EPA Plans Newtown Creek Cleanup

TOXIC: Consent orders from the six parties responsible for the Newtown Creek pollution will be signed in July, and the cleanup project will begin this summer. (Amal Chen/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—After over a hundred years of pollution, Newtown Creek in Brooklyn and Queens will finally receive a much needed cleanup. Rep. Carolyn Maloney and Queens Borough President Helen Marshall joined Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator Judith Enck and Director Walter Mugdan at a public meeting in Long Island City on Tuesday to set a plan to clean up the pollution.

“We’re dealing with over a century of contamination, of toxic chemicals, sewage, and contaminated run off. The good news is EPA knows how to clean these things up, but it’s going to take a fair amount of time. We’re dealing with a toxic industrial legacy; we’re looking at cleaning up heavy metals, PCBs, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,” Enck said.

Newtown Creek was declared a Superfund site last September, which holds the parties dumping waste into the creek financially responsible, by federal law, for the toxic cleanup. In this case, the six companies the EPA has identified are BP America, Phelps Dodge Refining Corporation, ExxonMobil, Texaco, the Brooklyn Union Gas Company (now The National Grid), and the City of New York.

“What’s going to start almost immediately is a detailed study of the environmental study of the situation in the creek,” Mugdan said. The investigation will be similar to other studies conducted by the EPA for waterway cleanup, like with the Hudson River, and Mugdan estimates it to cost up to $25 million and take anywhere from five to seven years.

“That will tell us what needs to be done, and at the end of that study we will make a decision, and then that project has to be designed, which will be complicated because it’s a commercial waterway and in constant use,” Mugdan said.

“That will take about three years and then the actual cleanup work will commence after the design is completed and last anywhere from five to eight years. It’s a very difficult situation,” added Mugden.

He says that judging from the thousands of samples collected, the contents are highly toxic, which accounts for the long timeline of the cleanup. The four major areas of contamination are the Greenpoint oil spill, sewage, contaminated facilities on the banks of the creek, and contaminated sediments—the thick layers of toxic mud at the bottom of the creek, which is the biggest concern.

The six companies responsible for the pollution will cover costs for the carrying out the cleanup. Estimates on the cost will have to wait until after the planning period begins, but Mugdan says he wouldn’t be surprised to see it range from half a billion to 1 billion dollars, based on the cost of the Hudson River cleanup.

Newtown Creek spans over 3.8 miles and the local community has been requesting cleanup for over 10 years.

“Before the Civil War, it was considered one of the most beautiful areas of recreation, but since then there have been oil dumps—one at Greenpoint, which was larger than the Valdez oil spill—and PCBs,” Maloney said. “We wish it could be done tomorrow, but at least we’re moving in the right direction.”

“It’s been a nightmare, the odors that ooze from the site,” Marshall said. “Actually, much of what’s in that water has been there for many years because it was surrounded by manufacturing, and what did they do? They just poured, threw [the waste] into the water, into the creek. We’ve got to keep our waterways clean and healthy for the people.”

Maloney said there will be more public meetings to keep the community updated on the cleanup progress, and a community advisory group will be set up to encourage public participation. They anticipate this project will create more jobs, and the consent order will encourage companies alongside the Newtown Creek banks to stop polluting.