The Brooklyn Paper: SNA Newspaper of the Year, 2007

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DEP’s fresh idea stinks up Ridge

By Matthew Lysiak
The Brooklyn Paper
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The Brooklyn Paper / Jeff Bachner
Residents demonstrate how they feel about the odor along Fort Hamilton Parkway.

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Move over Dior, Chanel, and Ellen Tracy, the Department of Environmental Protection has unleashed a new perfume just in time for the holiday season and residents are giving it a big “thumbs up” — up their noses to plug up the stench.

Since last summer, that unmistakable odor of sewage has been creeping out of catch basins along Fort Hamilton Parkway between Marine Avenue and 99th Street. After residents complained, DEP odor experts last week dropped nylon socks filled with pine deodorizer.

But it hasn’t helped!

“The stench is absolutely repugnant,” said odor weary resident Fred Birkenfelv, who attends the senior center at St. John’s Church on the street of the offending scent. “I’ve been dealing with this smell for over a year, and let me tell you it is quite potent.” In fact, locals now say that the fresh scent of pine has made the raw sewage smell even worse.

“I think adding the pine made the existing smell even more potent,” said Aaron Green who lives in an apartment building near the offending odor.

“The minute I walk out of my car it hits me,” added Arlene Ross, who lives a few sniffs away. “Whatever they put down there didn’t make it better.”

But Santa won’t be the only one filling up stockings this December. DEP intends to put more pine-filled socks in the sewers, said agency spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla.

Brooklyn Bridge Realty

“We are aware of the odor and we are monitoring the situation closely,” Padilla said. “We will also be dropping in more pine deodorant socks within the next few weeks.”

If that doesn’t work, how about some chestnuts roasting on an open fire?

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper

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