Monday, December 15, 2008

City gives Feds permission to dump all over Queens

The above comes from the updated U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Dredged Material Management Plan. Let me translate this for you in a nutshell. Harbors and shipping channels fill in with sand and organic material over time that have to be removed in order to make boat passage safe. Some of the material is clean and used beneficially to rebuild beaches and reefs, but the majority of it is contaminated with highly toxic chemicals that have accumulated over the past 2 centuries.

The A.C.E. used to simply dig this stuff out of one area, then dump it in the water somewhere else. But there were a lot of problems and people began to protest what was going on. It is now very difficult for them to do this as everyone is watching. So they look for other ways to recycle and dump this material. (NYS soil cleanup standards are less stringent than most states in the region.)

Remediating the "toxicity" at Willets Point in order to dump additional toxic materials there sounds like something the city, state and federal governments would work on together (Willets Point Headscratcher Series #3). The City has planned for certain businesses to get rich there and it's not the ones who currently own the land. Dumping this crap on Heritage Field, where neighborhood kids from the South Bronx are supposed to play after Yankee Stadium is torn down, and at Ridgewood Reservoir, a proposed nature sanctuary bordered by a not-so-wealthy Brooklyn town, are also logical places for contaminated garbage. Rockaway? Yes, please send some nasty stuff there, too, to replace the nasty stuff being taken out. Notice how all the dumping is being targeted for outer boroughs. Rest assured that the City has already agreed to this plan, otherwise ACE wouldn't have put it in the report.

Ask yourself why your elected officials aren't showing a bit of concern about this. We have 3 tweeders who are running for public advocate who should be all over this, not to mention the one who currently holds the office. Also ask yourself why you are reading this here first instead of in a daily newspaper.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

DUMP ALL DAT SHIT
ON SHULMAN'S FRONT LAWN!

Toby & Evan Stavisky's cribs
can certainly hold their share of crap (if not already full).

Wellington Chen's house in the in Little Neck also offers a useful dumping ground.

The crem-de-la-crap, of course is reserved for "hizzoner's" east side town house!

At least, that takes care of any alloted waste that might be earmarked for Willets Point.

Oops...we forgot some community board members that might be willing to accept any sludge as easily as they've accepted "favors" from various developers in the past.

H-m-m-m...
did We leave anyone else out?

Anonymous said...

Note the rallies for massive development of 'affordable housing' in flood prone areas of brownfields are attended by immigrants and children of immigrants.

They are giving these marginal toxic areas over to this population.

And not a peep out of immigrant advocacy groups. Indeed, financed by politicans, they seem to embrace these toxic areas are just the right ticket for their communities.

Anonymous said...

I was passing by Willets Point the other day and the Flushing River stench was overwhelming. I thought that the overflow tank was going to take care of that problem. Now that the old Airport Road (Linden Place extension) is being worked on, I now wonder where the material that is being used to raise the level of the road is coming from? Just another thing about the College Point Corporate Park to be concerned about. When do you think people will finally wake up to these environmental affronts?

Anonymous said...

dump it on pinsky

Anonymous said...

Where's the EPA investigation?

Anonymous said...

Where's the EPA investigation?

There busy ignoring superfund sites like the agent orange they turned a blind eye to 6 years ago dumped in southern U.S. states and the PCB pipes in the Hudson and East river.
One hand of the chemical companies scratches the other spineless politician.