.
Once dredging begins, the canal sediment would have to be "dewatered" nearby, on barges or on land. Then, most of the toxic sludge would be shipped out of state for treatment, but some of the leftover could be treated in Brooklyn and blended into concrete to be used as landfill.
The location of the proposed Brooklyn treatment plant is the subject of another protest, this time in Red Hook. The neighborhood has been slowly gentrifying, but gritty industry still has a large presence; it is perennially considered for unpopular uses like garbage-transfer stations.
The chief idea the E.P.A. has been considering is to build the dewatering and treatment plant on a parking lot that is part of the sprawling Gowanus Bay Terminal. But the terminal sits next to ball fields, a large swimming pool and the Red Hook Houses, public low-income housing. Some residents, as well as the owners of popular Latin American food trucks that congregate there, fear the plant — known as a Confined Disposal Facility — could create a noxious stench.
"We're not saying we're opposed to dredging," said Bea Byrd, a longtime resident of the Red Hook Houses. "But how can you have a sludge plant on the other side of where children are playing ball? Never mind the Red Hook Houses where we have to breathe the air. We have residents with asthma and cancer."
John Quadrozzi Jr., who owns the terminal, says the least toxic portion of the sediment would be transported a short distance in enclosed barges to be processed in an enclosed plant and would emerge as a safe concrete mixture. Mr. Quadrozzi wants to use the concrete products in the construction of a pier, near the end of Columbia Street, where oceangoing ships could dock. He and the E.P.A. have tried to build support by offering training at the plant for eventual jobs and promising to build a maritime park, complete with an Intrepid-like museum on a freighter.
But neighborhood activists like John McGettrick, a chairman of the Red Hook Civic Association, have accused the E.P.A. of trying to enrich Mr. Quadrozzi, the owner of several city concrete plants and someone they say has been cited by New York State's environmental agency for illegally dumping in Gowanus Bay. Mr. Quadrozzi said that after years of waiting for state permits to repair a bulkhead, he paid $60,000 to settle accusations brought by the New York agency when the bulkhead collapsed into the bay.
The E.P.A. does have an alternative plan for treating the sludge: Shipping it all to states like Idaho and Texas where existing plants can process it. But that remedy is more expensive.
In an interview, Mr. Mugdan said the agency would not dispose of sludge in Red Hook "unless there is community acceptance." He added, "So far, there's been pretty vigorous opposition."
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