Cuomo the fisherman allows dumping in Jamaica Bay

Yes, folks instedda workin, Gov Cuomo decided to veto legislation that would have protected Jamaica Bay from dumping because...drumroll...he wants DEC to be able to dump in it.

Last year, State Senator Joe Addabbo and Assembly Member Stacy Pheffer-Amato passed legislation to extend sunsetting environmental protections in place for the Bay:

In his veto statement, Cuomo said the legislation would change the criteria for fill Jamaica Bay borrow pits to comply with the federal criteria for the unrestricted ocean dumping of dredged material, which is not applicable to Jamaica Bay.

Under this bill, the Department of Conservation would be required to utilize more restrictive, and costly federal ocean dumping criteria to test the materials instead of DEC’s existing standard, and further, the legislation would make this enhanced standard permanent, Cuomo continued.

“The increased costs and time associated with the bill’s required fill standards will impact the availability of applicants with high-quality material for use as fill, which is critical for the restoration of these pits. This bill would make the procurement of this material, and in turn, the achievement of revitalization goals for Jamaica Bay extremely challenging, if not halt restoration altogether.”

Translation: We have to further contaminate the Bay in order to save it.

The bill was reintroduced and passed again, but the outcome was the same.

GOVERNOR CUOMO VETOES JAMAICA BAY PROTECTION BILL ! Looks like Governor Cuomo has vetoed the Jamaica Bay Protection...

Posted by Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers on Friday, November 27, 2020

This session, if the bill is passed again, it will likely survive Andrew "follow the science" Cuomo as there is now a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

Ridgewood junkyard proposed as site of Queens ACC

A bulletin from the DEC revealed that 151 Woodward Ave, near Flushing Ave in Ridgewood, is proposed as the site for a full service animal shelter for the borough of Queens. All other boroughs either have a full service shelter or are in the process of building one. Queens was the last one to be addressed. There is a plan to site an intake center at the corner of 69th Street and Metropolitan Ave in Middle Village in the meantime, to replace the Rego Park drop off center.

Details about the cleanup are here.

There are several ways to comment on BCP applications. Comments can be submitted to the site Project Manager Sarah Quandt at NYSDEC, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-7016; via email at [email protected] or by calling 518-402-9768. All comments must be submitted by March 1, 2019.

Middle Village basements fill up with crap after heavy rain

From the NY Post:

Residents in Middle Village are up to their knees in their own waste any time there’s heavy rain — thanks to aging sewer lines the city hasn’t fixed despite a decade of promises, The Post has learned.

“I pray when I hear storms coming,” said Pat Donovan, 66, one of many local residents affected by the overflowing sewers.

Last Tuesday, a powerful storm pounded the central Queens community, causing the sewers to back up and leaving homeowners with as much as 3 feet of waste in their basements, with “actual turds” floating in the noxious waters, residents and a local official said.

“We had a waterfall just coming out of the toilet in my basement,” said Louisa Gennari, 61, who called dealing with the floods a “horrific” battle.

“Somebody came in to help us at some point and he went home and put his feet in alcohol,” she said. “It was disgusting.”

The problem goes back decades, but came to light on Aug. 8, 2007, when a flash flood left Middle Village residents with tens of thousands of dollars in damage, with many needing help from FEMA.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said the existing storm drains can handle only 1.5 inches of rain — and after that storm, it vowed to fix the issue with drains that can handle 1.75 inches.

It slapped a $22 million price tag on the project, but waited nine more years to break ground in May 2016. It was then halted in November 2017 when contaminated soil was discovered.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction said an additional $8 million was needed to finish the job, but those funds were never allocated.

Bowne Park ain't what it used to be

Ah, a lovely stroll through one of Queens' premier parks on Sunday afternoon. But there's literally trouble in the air and water.

So the pond is contaminated and you should avoid exposure to it, yet the mist from the fountain was hitting yours truly in the face for a good 1/4 of the looped path around the body of water.

Dead turtles were seen floating on the surface.

