Democracy Now! joins us on the Gowanus Canal to talk about post-Sandy Water Quality

Pollution report: 11/2, 11/8 and 11/9/12 dry weather CSO discharge at Hamilton Av Br at entrance to Gowanus Canal

On 11/2/12, four days after Sandy, we sampled at the entrance of the Gowanus Canal at the Hamilton Av Bridge and found Enterococcus counts >24,196 per 100ml. The water was grey.

The Federal guideline threshold for primary contact is 104 Entero per 100ml.

On 11/8/12, the day after the Northeaster, we again sampled at this same location and again found Enterococcus count at >24,196 per 100 ml. See 3 photos below.

On 11/9 we visited site again and there was still some dry weather flow. See one photo below.

Gowanus Patrol 7/2/12

We patrolled the Gowanus Canal using an aluminum skiff which we carry aboard our “Mother Ship” patrol boat, the R. Ian Fletcher.

The Feds, the EPA, are mandating a massive Superfund cleanup on the Gowanus. NYC and NYC Department of Environmental Protection continue to resist, “don’t worry, trust us, we’ve got a plan, we’ll take care of it.”

This is what we saw on the July 2nd. Just my opinion, but I don’t think we can leave it to NYC anymore. We spent the day taking educators, local bloggers and activists on patrols in the skiff so they would have these sites, and smells, firmly in mind when they went to a public meeting on the proposed EPA cleanup that evening in Brooklyn.

Message to the EPA…please BRING IT, and thanks.

Gull has faith

A Combined Sewer Overflow. One of many. The water is black near the outfall.

Egret

When we stir up bottom sediment it’s putrid

Public access

Gowanus snot hanging off a power cable

I'm not really sure this is water anymore. 

Massive, garage door size Combined Sewer Overflows at the inner/north end of the Canal. This wouldn’t be such a fun place in rain. A water slide from Hell.

A dead rat

A beautiful Black Crested Night Heron on the ladder at the public launch. The Gowanus used to be a beautiful and wonderfully productive salt marsh.  Life waits for us to make it so again.

Polluted Waters: Newtown Creek, Brooklyn

The water in the inner reaches of urban waterways like Newtown Creek and Gowanus Canal is polluted beyond comprehension. Yes, the white stuff in the foreground is water. These “out of sight – out of mind” waterways are like giant, 500 foot diameter pipes discharging a toxic mix of petroleum products, heavy metals, chemical compounds and sewage pathogens into the waters of NY Harbor and the Hudson. We have much work ahead to clean these cesspools up.

Learn more about the oil spill under Greenpoint, Brooklyn that's leaching into Newtown Creek.

Coal Tar in Gowanus Canal and Poughkeepsie

Coal Tar was a by-product of a process which extracted gas from coal. The gas was used for heating, cooking and lighting until the 1960’s. Today there are hundreds of polluted sites in NYS, including many in the Hudson Valley, where the Manufactured Gas Plants (MGP) once operated. On the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn we routinely see coat tar bubbling to the surface from contaminated bottom sediments. But it’s not just a NYC problem. The second photo shows coal tar in the reflection of the new Railway Bridge Park at Poughkeepsie. This one is about 4000 feet from Poughkeepsie’s drinking water intake pipe. MGP sites are slowly being targeted for remediation by NYS DEC - which is a good thing.

Gowanus Canal Water Quality - Yuck!

Photos by John Lipscomb
Sample from the bottom of the Gowanus Canal

4/18/07: At the Gowanus Canal we sampled with Lamont-Doherty's Greg O'Mullan, as part of our water quality pilot program.