Thursday, September 10, 2009

Converting landfills to parks in Brooklyn

From the NY Times:

In a $200 million project, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection covered the Fountain Avenue Landfill and the neighboring Pennsylvania Avenue Landfill with a layer of plastic, then put down clean soil and planted 33,000 trees and shrubs at the two sites. The result is 400 acres of nature preserve, restoring native habitats that disappeared from New York City long ago.

The site is not yet open to the public. Indeed, it is still listed by the state as a toxic waste site. But the air is clear and fresh.

A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said the Fountain Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue Landfills, currently listed as a “significant threat to the public health or environment,” could be reclassified by next spring as safe for public access, requiring only continued monitoring of their conditions.


So Bloomberg is taking a contaminated site and converting it into a passive use park and natural area, but then he is taking an ready-made natural area at the Ridgewood Reservoir and turning it into ballfields. Logic: lacking in the mind of the mayor.

3 comments:

Taxpayer said...

Regarding the backward idiocy of converting a toxic site to a nature preserve, while simultaneously destroying a nature preserve to convert it to athletic fields (while leaving athletic fields across the road withering in deliberate neglect): FOLLOW THE MONEY.

Both projects involve big money.

Big money - when near the Commissar - involves kickbacks. Big kickbacks.

The actual project is of no importance at all.

The tax dollars being spent is what counts.

Why would we ever give this Commissar even one more second? Why would we ever consider four illegal years?

Why would we ever allow this Commissar any additional power over our lives?

Dump the crooked Commissar!

Vote for an honest, intelligent man as mayor.

Vote for Tony Avella!

Snake Plissskin said...

Newtown Creek, Greenpoint/Williamsburg and the LIC waterfront contain perhaps the most toxic soils in NYC.

If anyone develops serious ailments after moving onto those sites, I hope they sue Bloomberg, the city agencies, the community board members, the local polticans, the local newspapers, and the developers for promoting a real estate land grab over the needs of public health.

Anonymous said...

I've always felt that the places Snake mentioned should never be used as residential dwellings. That should be a passive park too and thoroughly fenced off from the neighborhood.