This guy was still alive and kicking but with the shape that water's in, it might not be for long.

This cool stand of trees caught my eye but the grass is in serious need of cutting. The lawn is unkempt.

The pond walls have issues as well.

Hopefully these little guys sprout wing feathers soon and get the hell out of this mess!

Water towers are kind of gross

From City and State:

Despite years of reforms, new data reveal widespread neglect in the thousands of weathered wooden water tanks that supply drinking water to millions of New York City residents. A review of city records indicates that most building owners still do not inspect and clean their tanks as the law has required for years, even after revisions to the health and administrative codes that now mandate annual filings.

There are still many thousands of water tanks across the city for which there is no information at all. The city can’t even say with certainty how many there are or where they are located, much less their condition – even well-maintained water tanks accumulate layers of muck and bacterial slime.

Building owners who do self-report the condition of their water tanks provide suspiciously spotless descriptions on annual inspection reports. These reports include bacteriological test results, but in almost every case the tests are conducted only after the tanks have been disinfected, making it a meaningless metric for determining the typical quality of a building’s drinking water. And regulators have issued dramatically fewer violations in recent years.

The data show that the city reported drinking water tanks on municipal buildings, including the city sanitation offices and several court buildings, tested positive for E. coli, a marker used by public health experts to predict the presence of potentially dangerous viruses and bacteria. Oversight remains lax: It took health officials more than a year to investigate several isolated reports of E. coli in drinking water tanks. After inquiries from City & State, however, officials now say that their own reports were erroneous.

But scientists at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and public health experts consulted by City & State warned that animals can easily get into New York City’s water tanks, that mucky sediments inside the tanks may contain pathogens and that poorly maintained water tanks could be the source of disease outbreaks.

Why it's important to research history

From the NY Times:

since 2015, most of the Red Hook fields have been closed because of lead contamination in the soil. A $107 million cleanup by the New York City parks department has been delayed, leaving residents, coaches and parents anxious and confused.

“We need our fields back,” Mr. Bazemore said. “But safe.”

Problems started in 2012 when the parks department and the city’s health department learned of a dissertation by an environmental scientist who identified close to 500 lead-smelting sites around the country. One of the smelters once stood in Red Hook, right across the street from the housing projects and right on top of some of the playing fields.

In the late 1920s and ’30s, Columbia Smelting and Refining Works operated on the corner of Hicks and Lorraine Streets, leaving lead in the soil that would eventually become Fields 5, 6, 7 and 8 — the same fields that Mr. Bazemore and generations of children once played on. The parks department and the health department tested the soil in 2012, finding lead levels four times the safe limit on the surface and nearly 10 times the limit further underground. They quickly closed them. A concrete pad to guard against the lead was laid down. The fields and grass were hydroseeded.

In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency did further testing in the surrounding fields and found more elevated lead levels, causing Parks to close the fields for a four-phase cleanup that has yet to begin.

Work was set to start this spring on Fields 5 through 8 — the worst of the bunch and closest to the housing projects — but has now been pushed back a year because of delays in the construction bidding process. A contractor is now being approved and work should be completed by fall 2020, when a 12-inch buffer of clean fill will be topped by a drainage layer and then synthetic turf.

Just think what we could avoid if the city consulted historians once in a while. Or at least looked at old maps...

Contractor dumped lead contaminated soil near Middle Village school

Photo by Christopher Barca/Queens Chronicle

From the Queens Chronicle:

A $22 million sewer main project in Middle Village that was nearing completion suddenly stalled in December, and no one in the community knew exactly why.

There was some talk among area leaders that workers were transferred to another job site or that they had various problems digging into the ground.

But on Tuesday, Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) said the real reason for the project’s halting was much scarier.

“The Department of Design and Construction sent four representatives to my office on Friday and they told me the project stopped because of contaminants in the soil,” Holden said. “I asked one gentleman what were the contaminents in the soil.

“He said high levels of lead.”

