A new concrete batching facility in Greenpoint is stirring up dust and controversy as locals, outraged by what they say is outright pollution of the air and water, urge regulators to crack down.
Operations at the DKN Ready Mix facility at 270 Green St. started up last fall, as crews started mixing sand, stones and cement powder in massive trucks to create ready-mix concrete. Locals — who had first flagged their concerns about the plant when construction started in 2022 — quickly became frustrated.
The facility rattles neighbors
Jens Rasmussen and Maria Aparo live right next door to the plant, and their windows face it directly. Their first issue once the facility got cranking was noise, they said. Trucks and equipment generate a constant low thrum of activity, but sometimes it gets unbearably loud.
“There are times that we’ve recorded decibel levels over 100,” Rasmussen said. “You come out the front door, and it’s like you have to move immediately away from the site.”
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration permits workers to be exposed to noise up to 85 decibels for eight hours per day. Without ear protection, being exposed to that kind of noise for more than eight hours can lead to permanent hearing damage. At 100 decibels, exposure is only safe for 15 minutes.
With the noise came vibrations. Work at the plant sometimes rattles Rasmussen and Aparo’s building so badly it has scared their two-year-old son to tears, they said, and caused the brick walls on the exterior of their building to crack.
City records show that the Department of Buildings has issued two violations related to cracked walls at their apartment building since May. During Brooklyn Paper’s recent visit to their Green Street home, construction workers were patching the damage.
But their most pressing concern is the gray cement dust that covers the construction fence around the DKN facility, parts of the street surrounding it, and nearby buildings. When summer came, and Rasmussen and Aparo opened their windows to keep the apartment cool, it started infiltrating their living spaces.
Locals say dust has blanketed the area
Aparo said she regularly wakes up with a sore throat and congestion, and the couple’s two-year-old son deals with the same symptoms after rarely becoming sick for the first two years of his life. They worry that long-term exposure to the dust could lead to health issues later in life.
Their downstairs neighbor, Sara Gates, said the building has become “absolutely filthy.”
“We can’t really use our roof anymore, my car is covered, everything just has a film over it,” she said. “Because this is an old brick building, everything comes in. It’s just, like, we have this layer of cement dust coating our entire lives, which is worrisome as far as what we’re breathing in.”
Local nonprofit North Brooklyn Neighbors agreed to install an air quality monitor to measure the level of particulate matter in the air beside the DKN facility. Many New Yorkers became familiar with particulate matter last summer, when smoke from Canadian wildfires took over the city, turning the sky orange and sending air quality plummeting.
Levels beside the plant haven’t quite reached levels seen during the wildfires, but are regularly higher than what regulators consider safe and healthy. On the afternoon of July 29, the AQI was 91, just inside of the “moderate” range.
Air quality regularly spikes above 100, data shows, which is considered “unhealthy for sensitive groups” including children, seniors, pregnant people, and people with existing health conditions like asthma. Several times in July, that number jumped temporarily above 150, or “unhealthy.” At least twice since the monitor was installed, it has briefly measured “very unhealthy” amounts of particulate matter in the air.
Lael Goodman, Director of Environmental Programs at North Brooklyn Neighbors, said that even if the air quality is generally considered safe for short-term exposure, it might become problematic if locals are breathing it in 24/7.
“People who work there, people who live around there, they’re going to be there for a year, they’re going to be there long-term,” she said. “So, it’s definitely [of] concern.”
Long and short-term exposure to cement dust can cause myriad health issues — from eye and respiratory irritation to lung diseases like silicosis. Rasmussen and Aparo have set up a large fan in one of their windows to blow dust and dirt away from their unit, and Gates, who has a massive screen-printing studio in the building, has been forced to keep the garage door she usually opens for ventilation closed to keep the dust out.
The residents of Green Street said they are well aware that they live in an industrial zone. Both their building and the DKN Ready Mix plant are zoned M3-1 for “heavy industrial” use, and they’re surrounded by metal workers, automotive businesses, and more.
But, Rasmussen said, he has lived in the building for 28 years and has never experienced anything like the noise and dust coming from the cement facility.
