Monday, November 10, 2008

WPIRA responds to toxicity claim

The WPIRA today responded to today's Daily News article: "'Toxic' results at Willets Point aid Mayor Bloomberg's plan."

These statements are inconsistent with what Mr. McCarty told the City Council at their hearing on October 17, and with what the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement said. Both Mr. McCarty and the FGEIS indicated that not enough testing has been performed to know what levels of contamination are present. If new testing has been performed since the hearing, its results should be made publicly available.

"Every industrial area in New York City, and many non-industrial areas, are likely to have the presence of various chemicals. What's important is not mere presence. A few molecules will not do any harm," said Michael Gerrard, WPIRA attorney. "Rather, it is the quantities and concentrations that must be known in order to determine whether there is a real problem. The Willets Point area does not appear on the State Superfund, State Brownfields, or Federal Superfund lists – the official governmental lists of highly contaminated sites. And if the area were heavily contaminated, the City would not want to take title to it or be responsible for the possibly liability associated with such "toxic" land."

AND THIS JUST IN from reporter Stephen Stirling:

"No Feinstein deal as of now. Some complications have arisen in the final negotiations. Several sources have told me that the deal isn’t dead, but not finalized either. More tomorrow."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It doesnt appear on any official brownfield lists because the land owners will not allow testing on their land.

So the City finally gets on someone's land to do testing and the truth comes out.

Read the note. THe levels are 500 times acceptable levels. That is outrageous.

If you think that is OK to be around then why dont you open your office in WP and send your kids there for summer jobs? you wont because you are a paid hack lawyer.

Anonymous said...

why don't we stick your face in it mr edc

Anonymous said...

why hasn't it been released to the public? remember when the city said their last test show high levels of everything only to be caught in another lie . its another dog & pony show spun by the edc & the mayor himself who is the spinmaster

Anonymous said...

Productive comment Mr. Anonymous #2.


Gerrard and the WPIRA can dismiss the evidence all they like. They are the ones sticking their heads in the toxic sands over the problem they have created.

The city is the ONLY entity that can take title to this land and clean it up properly to rectify 50 years of environmental abuse in the iron triangle.

Queens Crapper said...

If there was widespread contamination of the water table, why wasn't it detected in the samples from the streets?

Anonymous said...

Yeah seriously, the water flows underground...or does
McCarty not understand that?

Anonymous said...

well we know that in bloomberg kool aid land, there is no such thing as widespread contamination in streets.