Thursday, June 26, 2008

Our contaminated parks

Difficulty of Work Blamed for Delays Replacing Park Space Lost to Yankee Stadium

A parks department official was called before the City Council to explain why an effort to replace recreation space lost to construction of the new Yankee Stadium has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

Why?
1) The Parks Department is in charge of the project
2) The property they're replacing the current parks with is a toxic wasteland

City choosing to forget

The review acknowledged toxins exceeding state standards “were detected in soil samples from throughout the project area.”

Oil contamination was identified in dirt and groundwater.

National Park Service executive Jack Howard noted soil near the Harlem River had “petroleum-like odors.” With reason: The lot had hosted a Valvoline Oil facility and a power plant.


Then there's this from Brooklyn:

About a quarter of Thomas Greene playground has been fenced off so that National Grid can dig underneath the Parks Dept. facility and see how polluted it is. The playground sits on a site once occupied by the Fulton Manufactured Gas Plant.

Gowanus Playground Fenced Off for Pollutant Dig

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Parks Department in charge of project - YOU CAN STOP RIGHT THERE.

Our example in Forest Hills - 67th Ave and Austin Street - Sitting Area (One of Mayor Lindsy's Pocket Parks)

l999 - $150,000 for repair - consisted of one Gazebo (with holes in roof, couple more benches and tables and high maintenance trees which of course died.

2008 - $50,000 for replanting - park closed beginning of April - bushes uprooted, new dirt, some unknown ugly plants (already dying from lack of watering, garbage, lots of fast-growing weeds, AND RATS.

PARK STILL CLOSED - WONDER WHO THE CONTRACTOR IS RELATED TO - PROBABLY SITTING ON A BEACH IN RIO.

Anonymous said...

Parks Department: A funnel used to deliver tax dollars to favored friends and relatives.

Toxins? Who cares? Certainly not Commissar Death and Taxes. His Soviet beliefs dictate that the more "Little People" dead, the happier are he and his delicate "friends".

Anonymous said...

Sure do wish some people would get over the Cold War mentality (which was a farce to begin with) and get with today.