Greenpoint: Even More Polluted Than You Thought!

Department of Environmental Conservation map, flags represent businesses that caused the pollution

Testing of Greenpoint's groundwater has revealed contamination by dry cleaning chemical, with alarmingly high levels found under the corner of Kingsland and Norman Avenues, right by McGolrick Park. Investigators started testing the area in 2008, and despite resistance from homeowners, they traced the pollutants and are naming names: They say former businesses in the area, including Spic and Span Cleaners, Klink Cosmo Cleaners, and current businesses ACME Metal Works and ACME Steel and Brass Foundry are to blame. But what's a Greenpointer to do?

The agency continues to sample Greenpoint air and soil, to confirm the neighborhood isn't at risk, reports the Brooklyn Paper. According to Mike Schade, a local resident and coordinator at the Center for Health and Environmental Justice, the contaminated water can vaporize and rise into people's homes, but it's nothing new. “The state estimated that [the new site] has been contaminating the groundwater there for 60 to 70 years!” he said, adding that. “Given the depth and type of soil, this will be a challenge to clean up.” He believes the state will fund cleanup efforts, and then sue the culprits for the cost, but officials haven't confirmed that plan.

The discovery follows Mayor Bloomberg's recent announcement that he'll back the area's oil slick and sludgy waterway, the Newtown Creek, for Superfund designation.

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By Sabrina Jaszi in News on February 16, 2010 12:15 PM

Comments [rss]

Laura

Hello boscoep! Please email me. bargeparkpals@msn.com And please consider participating in the Health & Harms Narrative study. I've lived in Greenpoint all my life. My entire family has had an array of disease. Both of my parents died from rare brain diseases as did their dog. Some community members, including me, have been meeting with the NYSDOH to push them to do a health study. We need people like you to step up and tell their story.

Laura Hofmann

books

damn. how old were you when you got. how do you know when you have a brain tumor. i'm serious. I'd like to know.

boscoep

I wasn't necessarily having any of the classic tumor symptoms. (headaches, seizures) I was in St. Lukes Roosevelt for another medical matter when an MRI turned up the tumor. I lived in Greenpoint ages 24-32. I was diagnosed age 33.

boscoep

I lived in Greenpoint for 8 years. I only lived in the greenzone of this map for 2 years but was lucky enough to always be in the oilslick zone. And lucky enough to have had a brain tumor removed at Sloan Kettering this past May. Can't prove it of course but it's my leading suspect.

What a wonderful place for condos.

dirty hipster

sheesh man

books

for all the cancer the city has allowed residents to get by not protecting its citizens who didnt have money...they should at least build a massive green park on all the empty lots where the gas tanks used to be and all round that area. go ahead bloomberg. that wont cure the pollution, but at least give us something for pain.