Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Businesses evicted from Superfund site


From DNA Info:

The auto parts company that Albert Rodriguez built up over the last 20 years on Irving Avenue will soon be gone — for his own good, according to federal regulators.

His garage, Primo Auto Parts and Services, and six other businesses sit on the radioactive remains of the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, a property stewed in carcinogenic toxins.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that all the tenants in this industrial corner of Queens must leave to allow the agency to remediate the site.

Business owners were caught by surprise by the announcement and left wondering what they're going to do next.

The agency has budgeted $1,112,500 to help move the tenants, according to the EPA's report on the remediation released Tuesday, but it has not given specifics on how the money will be spent or when the businesses will be evicted.

The business owners first got wind that they might have to move off the site permanently at a public meeting in August where the EPA presented four different plans, including one that would let them stay on site and another that would allow them to leave temporarily and return after remediation.

"I thought there was some chance we could stay," Rodriguez said in Spanish. He had left the meeting hopeful that he'd still be able to save his businesses.

The .75-acre site operated as a chemical company from the 1920s until 1954, according to the EPA. Wolff-Alport imported radioactive monazite sand from the Belgian Congo and used the factory to extract rare earth metals like uranium and thorium.

The EPA believes the toxins were dumped in the sewers and buried there.

13 comments:

Rob in Manhattan (and Astoria tonight). said...

"....and six other businesses sit on the radioactive remains of the Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, a property stewed in carcinogenic toxins."

"The EPA believes the toxins were dumped in the sewers and buried there."

There is the bullshit "great America" that jackass trump brays about --and it wasn't just two-bit operators who did this sort of thing, the 'big boys' like G.E. Dow, Raytheon, etc ALL essentially shit in their own backyards. All of these companies had specialists and scientists on staff -they knew what this stuff was, how poisonous and deadly it was...and they didn't give a damn.

All over this country (and others too) there are clusters of disease that we now know are directly attributable to toxins left behind when companies didn't care and didn't have to.

Capitalism only works with adult supervision.

This is what that shithead in the White House wants to "dismantle".

JQ LLC said...

So it's safer for upscale luxury towers and occupied by the Gowanus Canal and Newton Creek?

(sarc) said...

I am incredibly comforted and relieved to know that our all powerful and knowing government has banned those child killing "kindereggs"!!!

Anonymous said...

Rob in Manhattan (and Astoria tonight). said...
"Capitalism only works with adult supervision."

our Federal Register is over 80,000 pages long
that's not adult supervision, that's stupidity!

“If you destroy a free market you create a black market.”
“If you make ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” - Churchill

Communism Killed 94 Million in 20th Century
Communism only works when you KILL all dissenters
I'll take my chances with Capitalism!
Hey Rob, hope you don't end up in the Gulag
Just heard Venezuela is really booming
no money, no food, no medicine - why don't you vacation there
check out Marxism firsthand

Anonymous said...

>Capitalism only works with adult supervision.

Good line, I'm stealing it.

Sushi It's What's for Dinner said...


No, people killed 94 million.
Communism can not physically kill anything.
>>Communism Killed 94 Million in 20th Century


Anyhooo, those businesses were ugly. I'm glad they were pushed out.

Here is my list of what else needs to be pushed out:

1) McDonalds, Burger King, Popeye's, Wendy's and any other low class fast food restaurant
2) Dollar Stores
3) Truck parking lots
4) Check cash places
5) Scam Tax preparation places
6) Graveyards (just burn the body! WTF it take up less space)

JQ LLC said...

So it's safer for to build and rent upscale luxury towers by the Gowanus Canal and Newton Creek?

(sorry for the repost, I had to correct it.)

Anonymous said...

Leave it alone it great during summer NO MOSQUITO'S in a 2 block radius !
What ever was dumped isn't moving or harming humans, this is a scam to steal a large swath of property !!

Anonymous said...

This local new reporting isn't accurate and leaves out some important key lines

The feds say around page 38 they were to be **temporaryly booted** then come back when the soil is exchanged and the new whorehouses were to be re constructed for them. (approx 1 year 3 months)
Its the city is getting involved and pulling a fast one to steal !!

File from the official federal websight:
https://semspub.epa.gov/work/02/528285.pdf


Gary W said...

The Marxists are really coming out of the woodwork. Actual apologists for Communism on QC. SMH.

Anonymous said...

Come on Sushi, I really like Popeye's. Nice and greezy.

Simon said...

No hipster shit I like it greezy and old !!!

And I not need patronize some corporate crook dealership at gunpoint when I need a oil & filter change. Get my ass greazed & raped $150 for a $42 job yea?
Losing the great Willets Point shops has been bad enough, now the f_cking city is after every small private owned shop too ?
WTF is the tosser mayor attempting to do, jam everybody in like sardines the movie Blade Runner, kill off who he dont like and expect the rest to walk or fly over the mess to get anyplace ?

M. How said...

Who are they kidding? Anyone with half a brain can see that this is a land grab by the City -- exactly the same situation with Willets Point.

It took 20 years for this man to build a business and 10 minutes for the City to decide to protect his health. In a split second 20 years of hard work is now going down the tubes. It's only a matter of time before we see which developer is in the back pocket of which politician.

This is an outrage. They booted viable businesses from Willets Point and grandiously granted them space in the Bronx that they and we found out isn't even built yet. So how do these business people take care of their families and their employees?

Seems duh blazio and his cohorts don't give a flyin banana. All these politicians think about is their own survival, not those who pay their exhoribtant salaries and perks.

November is just around the corner and ALL of us better get out and vote these leeches out.

If you can, offer to take your neighbors to the polling places. WE MUST ACT BEFORE THERE IS NO TURNING BACK. Anyone is preferable to these vultures.

VOTE IN ANYONE BUT AN INCUMBENT. They have pushed the envelope to the max and have not met with any opposition. What will they do next? We must vote out these thieves or there will be worse to come.

Americans -- hardworking and responsible and taxpaying -- don't deserve this miserable bunch of miscreants. PLEASE. GET OUT AND VOTE THEM OUT.