the red hook
CB6'S GOWANUS CONDITIONS - PAGE 3
STAR REVUE
JULY 2021
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
FREE
A RED HOOK WARRIOR
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by Brian Abate
here will be six massive last-mile warehouses open in Red Hook by 2022, totaling more than 3 million square feet. These warehouses include Amazon, UPS and Fedex facilities and right now the plan is for them to bring a lot of trucks in and out of Red Hook every day. Jim Tampakis of Tamco Mechanical, located on Richards Street in Red Hook, has been pushing for last mile warehouses to take advantage of Red Hook's waterfront to help transport materials. This would decrease both pollution and traffic. Right now, our designated truck route runs down Van Brunt Street and over to Bay Street, passing by three Amazon warehouses now under construction, as well as our parks and Rec center. The new truck traffic would lead to numerous issues, including pollution and congestion and would make the street more dangerous for children as well as motorcycle and bicycle riders. Health issues have to be prioritized and doctors have called the neighborhoods surrounding distribution centers “diesel death zones.” On aver-
age, 10 percent of New Yorkers have asthma but 25 percent of children in Red Hook have asthma. Tampakis has made a little progress in his mission on behalf of the neighborhood. Two weeks ago a Cross Harbor Trailer on Barge RoRo Service made a successful test run. “This would use barges to bring in freight to the Red Hook Marine Terminal and down to the Hughes site on Columbia Street,” according to Tampakis. Tampakis went on a walk with local leaders a few weeks ago to discuss suggestions and ideas for how to best deal with the warehouse issue. The walk was joined by members of Community Board 6 and Community Board 7, representatives from the DOT (Department of Transportation) and EDC (Economic Development Corporation.) “I thought it was a positive experience because it brought more awareness to the issues,” Tampakis said. “I think everyone was open to the idea of utilizing the waterfront.” Another possibility brought up during the walk is opening Halleck Street. The street ends because
Jim Tampakis has run a family-owned machine shop on Richards Street since the 1970's.
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Gowanus Canal cleanup on schedule, City behind
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o sooner had Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional counsel, Brian Carr, finished giving his update of the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup—works are advancing on schedule with no major hiccups—than members of the neighborhood’s Community Advisory Group began venting their grievances. Among other things, members who attended the June 22 virtual meeting expressed to Carr their disappointment in what they described as a failure by the EPA to make New York City comply with its Superfund obligations—particularly the construction of two large retention tanks along the Gowanus Canal that will capture combined sewer overflow into the waterway—and their distrust of the city’s environmental impact statement for the proposed rezoning of Gowanus.
When in France Years of foot dragging by the city, consistently decried by the advisory group, prompted the EPA to issue a unilateral administrative order in March that compelled the city to begin construction on the tanks. At the June meeting, members wanted to know what the hold up was nearly four months later. Some members argued that there seemed to be a lack of commitment by EPA leadership in ensuring that the remedy of the Gowanus Canal was protected from recontami-
by Jorge Bello
nation from the increase in density— and toilet flushes—the neighborhood can expect from the proposed rezoning, which was backed by Community Board 6 after a vote on June 23. “We’re talking about putting more people next to a canal that still has raw sewage flowing into it. What the hell is going on? Maybe it’s because I’m in France, but I feel like coming out with a pitchfork,” said an exasperated Katia Kelly, a member of the advisory group and Gowanus resident. The city asked the EPA in May to clarify some of the language contained in the administrative order, which the agency did on July 2. This will not delay the 2029 completion date set forth in the federal directive, Carr said. “I have every confidence that the tanks will be built.” He also assured the group that the administrative order was issued with the full backing of the EPA at all levels of the command chain, including the agency’s headquarters in Washington. However, Carr advised Gowanus residents to remain vigilant about future instances of noncompliance by the city in the context of the proposed rezoning—especially as related to potential violations of the Clean Water Act—and to voice their demands through avenues outside the community advisory group, such as by writing their local congressman or electing more responsive local leaders into office.
Julia, dear The EPA is currently reviewing the draft environmental impact statement the city released in April, Carr said, adding that the agency expects to use its authority under Superfund to seek clarifications from the DEP on how the rezoning might impact the canal’s remediation. Members of the advisory group repeatedly voiced their dissatisfaction with the accuracy of the impact statement, saying it contained “faulty data” and calling for DEP Commissioner Vincent Sapienza to appear before the group in the near future. “We can’t respond to a comment that the [environmental impact statement] is ‘faulty’ because there’s nothing for us to respond to in that context,” Julia Ehrman, who attended the virtual meeting on behalf of Council Member Brad Lander, explained to the group. Ehrman urged members of the advisory group to be specific in naming their qualms with the impact statement; she explained that some errors were to be expected in a document of its breadth and scope, but that the city had thus far been quick to rectify mistakes pointed out by Lander’s office. An emphatic response came from Linda LaViolette, a group member: “I spent a lot of time reading through the full 1,000 pages. There weren’t a few mistakes, dear, there were many, many mistakes. This level of inconsistency and faulty data is not acceptable.” Over the past weeks, some CAG mem-
bers have specifically taken issue with the DEP’s choice to use rainfall data from 2008 in its assessment of flood risks in the area. Carr acknowledged this concern and suggested residents ask the city to rework the impact statement with data from different rainfall years during the upcoming rezoning meetings. It’s important to speak up, Carr told the group, because the city is only legally bound to produce an environmental impact statement that merely considers the consequences of the proposed rezoning, but it is not obliged to produce an accurate assessment of its impact. “If you guys raise an issue and the city thinks about it but gets it wrong, the city still gets to say that they considered the issue even if they got it wrong.” Calls from residents for the EPA to take an active role in drafting a new version of the environmental impact statement also intensified during the meeting. Carr reiterated the role of the federal government would be to continue to ensure the integrity of the Superfund remedy by making sure the city builds the right infrastructure to contend with increased density in the area, but that it did not have the jurisdiction to further opine on the proposed rezoning. Plus, environmental impact statements of any kind, Carr explained, are typically carried out by a single level of government, in this case the city. That’s why no one thought to involve the EPA from the outset in the crafting of a local government document, he said.