Sighting: Saint Agnieska comes to DUMBO

It seems that Saint Agnieska has made her way further wandering down the East River to DUMBO.  We’ve heard rumors that she’s been seen hovering around the Manhattan Bridge.  Has anyone else heard about her latest appearance?  Can anybody confirm this for us?

Generating Power in DUMBO & Vinegar Hill

Much like their waterfront neighbors to the North in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the residents of DUMBO and Vinegar Hill bear the burden of housing a power plant within the confines of their neighborhood.  Con Edison, the City’s electrical utility provider, runs the Hudson Avenue Generating Station, which spans several blocks on Plymouth St.  Clearly, electricity is not to be demonized.  We can all agree that having electrical power in one’s home is a proverbial, “good thing.”  However, power plants pose a threat in residential areas.  Particulate matter emitted from power plants, such as VOCs and sulphur dioxide, is one of the leading causes of asthma – a major problem for children (and adults as well) in New York City.  

A New York Times Real Estate article by Dulcie Leimbach from 2003*, discusses misgivings that some residents have about their local power plant:

“Some residents are resigned to this gigantic industrial presence while others have fought to make it as safe as possible. Last fall, the New York Public Interest Research Group filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency to require Con Edison to install more advanced pollution controls on a boiler that was shut down in the 1990’s and restarted in 2001.

The research group and other environmental organizations contended it never went through a proper review, though Con Ed disagrees. ”We are expecting an answer from the E.P.A. in September,” Tracy Peel, a staff lawyer with the research group, said of the petition.

Con Edison is evaluating the possibility of converting the plant to gas, which is environmentally cleaner, said Chris Olert, a spokesman, though such decisions, he added, take a long time.”

*Dulcie Leimbach, "If You're Thinking of Living In/Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn;
On Cobblestone Streets, History Lingers," The New York Times 31 Aug. 2003

Sighting: Saint Agnieska on the Northside

There have been unconfirmed reports of Saint Agnieska wandering the waterfront (picking her way along the derelict piers) between North 7th and North 12th Streets adjacent to Kent Avenue in Williamsburg – behind the waste transfer station.  These reports have come to us via word of mouth from Department of Sanitation drivers who frequent the Kent Ave. transfer station.

Waste Transfer Stations

The problem began in the early 1990s, when the city government started opening transfer stations in the Williamsburg/Greenpoint community.   This neighborhood possessed what is a commodity in New York City – a large industrial park with a lot of empty space in it. The City gravitated to it.  The Williamsburg/Greenpoint area, one of the fastest growing in the city, became the garbage district du jour due to its plethora of manufacturing zones, areas to which transfer stations are restricted by law.  

Community Board 1, encompassing both the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, contains over 25 waste transfer stations, double what any other community board possesses.  One of these facilities, Radiac, transfers and stores radioactive waste.  Recently, a setting regulations lawsuit deemed that clustering transfer stations in one area is unfair because these facilities should be distributed more equitably throughout the entire city.  Williamsburg purportedly handles half of the garbage of New York City in its 4.2 square mile area.  The waste transfer station on Kent Avenue is the largest on the East Coast, handling up to 5,000 tons of New York City’s garbage everyday, or one truck every minute and a half, 24 hours a day.  

Recently, City Council passed the Solid Waste Management Plan, which recommends opening marine transfer stations in all 5 boroughs.  The City has sent the Plan to Albany for State approval, where it is expected to gain approval without change.  Under this plan, Manhattan, which currently possesses no transfer stations, will gain 3 MTSs – 2 to be reopened and 1 new construction.  However, impending lawsuits from local neighborhood communities hang the fate of Manhattan MTSs in limbo, at present. City Council anticipates all the new and newly refurbished marine transfer stations to be open by the year 2009.  Councilmember David Yassky of Greenpoint asked for a promise-in-writing that the currently over-burdened districts, such as Community Board 1, would have their existing land-based transfer stations closed permanently.  However, the City Council did not include this resolution as part of the Plan, with the assumption that the new MTSs would greatly reduce the burden of the transfer stations currently in operation.  Although, Greenpoint and Williamsburg did gain one victory in this fight, the former marine transfer station adjacent to the Newtown Creek Water Treatment Facility and the now-defunct incinerator will not be reopened.  The MTSs slated for refurbishment in Brooklyn will be in Bay Ridge and the Gowanus section. 

