EPA Issues 'Milestone' Gowanus Canal Cleanup Order

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — The sludge-filled, foul-smelling and pollution-laden Gowanus Canal's long overdue cleanup likely will kick off in September, officials said.

EPA officials on Tuesday ordered dredging to begin in the waterway — one of the most polluted in the country. They anticipate it will cost $125 million and take 30 months to clean the channel's upper third from Butler Street to Third Street.

The 31-page order also squarely laid responsibility for contaminating and ultimately cleaning up the canal on six, high-profile entities:

The City of New York, Con Edition, National Grid, Honeywell International, Hess Corp. and The Brooklyn Improvement Company.

“This order will ensure the remediation of a portion of the heavily-contaminated waterway, which is the centerpiece of a revitalized neighborhood,” said EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez in a statement.

Officials, who anticipate work will begin in September, touted the order as a "milestone" in a release.

Pollution has contaminated the canal since at least the 1860s, when it became a busy waterway lined with coal yards, soap makers, chemical plants and many other industrial sites, the order states.

"Because of decades of direct and indirect discharges of hazardous substances generated by
industrial and other activity, the Canal became a repository for untreated industrial wastes, raw
sewage, and runoff, causing it to become one of New York’s most polluted waterways," the order states.

Tests have found the canal and ground around it have high levels of PAHs, PCBs, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds such as benzene and pesticides, the order states.

Those contaminants pose risks to people's health and the ecosystem, according to the EPA, which designated the whole area as a Superfund Site.

The Gowanus area has been the target of revitalization efforts, but often those are hampered by the contamination. The developers of a planned arts center recently sued the city and MTA over pollution that so far has cost $20 million to clean up.

The EPA order covers one of three "remediation areas" along the canal. It requires the city and other responsible parties to fully dredge and cap the canal's upper portion, as well as restore the First Street turning basin which housed coal for a subway power house.

The city and other parties have seven days to respond whether they will comply with the order.