Gowanus Canal's history of waste and pollution doesn't sync well with developer aspirations.

Another great article by my partner! She's continuing to cover Gowanus's pollution and how it conflicts with the goals of big builders who want to make it the site of yet another cluster of towering apartment buildings.

The EPA identified the City of New York, which fought against the designation of the canal as a Superfund site, as one of six parties most responsible for the contamination in 2009. What that means is the city’s on the hook for building the retention tanks as part of the canal’s cleanup.

In 2021, New York City Council moved ahead with rezoning the area from industrial to residential, knowing that by the time the tanks went online, some of the estimated 19,000 new people would have moved in. There’s a fear by some current residents that this influx could strain the neighborhood’s already overwhelmed sewers.

The city’s study at the time on the rezoning’s impact on the environment raised eyebrows at the EPA.

According to an August 2021 EPA letter, the study used outdated data and inconsistent modeling to predict the impact rezoning would have on the neighborhood’s sewer system.

Because of the rezoning, 7,383 new apartments are already under construction, with more projected to be built by 2035—five-to-six years after both tanks are scheduled to be built.