As if that wasn’t a big enough issue, the lawmaker said that problematic soil that had been excavated during the Penelope Avenue sewer work is sitting in a yard leased by CAC Industries — the project contractor — across the street from PS/IS 128, a K-8 school in Middle Village.

The massive mounds of dirt had been sitting uncovered at the site, possibly for months, as a tarp wasn’t placed over them until this week.

And at both a press conference and Community Education Council District 24’s monthly meeting on Tuesday, Holden said the person who spoke about the high lead levels — a senior DDC project manager based in the immediate area — was contradicted by his colleagues over how dangerous the soil was and if it was covered.

The lawmaker added he visited the site last Friday and noticed the massive mound of soil was uncovered. But on Monday, he claimed, DDC Acting Commissioner Ana Barrio falsely told him it had been covered the entire time and that the agency project manager “misspoke” regarding lead levels.

Waterpointe worked out?

From the Times Ledger:

After the Whitestone community raised concerns about soil contamination, elected officials and local leaders met with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and developers of the Whitestone Waterpointe project to discuss the future of the venture moving forward.

Last week, state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), Assemblyman Daniel Rosenthal (D-Flushing) and members of Community Board 7 and the Greater Whitestone Taxpayers Civic Association, were able to talk to DEC and developers from the Edgestone Group about key issues facing the 18-acre waterfront property, located at 151st Place and 6th Road.

Avella wrote a letter to DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos requesting a meeting with the commissioner to find out why DEC permitted Edgestone Group to modify the soil cover requirement from Track 2 Residential to Track 4 Restricted-Residential and why DEC allowed the change without first discussing it with elected officials, CB 7 or community members.

Last week’s meeting allowed for a dialogue and Avella said that while there are still a few items that remain to be concluded, he and Rosenthal were able to talk the developer into agreeing to bring in additional “unrestricted” or “virgin” soil so that homeowners will be able to grow vegetables in their garden. Avella said they were also able to have the developers agree that all monies placed in escrow to maintain the environmental monitoring system, which will require a yearly report, will remain with the homeowners association at the end of the original ten-year escrow agreement term.

For now Avella and Rosenthal said they will urge the developer to increase the monies to be held in escrow to ensure that the new homeowners will not be burdened by the expense of the environmental monitoring system. While the senator said he was pleased that the developer agreed to put in unrestricted soil, he is convinced that the current dollar amount planned for the escrow account is inadequate and will prove to be too little over time.

Public advocate offers to help file Whitepointe lawsuit

From the Queens Chronicle:

Whitestone residents upset with the controversial Waterpointe brownfield cleanup may have an influential new ally.

Public Advocate Letitia James said she would help in the potential launch of litigation over the situation at the We Love Whitestone Civic Association's meeting on Wednesday night.

"I'm prepared to seek and try to find a law firm that will represent you in your interests," she said. "This is totally unacceptable."

The Edgestone Group, which conducted the cleanup, plans on building 52 single-family homes at the property. The firm could not be reached for comment.

Many in the community are upset with the Department of Environmental Conversation over the project, because the agency agreed to let Edgestone pursue a different cleanup method than first planned. Rather than the Track 2 residential cleanup that was originally planned, the developer conducted a Track 4 unrestricted residential one, which is less stringent in terms of the chemicals allowed at the site.

The DEC issued a certificate of completion for the cleanup last month.

Waterpointe is being watched

From the Times Ledger:

DEC released a letter in September entitled “Explanation of Significant Differences” explaining why changes to the soil fill had been allowed in the remediation plan. Cervino said the switch from Track 2 residential soil to Track 4 commercial soil will negatively affect future owners in this development. He pointed out that in order to build a house a chemical citeria must be met that guarantees a safe toxicity level for children to play in the yard and for plants to grow there.

According to Cervino, when the board asked for data about the soil, it was estimated that at least 40,000 tons of soil was recontaminated after the site was cleaned up around 2010. Cervino is asking for proof that the 40,000 tons of soil was cleaned up since then because the board was never given data to prove that it was.