Sighting: St. Agnieska @ the Newtown Creek Nature Walk

Stories are circulating that the famed “woman in white” has been seen walking along the path of the recently opened Newtown Creek Nature Walk, at night after the park is closed.  She’s been spotted by workers inside the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant and by observers across the creek at a scrap metal yard.  

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/newtown_creek_nature_walk_flyer.pdf

Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant

The Newtown Creek Water Treatment Facility (in Greenpoint Brooklyn), built in the late ’60s, is the largest sewage treatment plant in New York City, and purportedly the largest on the East Coast as well.  There are a lot of people in New York City – they all expel waste on a daily basis – and that waste has to get treated somewhere.  The plant also treats commercial waste from industry in the City as well (regulated toxic chemicals dumped into the water supply).  The treatment area for this plant encompasses the East side of Manhattan below 72nd Street, the West side of Manhattan south of 14th Street, North Brooklyn and Western Queens.  Running over capacity for years, the Newtown Creek plant has ceased being able to handle the volume it receives.  And during “storm surges,” i.e. heavy rain storms, sewers overflow sending untreated sewage directly into the harbor.  To rectify this problem, the plant began undergoing a major overhaul in 2003.  The plant remains functional during this process, which will be completed in 2010.  One of the major victories of this overhaul is getting the aeration and sedimentation tanks covered.  Previously, the aeration tanks were open, which meant air was bubbled through the liquid waste, dissipating both chemical toxins and rank odor into the air of Greenpoint.  You may read more about the Newtown Creek Sewage Treatment Plant renovation project, by clicking the links below.

http://www.water-technology.net/projects/newtown/

http://www.habitatmap.org/sites/SewageTreatmentFacility/SewageTreatmentFacility.html

Sighting: St. Agnieska Visiting the Oil Spill

This week “Saint Agnieska Watch” received some exciting news…witnesses, including a U.S. Coast Guard officer, reported seeing an “unspecified vision” of a woman hovering above Newtown Creek.  At the particular spot where the apparition materialized, oil can actually be seen floating on top of the water between a man-made boom and the stone retaining wall at the creek’s edge.  The oil is literally leaking from the groundwater through breaks in the bulkhead.  The woman was described as being young and beautiful with long, flowing hair, dressed all in white.  If anyone out there actually witnessed this vision, please leave a comment here with your first-hand account.  Or, if you have heard of this event from someone else, we would appreciate you sharing that story here, as well.    Thank you! 

Scope of Oil Spill

According to the “Greenpoint Courier” newspaper, New York State will conduct a new study of the extent of the Greenpoint Oil Spill.  The House of Representatives just passed an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Anthony Weiner, to a previous study of the spill done by the EPA.  The original study was sponsored by Rep. Weiner and Rep. Nydia Velasquez.  One of the terms of the new study the funding of a three-dimensional model of the oil spill.   This depiction will take into account not only the size and shape of the spill in the groundwater, but also its effect on nearby soil, as well as to illustrate vapors in the air hovering above the spill.  

While the 2007 study left many unanswered questions it did raise some new concerns, chiefly that the spill is actually much more extensive, and hence much worse, than previously thought.  Now, experts fear the spill to be 30 million gallons, almost twice the original estimate of 17 million gallons.  Furthermore, this study found the boundaries of the spill to stretch much farther than commonly thought.  Officials and scientists hope that the 3-D model will provide a much more accurate picture of the spill, which will in turn allow investigators to target specific areas regarding health impacts on local residents.

To read the press release from Congresswoman Velasquez, click the link below:

http://www.newtowncreekalliance.org/42408nv.htm