Decades back, few — if any — would oppose a plan to open a concrete plant in industrial Red Hook. But today, it's a different story. Residents of the quickly gentrifying neighborhood have petitioned and picketed in attempts to stop U.S. Concrete from opening a factory this month that they fear will scatter airborne particles "to the yellow-and-blue Ikea next door, heavily used baseball fields across the street, and a 2.75-acre farm nearby on a former playground," according to the Times. Community activist John McGettrick laid it out for the paper of record: “There’s a certain irony that we have a mayor talking about no smoking in parks, but he has no problem allowing the construction of a concrete plant that would shower cement dust on children in the park,” he said.
But with the plant operating within one of the city's industrial business zones, there is little that anyone can do to stop it. Mike Gentoso, a vice president of the U.S. Concrete, said that with his plant's high-tech dust collectors, there's no reason for neighbors to be concerned about airborne particles. “We don’t feel we will have an issue of dust.” Let's see what happens towards the end of the month, when as many as 20 concrete mixers start visiting the plant three times each day.
