[CPEO-BIF] New York state wavers on Gowanus (Brooklyn) Superfund listing

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

State caught in 'Superflop'

By Mike McLaughlin
The Brooklyn Paper
August 13, 2009

The Paterson administration has backed away from its surprise and 
secretive call last year to have the federal government lead a Superfund 
clean-up of the Gowanus Canal - and now says the Environmental 
Protection Agency should "carefully review" an alternate proposal from 
Mayor Bloomberg for decontaminating the waterway.

The EPA will decide the 1-1/2-mile long canal's destiny this fall, 
choosing whether to remove the waterway's bed of toxic sediment via the 
Superfund program, which forces polluters to pay often after a lengthy 
and litigious effort, or by letting the city go ahead with its proposal, 
an untested arrangement that uses federal money and voluntary 
contributions from polluters to cover the estimated $400-million 
clean-up cost.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation told the Bloomberg 
administration last week that it was not opposed to the mayor's plan - 
as long as it sought a comprehensive clean-up. That Aug. 6 letter was a 
departure from the state's December request to add it to the Superfund list.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/32/32/32_32_mm_gowanus_flip_flop.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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