6/11/2009

As the Gowanus Turns....


Apparantly you have to pay people to convince local businesses that Superfund is bad! F.I.B heard through the Gowanus grapevine that a paid representative of the formerly anonymous Clean Gowanus Now! group was doing just that today and using all the usual scare tactics and non factoids, using talking points that included something about nurses in some other part of the country!

I say formerly anonymous because they have recently added their names to their organization.
Those names being:

Africa-Israel, U.S.A.(a huge multi-national real estate corporation.)
Bayside Fuel Oil Depot Corporation
Jobco, Inc.
Magnifico Enterprises
L&M Development Partners, Inc.(see photo of smiling Bloomie & Toll Brother V.P)
The Ribellino Family (Waste Management)
Debbie & Buddy Scotto
Toll Brothers, Inc.

surprise, surprise

I wonder if they are also paying someone to swipe Pro Superfund posters out of local business windows such as Winn Discount?

Also....

The Riverkeeper just visited the Gowanus and found "unsafe sewage levels in canal bacteria count high in Gowanus" and "that of the dozens of locations Riverkeeper tests - from New York City to north of Albany - only the Gowanus and Newtown Creek show contamination levels as high." Read about it in the Daily News here.

And our local Councilman STILL thinks it's not the job for the EPA!
Pardon Me for Asking has the story on that. Read: Councilman Bill DeBlasio Still Pushing City's Alternative To Gownaus Superfund Listing.

Congrats on the New York Times City Room picking up that story up Katia!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

About those high level of bacteria in the canal and the picture of the CSO sign here that says to report "discharge during dry weather please call 311"; what do they mean by dry weather, because stuff always spills from this CSO long after rain has stopped.

The sign doesn't make clear what they mean by "wet weather discharge".

Anonymous said...

The EPA said they will not address the CSO discharge that causes the high bacteria in Gowanus and Newtown Creek so who do we turn to for help?

Anonymous said...

To commenter #2:
Why do you keeps repeating this erroneous proclamation (often made by Owen of the dredge)?

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), under federal law, is responsible for the water quality in the Gowanus canal. They are required to deal with it!

Anonymous said...

After a parting of the ways, Shaya Boymelgreen transferred development rights of Gowanus Village to Africa-Israel. I think that is the site of the printing press.

Plow to Plate said...

Compare the list of anti-Superfund "CleanGowanusNow" group with the list of PRO SUPERFUND LIST BELOW, taken from the website SuperfundGowanus.org
* United States Environmental Protection Agency
* New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
* The Army Corps of Engineers
* New York State Senator Daniel Squadron
* New York State Senator Velmanette Montgomery
* Assemblywoman Joan L. Millman
* Riverkeeper
* The Sierra Club
* Columbia University’s Urban Design Lab
* Friends of Greater Gowanus (FROGG)
* Carroll Gardens Coalition for Respectful Development (CG CORD)
* Friends of Bond
* Park Slope Civic Council
* Park Slope Neighbors
* The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy
* The Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats
* Democracy for NYC

Anti-Superfund have no environmental back-up, vested financial interest in development, not much of a community residential representation -whereas Pro-Superfund is PACKED with entities who have been active with the environment, knowledgeable about it, community groups and reps.