Councilman Peter Koo and Commissioner Emily Lloyd of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) met deep underground on Tuesday to tour the Flushing Bay Retention Facility, which serves as a storage area for raw sewage and is meant to keep the sewage from entering Flushing Creek, but can only hold so much. The small body of water receives more human waste per year than any other dumping site, according to city records, leading Koo to call the creek “shit’s creek.”
“Cleaning up this waterway has long been a top environmental priority of mine,” Koo said. “There is a popular phrase used by many when trying to explain they are in a bad situation: being up shit’s creek without a paddle. With the amount of raw sewage that still enters it, the phrase might as well be changed to, up Flushing Creek without a paddle.”
With Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement that calls for residential development along the Flushing waterfront, Koo and advocacy groups like Friends of Flushing Creek are hoping the spotlight will help spur the city and state to take action and reduce the amount of sewage going into the creek.
“Now that the city has officially announced they are looking to develop the land along the waterfront, this is a great opportunity to shine a brighter light on this longstanding problem,” Koo said. “I will continue my work with DEP, the Friends of Flushing Creek, and every stakeholder in the community so that we can ultimately see the day where people can safely swim in these waters again.”
“Do you know how much human waste that is?” said Alex Rosa, a consultant for Friends of Flushing Creek, which is advocating for the city and state to reduce the amount of filth going into the Flushing bodies of water. “I’ve never calculated how many people you need to make that much waste. But I’m sure it’s a whole lot.”
No, you just need Claire Shulman! And what's with Koo saying the word "shit"? This is conduct unbecoming a council member, no?
12 comments:
So, let me get this straight. The city's gonna spend a shitload of taxpayer dollars to clean up Flushing River so they can build god knows how many additional housing units that will create even more shit!!??!!??! Genius!!!
I drive past that waterfront on my way to work it always smells like shit. They want to develop that land?? Not all waterfront is meant to be lived on.
Can we have any space for trees and oxygen?
I thought we're trying not to build in flood planes.
"And what's with Koo saying the word "shit"?"
Asian people, and many others for whom English is not their first language often come out with words that would be considered un-polite to us.
Over in Thailand, you will sometimes hear that word pop-up along with other epithets used in movies and interviews.
It is just cultural. It doesn't mean much to them.
Just like calling someone a 'bloody fool" might well get you in a fight in the UK. Over here is will get you laughed at.
any names for the area once the buildings are up?
how about "Feces Meadows"
does mr. koo kiss his mom with that vulgar mouth?or his dog?
Rosa was Shulman's chief of staff. From Times Ledger: "The group, Friends of Flushing Creek, is composed of a number of developers and businesses, some of which own land adjacent to the creek.."
Link:
http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2014/24/flushingcreek_tl_2014_06_13_q.html
Crap isn't all that does into the sewer system in downtown Flooshing. What about the cooking grease and oils??? That won't clog up the system, will it???
The plan is just Koo Koo!!!
It took years to dirty that place up by third worlders and now it'll take many years for it to get cleaned. Flushing is a cesspool.
I just want to point out that "Fucking Fresh Lemonade" is a thing in Japan.
hey Pete, if we clean it up, can we get a guarantee from your people that they wont shit and piss in it???
Great I would say clean it up make it a nice recreational waterfront. We all know that is not in the plans the plan is to cement over everything and just have clean water to look at. It takes development to do the right thing, very sad. But the right thing would be to clean up the water and have some greenery but that just wouldn't match with the rest of downtown Flushing were everything is being paved over with out a tree in sight. Many of Queens neighborhoods are in general is in a sad state.
I believe during my years of residence in Queens the river has been dredged at least twice. Was not that overpriced sewage retention tank supposed to remove the stink years ago? I guess that was a con job that awarded a lot of lucrative contracts to connected polls...eh Councilman Pete?
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