Yuck... 'Hurricane Irene Could Be a Toxic Shitstorm In the Gowanus Canal' - NewYorkMag

[WillyT]

Hurricane Irene Could Be a Toxic Shitstorm In the Gowanus Canal
New York Magazine
8/27/11 at 12:51 PM


The Gowanus Canal on Saturday morning.
Photo: Adam Pasick

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When Hurricane Irene hits the New York area on Sunday, the neighborhoods surrounding the Gowanus Canal are in for a literal shitstorm — and that may be the least of their problems.

The latest projections anticipate a storm surge of 7 to 15 feet in New York Harbor on Sunday. A dome of water would travel from Upper New York Bay, through Gowanus Harbor, and into the 1.5 mile-long Gowanus Canal near Smith and 9th St. Once in the canal, it could stir up a heady mix of pollutants — essentially oil, heavy metals, and human excrement — and distribute it throughout the slowly gentrifying area that sits among some of Brownstone Brooklyn's priciest neighborhoods.

Ask any Gowanus resident, or any of the artists and restauranteurs who have recently staked out space there, and they'll tell you that it's no fun for anyone with a functioning olfactory system to be near the canal when it rains. That's because the city's sewer system overflows into the canal whenever it maxes out its capacity to handle runoff, which happens all too often, resulting in a disgusting wave of human poop. The canal can be even fouler at low tide on a sunny day, when water levels drop low enough to expose the polluted sludge — mostly 100-year-old oil and coal byproducts, and PCBs from metal and paint factories — that lines its banks.

If Irene hits with sufficient force, a flood of the human waste quaintly known as combined sewer overflow (CSO) is almost a certainty. What is less certain is how much of the heavier, more dangerous contaminants will be churned up by the storm surge and heavy winds and deposited by the flood waters. There is a worrying precedent in Hurricane Katrina, which inundated several Superfund sites such as the Agriculture Street Landfill. Like the Gowanus Canal, the landfill had accumulated decades worth of various pollutants, and after Katrina the area around the landfill showed "disturbingly high" levels of cancer-causing chemicals from soot and petroleum-based products. Those are known as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and EPA testing has confirmed high levels of them in the Gowanus Canal, the result of oil and coal refinery runoff a hundred years ago.

<snip>

Link: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/08/hurricane_irene_could_be_a_shi.html

:yoiks:

[ixion]

1. Perhaps they should have thought of that BEFORE they polluted the canal

just sayin'...

[Warpy]

5. Until the 60s or so, people thought they could pollute everything

and that resources were infinite. They really thought that once it went into the canal, it would just flow out to sea and they could forget about it.

They didn't realize the problem until it became a stinky problem.

[saras]

10. Only the profoundly, willingly ignorant though this

There were environmentalists in the NINETEENTH century exposing both industrial pollution and its effect on workers.

But the majority of Americans simply DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR IT. It conflicted with their beliefs (always the problem with beliefs).

In general, they still don't, until they or their kids get sick.

Here's a VERY highly recommended summary (Oxford University Press) of twentieth century America's experience with pollution and polluters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092402259.html

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/EarthSciences/EnergyEnvironmentalScience/?view=usa&ci=9780199739950

Still going on? Of course it is.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/upton-shimkus-and-green-hijackers-of-chemical/blog/36152/

What can we do about it?

http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3909:unmasking-the-polluters&catid=30:cover-story&Itemid=375

[Donnachaidh]

7. the gowanus has been a mess for decades

I remember my stepdad telling some wild stories about friends who dared to swim in that mess. Of course, now that it might overflow and cause something of a real stink outside it's boundaries it's scaring people. :shrug:

[MineralMan]

2. That canal has a long history. Very interesting, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Canal

A long history of problems. Kind of "A Sewer Grows in Brooklyn" sort of thing.

[NBachers]

9. Interesting read- thanks

[Amonester]

3. Ya'd think bloomberg&friend$ don't have enough dough to fix it

earlier... mmm?

:puke:

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Ya think!

[Demeter]

6. There will shortly be NO EXCUSE NOT TO FIX IT

and that is a good thing. The learning impaired lesson.

[Skink]

8. Is that anywhere near Wall street?