Newtown Creek Alliance members hope that two new initiatives, a Brownfield grant and an online mapping project, will help energize residents toward monitoring polluted sites in Greenpoint and put pressure on elected officials to work to clean the property up.
Through a state grant, the NCA, along with the Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center (GMDC) and Riverkeeper, hired a new Brownfield Opportunities Area (BOA) director, Tawkiyah Jordan, who will be reaching out to property owners, community organizations and elected officials in the community to help develop the different Brownfield sites.
“Brownfields can present a challenge for redevelopment due to the cost of remediation and liability for use alternatives,” Jordan said. “It takes a coalition of people pushing for the same thing to make the Newtown Creek a really vibrant region economically.”
Jordan, who will be based at the GMDC building (1155 Manhattan Avenue), hopes to use her experience leading environmental justice campaigns at the Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice in the South Bronx to work with local businesses and residents in Greenpoint. Over the next year, she will administer a $625,000 grant, awarded by the New York State Department of State and the Department of Environmental Conservation earlier this year, to reach out to local stakeholders to develop more than a dozen Brownfields in the area.
In conjunction with the BOA Grant, NCA members will begin utilizing a new online mapping project to track polluted sites, waste transfer stations and oil spills in North Brooklyn. At its monthly meeting, Michael Heimbinder, executive director of Habitat Map, gave a comprehensive presentation to NCA members about how to create maps for different areas of interest.
“It is a really easy way to show environmental burdens in this area,” Heimbinder said. “It is very easy to search and share with other people, set up a profile, add markers and turn them into maps.”
Heimbinder demonstrated that the maps were a way to represent not only the locations of pollution events such as combined sewer overflows and oil spills, but also how close these sites were to schools, parks and residences.
Heimbinder also noted that the online program could be used to map the plume of the oil spill that is believed to be located under a 55-acre patch of land near Meeker Avenue. So far, 12 houses above the plume have been surveyed.
“If anybody lives in this area and wants to get tested or help knock on doors for the mitigation project of the Meeker Avenue plume, let me know,” Heimbinder said.
NCA members want to use the maps to pressure elected officials to move forward with cleanup efforts, including Superfund designation, at the state and federal levels.
“[Newtown Creek] isn’t a state Superfund site because of its scale,” said Katie Schmidt, an attorney with NCA. “A lot of state Superfund sites are single lots, such as Phelps Dodge [a tract in Queens near the Kosciuszko Bridge]. Once we start talking about the remediation of the full creek, the scale is federal.”
To get involved in the mapping project and future Newtown Creek Alliance events, including a bicycle tour on September 27, visit www.habitatmap.org or email www.newtowncreek@gmail.com.