“Now we hear that there was this agreement that this property was recontaminated and now they’re going with commercial standard,” he said. “It is now eligible for Track 4, which means the Brownfield cleanup and consent order was not adhered to. I want to know why they were given lax restriction to original agreement.”

Cervino speculated that most of it was left on site. He thinks DEC only cleaned some of the soil out.

CB7 Chairman Gene Kelty said it is out of the board’s hands and can only be handled at the state level. DEC will be voting in two weeks for a certificate of completion. CB 7 said it wants to stall development from moving forward until the board gets clear answers on why the track was changed and the levels of contamination of the soil. CB7 agreed to write a letter to DEC asking state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), state Assemblyman Edward Braunstein (D-Bayside) and Assemblyman David Rosenthal (D-Flushing) to hold a hearing.

CB7 had something to talk about last night

Public comment from Paul Graziano RE: Waterpointe / Bayrock / Former Grace Property at Community Board 7 Meeting, Monday, December 18th, 2017

Over a decade ago, a carefully crafted agreement was made between the previous owner, government and the community pertaining to the property formerly known as Bayrock/Waterpointe on the Whitestone waterfront.

This agreement, which was negotiated with former Councilmember now-State Senator Tony Avella; Community Board 7; and local residents and civic associations called for 52 single-family detached houses and a waterfront park on what was then a lightly contaminated site. I was personally involved in reviewing the initial proposal, subsequent changes and final submission as an urban planning consultant to then Councilmember Avella.

The site was initially cleaned up correctly. It was then sold and purposefully contaminated with heavily polluted debris, creating the need for a DEC consent order demanding the correct clean-up of the site to proceed with development.

While this was happening, the current owners started to pitch that they wanted/needed to build a much denser development than what was agreed to. There is no question that this is a non-starter with the community, the Community Board and Senator Avella.

However, with the site having been purposely contaminated *again* the idea that the developers are seeking anything less than a full clean up of their property is difficult to believe. It is even more unbelievable that the NY State DEC and other regulatory agencies are considering going against their own regulations which do not allow a Level IV cleanup to occur when the development plans are for single-family detached homes under multiple ownership.

This project must not be allowed to proceed without the full Level I cleanup that is necessary for public safety, not to mention future homeowners who may purchase houses on this site. Anything less than this is clearly irresponsible and should be immediately challenged by the public.

Paul Graziano, Principal
Associated Cultural Resource Consultants

Waterpointe doesn't allow single-family homes

From the Queens Tribune:

Whitestone resident Robert LoScalzo believes that despite the correction made in the September fact sheet, it’s impossible for the DEC to allow single-family homes on a Track 4 site, per the Department of State’s regulations. In a letter to the DEC, he cites one regulation that “the restricted residential use” denoted by Track 4 “shall at a minimum, include restrictions which prohibit…single family housing.”

“It’s right there in black and white,” LoScalzo said. “It just doesn’t seem to wash with what the regulation says.”

The DEC said that the certificate of completion for the remediation should be issued this year. Additionally, the agency is “establishing an escrow agreement with the developer to fund site management activities at this site for a period of 10 years in the amount of $272,000.” In the meantime, Sweeney said that the board has reached out to Councilman Paul Vallone (D-Bayside) seeking the only thing that will guarantee single-family homes at Waterpointe: a rezoning.

Businesses evicted from Superfund site

From DNA Info:

The auto parts company that Albert Rodriguez built up over the last 20 years on Irving Avenue will soon be gone — for his own good, according to federal regulators.

His garage, Primo Auto Parts and Services, and six other businesses sit on the radioactive remains of the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, a property stewed in carcinogenic toxins.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that all the tenants in this industrial corner of Queens must leave to allow the agency to remediate the site.

Business owners were caught by surprise by the announcement and left wondering what they're going to do next.

The agency has budgeted $1,112,500 to help move the tenants, according to the EPA's report on the remediation released Tuesday, but it has not given specifics on how the money will be spent or when the businesses will be evicted.

The business owners first got wind that they might have to move off the site permanently at a public meeting in August where the EPA presented four different plans, including one that would let them stay on site and another that would allow them to leave temporarily and return after remediation.

