Dutch Kills bulkhead erosion gets noticed by electeds

 

 Queens Chronicle 

Over the past few months, observers have noticed large portions of a structural wall along the shoreline of the Dutch Kills tributary on 29th Street have collapsed into the waterway.

As the shoreline has crumbled, it has dumped debris into the water and threatens to further cave in and affect the stability of the roadway next to it.

Last week, the Newton Creek Alliance and elected officials sent a letter to the city Department of Transportation, state Department of Environmental Conservation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the plot of land, urging them to address the unsafe conditions that the deterioration poses to the road and surrounding areas.

“In addition to our now greatly elevated concerns over public safety regarding a potential street-collapse, there is also concern about liability, and the process for rebuilding this shoreline,” reads a section of the letter, signed by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn), Councilmember Julie Won (D-Sunnyside), state Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria) and Assemblymember Cathy Nolan (D-Long Island City).

In response to the dangers posed by erosion, the alliance is asking the city and state go beyond merely mitigating a public threat to creating an environmental benefit. The letter calls on the agencies to rebuild the shoreline in a way that would restore the ecosystem, add public access to the water and remove the two abandoned barges from the tributary.

Though the agencies could not be reached for a response prior to initial publication, the MTA and the DOT said in subsequent statements that they are on board.

MTA Spokesperson Eugene Resnick:

“The MTA appreciates the concerns of the Newtown Creek Alliance and is collaborating with State and City partners to determine the best course of action for protecting the integrity of the bulkhead,” said MTA Spokesman Eugene Resnick.

A DOT spokesman also said his agency is ready.

"The DOT will work in collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Department of Environmental Conservation to develop strategies to limit overweight vehicular access to the street, as well as the area immediately adjacent to the bulkhead," he said.

The most recent cave-in, which took place at the end of January, the alliance says, is actually the third on the shoreline in recent years. Each has ended up dumping tires, concrete blocks and fill into the creek.

What to do with abandoned gas plant site?

From the Forum:

Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Rockaway Beach) this week presented recently appointed National Grid President and Executive Director Dan Seavers with a community-drafted proposal for repurposing a manufactured gas plant (MGP) in Rockaway Park.

Prior to its descent as a derelict area in the community landscape, the Rockaway Park MGP, in operation from the 1880s to the mid-1950s, served as a successful gas production site and storage facility governed by the Long Island Lighting Company. The site subsequently went through a series of changes in ownership and in 1998 was transferred to KeySpan, a New York City-based natural gas distributor. Shortly after the site’s acquisition, it was named a DEC State Superfund Site and was added to the State’s Registry of Inactive Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites, designated as class 2 , meaning that it is considered a substantial threat to public health and/or the environment and requires remedial action to dispose of toxic waste and polluted substrate.

In 2008, National Grid assumed cleanup efforts when it purchased KeySpan, and has been working to restore the integrity of the plant site since. However, due to deteriorating bulkheads at Beach 108th Street, these efforts were suspended indefinitely. Now, with the repairs on the Jamaica Bay bulkheads nearly finished, the last phase of cleanup up at the MGP site is set to begin.

In anticipation of the site’s decontamination, Assemblyman Goldfeder conducted an online community survey last year inquiring from residents what they thought the fate of the MGP should be. Survey participants were eager to share opinions and sent in hundreds of ideas ranging from commercial development to cultural centers, which Goldfeder presented to National Grid.

City jacking up streets of Broad Channel

From the NY Times:

“We do not care about budgets; we are taxpaying people,” said John Heaphy, 69, a lifelong resident of the area, Broad Channel, Queens, which is built on a marsh that juts into the bay. “From the lowest politician to the governor’s office, we’ve been begging, please help us.”

Now, the city is doing just that, budgeting $22 million to try to save the neighborhood by installing bulkheads and by raising streets and sidewalks by three feet.

The Broad Channel project offers a preview of the infrastructure outlays that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is envisioning as part of a new $20 billion plan to protect the city’s 520 miles of coast over the next decade from rising sea levels.

But the project also raises fundamental questions about whether, in an era of extreme weather, the government should come to the aid of neighborhoods that are trying to fend off inevitably rising waters.

Broad Channel’s vulnerability was exposed in October during Hurricane Sandy, which toppled homes into the bay, some of which still lie in ruins along the beach. Yet the situation here is far worse than in some other neighborhoods damaged in the hurricane because Broad Channel suffers flooding from the tides and heavy rain, not just from storm surges.