Newtown Creek Update At Local Brewery Wednesday

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — There was a state of the union, up next, a state of the creek.

Brooklyn residents will gather at the Kings County Brewers Collective at 381 Troutman St. Wednesday evening around 6 p.m. to discuss Newton Creek, the toxic canal that separates their borough from Queens.

The 3.8-mile waterway, the site of one of the largest oil spills in U.S. history, has been undergoing a series of clean-ups since 2010 when it was first named one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund sites.

But the creek continues to be a dumping ground for bottle caps, styrofoam, plastic bags, dolphins, cars and bodies.

The Newtown Creek Alliance, a local grassroots organization, will gather residents from Greenpoint, Bushwick, Ridgewood and Maspeth on Wednesday to discuss clean-up progress and organize future projects.

One such clean-up initiative comes from brothers Gary and Sam Bencheghib, who patrol the creek on their stand-up paddles to document conditions.

Those who chose to attend the meeting Wednesday night will not be asked to stand-up paddle along the Newton Creek.

Header photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Sept. 2017