"I thought there was some chance we could stay," Rodriguez said in Spanish. He had left the meeting hopeful that he'd still be able to save his businesses.

The .75-acre site operated as a chemical company from the 1920s until 1954, according to the EPA. Wolff-Alport imported radioactive monazite sand from the Belgian Congo and used the factory to extract rare earth metals like uranium and thorium.

The EPA believes the toxins were dumped in the sewers and buried there.

DEC wants less extensive remediation at Edgestone site

From the Queens Chronicle:

When the Department of Environmental Conservation notified Community Board 7 that single-family homes could not be built at the Waterpointe development on Whitestone’s waterfront, it didn’t go unnoticed.

The Edgestone Group, which is planning to build 52 single-family homes at the site, is participating in the DEC’s brownfield cleanup program. The agency had said on Sept. 20 that fill used to replace contaminated soil at the site was not of the quality required by the type of cleanup being pursued there, which is called Track 2 residential cleanup.

So, a DEC Fact Sheet went on, “it is appropriate that the remedy be modified to a ‘Track 4’ restricted residential cleanup.” Which, the agency continued, applies only to “multi-family residential housing with restrictions that prohibit housing without a common controlling entity responsible for maintaining the [institutional and engineering controls].”

Not exactly music to the ears of a community board that has been adamant about the Waterpointe development being single-family homes.

CB 7 First Vice Chairman Chuck Apelian and board member Joe Sweeney were alarmed when they saw the message from DEC.

“We got this notice — Chuck saw it, I saw it and I said ‘This is impossible, because that’s not what we negotiated,’” Sweeney said at the board’s meeting on Monday. “We negotiated those 52 homes.”

He called the DEC. And ultimately, the agency agreed to allow the single-family house plan, though the restricted residential Track 4 will still be used.

Sweeney told the Chronicle that the DEC informed him the fill described in its fact sheet that resulted in the track change had been placed there by Edgestone.

The 4th land grab: LIC

From the Newtown Pentacle:

The fourth land grab in Queens is underway, as you read this.

All of this development has avoided upgrading the municipal infrastructure which the new population would require – cops, fire department, sewerage, hospitals, schools. If you’re walking through one of the glorious new waterfront parks in Hunters Point, and you suddenly grab at your chest, where the FDNY ambulance will take you is either Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, the Mount Sinai hospital on Crescent street in Astoria, or out to Elmhurst hospital. FDNY’s fire fighting apparatus in western Queens was designed for industrial fires, and the 108th precinct is housed in a tiny 19th century building which still has horse stables. The sewer plant servicing this gargantuan residential population was opened by Fiorella LaGuardia in 1936. Our transit needs far outweigh current capability. There are not enough school desks. Don’t get me started on the environmental legacy of all that industry which used to be here. The buildings being erected in the photos in today’s posts are on the site of a former chemical factory in Queens Plaza, for instance.

Simply put, “gentrification” is nothing new in Western Queens and it’s been going on since at least the Civil War. The “G bomb” has already been dropped, and it has gone off. A looming infrastructure crisis is just beginning.

How NYC protects the environment

From Brooklyn Daily:

The state has approved a permit for the city to pour up to 7.2 million gallons of contaminated groundwater into Coney Island Creek every day for up to two years while the city upgrades sewer and water mains in Coney’s west end.

The permit allows the city to overlook nearly a dozen heavy metals found in the water because only small amounts were discovered in the creek, and state officials say locals have nothing to fear because Coney creek flows into Gravesend Bay, which will dilute the pollutants. But with millions of gallons gushing into the inlet each day for years, experts and locals fear that the contaminates could amass to dangerous levels, and aren’t buying the state’s argument that being connected to a large body of water will mitigate the risks.

The project being run by the Economic Development Corporation will upgrade aging water mains and storm and sanitary sewers in an area bounded by W. 17th and W. 22nd streets from Neptune Avenue to the Boardwalk. Shovels are expected to hit the ground this summer and the project will last for roughly two years — with an embargo on Surf Avenue construction from May 15 to Sept. 15 so as not to clash with the swell of beach-goers, according to city records.

