Friday, December 16, 2011
News New York State Can Now Make Hazardous Waste Polluters Clean Up Their Shit
Posted by Sydney Brownstone on Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:15 PM
- Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
- The Gowanus Canal. That stuff in the middle don't look too good.
Last year, the EPA designated the Gowanus Canal and Newtown Creek as Superfund sites, or uncontrolled hazardous waste areas, which targets them for clean up. The Gowanus Canal, which touches Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook, the EPA found to be contaminated with coal tar wastes (a known human carcinogen), heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs (probable human carcinogens), and volatile organic compounds or VOCs, which are easily evaporated into the air we breathe. The New York Times has also estimated that between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil have spilled, unseen, into Newtown Creek over the years, completely destroying any chance at a functioning ecosystem. Perhaps more alarming is that this toxic waste has leached into the ground in Greenpoint, where people live and work. According to the same article, Exxon Mobil "is responsible for an oil plume that extends under about 300 homes" there. Meanwhile, sediment and water samples from the creek have also yielded a cocktail of potential threats to human health, including pesticides, metals, PCBs and VOCs.
In 2007, owners of Superfund site properties sued the state, claiming that the Department of Environmental Conservation didn't have the authority to make the companies to clean them up fully—only to make them to remove "significant" environmental threats.
The Court of Appeals, in a 5-to-2 decision, ruled this claim total bullshit. According to the Department of Environmental Conservation, it's a "substantial victory for the state's citizens, land and water."
[via New York Times]
Comments (1)
Showing 1-1 of 1
Top Commenters