But to keep the construction site dry, the city applied for a State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to “dewater” contaminated groundwater from several sites by pumping it into Coney Island Creek — where people swim, students routinely wade for city-run education programs, and some congregations use the waters for religious rites such as baptisms.

Poop continues to flow into Bergen Basin

This has been going on for quite some time now.

This alert can be found here.

New plan for old Parkway Hospital

From DNA Info:

Developer Jasper Venture Group LLC, in partnership with Auberge Grand Central LLC, purchased the hospital's mortgages for about $6.5 million in 2012 and two years later snatched up the site with a $1 million bid during a foreclosure auction, according to published reports. Now developers plan to renovate it into affordable housing for seniors.

Builders plan to gut the original six-story hospital building, which features two basement levels, and turn it into 70 apartments for seniors, according to Michael Cohen, a spokesman for Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz. The company would also build an additional three floors atop the building to include 27 market-rate units.

The owners are also planning a 12-story tower in the parking area between the former hospital and the Grand Central Parkway that would feature 200 market-rate apartments, Cohen said.

According to DEC, the soil has "low concentrations (ppb) [parts per billion] of petroleum compounds in groundwater on the site."

"DEC is planning to request that the applicant gather more data to determine if remediation is necessary to protect the public and the environment," Kevin Frazier, a spokesman for DEC said in an email Monday.

The application, according to DEC, is currently “undergoing a 30 day public comment period.”

Comments are closed December 30. Info is here, site code is C241193

College Point concerned about pipe placement

From the Queens Tribune:

Nearly 100 College Point residents gathered in MacNeil Park on Saturday to protest the Department of Environmental Protection’s plan to build a stormwater outfall pipe in what environmentalists have said is a sensitive area.

The area in question contains wetlands that a local environmental organization called the Coastal Preservation Network (CPN), which called for the protests, has been working on restoring for nearly a decade. Over the years, CPN has orchestrated volunteer clean-ups of the waterfront area, planted sea grasses and installed oyster reefs to help the area thrive.

The pipe is part of a $132 million infrastructure project, funded by DEP and being constructed by the Department of Design and Construction. The stated goal of the project is to reduce sewer drainage into Flushing Bay and the Upper East River. Currently, three combined sewer outfalls overflow into Flushing Bay during heavy storms, flooding the area with untreated sewage mixed with rainwater.

The new outfall will be in a different section of the park, and will contain only stormwater—no sewage.

“DEP is investing more than $130 million to permanently end the annual discharge of nearly 50 million gallons of pollution into the waters surrounding College Point,” said DEP in a statement. “Contrary to the claims, it is quite clear that this work will significantly improve water quality and the health of nearby wetlands and oysters.”

Kathryn Cervino of the Coastal Preservation Network, the organization that organized the “Day of Outrage,” said that the efforts are an improvement for the overall health of Flushing Bay and the Upper East River. However, Cervino argued, by moving the location of the outfall, it could now overflow into the wetlands. And while the new overflow is ostensibly just stormwater, Cervino explained that during heavy storms, stormwater often picks up contaminants from the streets, like asphalt debris, road salt, deicing chemicals and oil from vehicles.

“It still has a lot of drawbacks for the wetlands,” she said. “We just want there to be some safeguards so that all our work hasn’t been in vain.”

Queens Blvd site requires remediation

From the Queens Chronicle:

A 12-story, mixed-use development is planned for Queens Boulevard across from Borough Hall, but a ton of remedial work must be done before a single drop of concrete can be poured.

The site of a former dry cleaning business that closed last year, 124-22 Queens Blvd. in Kew Gardens will be subjected to intensive environmental remediation after a state study of the location found elevated levels of contaminants in the soil.

According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, levels of tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene — industrial-strength chemicals often used as cleaning agents — up to 82 parts per million were discovered, over four times the permissible limit of 19 parts per million.