“When I first moved here, the incinerator was still there,” he said. “Across the way was waste transfer. Industry is not new. I’ve spent over two decades living peacefully with industrial neighbors. This is something new.”
‘Growing pains’ at DKN Ready Mix
Diane Macke and Tommy Philippou, who own DKN Ready Mix, said they didn’t realize there were residential neighbors so close to the facility when they chose it. Having previously operated in Long Island City and in Maspeth, on the other side of the Newtown Creek, they’re used to operating in strictly-industrial areas.
“Had I known, believe me, we would have tried to find a better property,” Philippou said. “But … between the property and pricing in an M3 zone, we just couldn’t find [one.] We’re not here to kill anybody.”
He said DKN Ready Mix is under “constant review” and has sprinklers, misting systems, and filters to reduce the dust. After they started to get complaints from neighbors, they decided to add more misting systems, he said, and hope to build a high corrugated steel perimeter wall to help contain dust and noise. They also plan to install catch basin covers to prevent any runoff that makes it off the site from entering the sewer systems.
But the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has already cited the facility for failing to contain its dust three times since May, records show, with hearings at the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings scheduled for August and September. During the department’s most recent visit, in July, there were “not unreasonable levels of dust” and no violations were issued, a DEP spokesperson told Brooklyn Paper.
The department has also cited the company twice before, in two different locations, for discharging contaminated water — including into a manhole that led to the Newtown Creek.
During a recent visit, inspectors with the state’s Department of Environmental protection found excess dust despite necessary filtration and suppression systems, according to Greenpointers, and the department issued a warning to the owners and promised to return to see if the issue was resolved. DEC had previously caught the company illegally discharging runoff into the Newtown Creek, Greenpointers reported, leading to a hefty fine.
Council Member Lincoln Restler — who Aparo first approached about the plant while it was still under construction — told Brooklyn Paper his office has been working with Assembly Member Emily Gallagher and state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez to pressure DKN, along with city and state agencies, to protect locals.
The pols have asked DEC to “impose much stricter oversight” of the facility and open an investigation of DKN and their permits, he said. and has been in touch with DEP and the Department of Buildings about inspecting and issuing violations.
“It’s unacceptable that Greenpointers are being exposed to extreme dust that is creating untenable living situations for many neighbors,” Restler said. “I’m urging DKN to prioritize the safety of our community and meet with the elected officials of Greenpoint immediately to make significant changes in their operation or shut down.”
Rasmussen feels the fines from city and state agencies are “too anemic,” and won’t lead to real change — but, that if they did, the batching plant would be a fine neighbor.
“If they operate within the regulations that they’re supposed to, I think they would be very amenable neighbors,” Aparo said. “The huge concern is, they’re polluting our water runoff, they’re polluting our air and increasing the risks of everyone having breathing problems and asthma and all that stuff. To bring this within regulatory guidelines would make them actual neighbors we could exist with.”
In May, after neighbors called in a complaint, DOB inspectors found that the facility was operating under the wrong Certificate of Occupancy. The existing certificate is for the storage and sale of used cars, metals, and parts, per DOB records — not cement batching.
The owners of the facility must update the certificate or discontinue use of the property, according to DOB representative David Maggiotto. If the violation is upheld at an Aug. 8 OATH hearing, DKN Ready Mix could be fined up to $6,250.
Maggiotto said the company should have updated the certificate before moving in and starting operations — and that, in response to their failure to do so, the department would audit previously-issued permits for the site.
Philippou said “the endeavor to complete the project has been phased out to allow for a less disturbance as possible from a construction standpoint,” and is not yet finished. The Certificate of Occupancy will be issued at the end of the process, he said.
Macke and Philippou said DKN Ready Mix is a small, family-operated company — run by them and their two sons — and that they don’t have the money and connections larger operations might have.
“It’s still growing pains, because everything moves so slow, not as fast as we need it to,” Macke said. “But in the meantime, we’re doing what we can … [what] we can put in place that we don’t need approvals or permits to try to keep the dust down and the mess going into the street.”
Residents face a hard choice
DKN’s residential neighbors are tired of waiting, and concerned about how long it will take for real change to take effect – if it ever does. But leaving isn’t a viable option for most.
Gates has 4,000 square feet of studio space and plenty of screen-printing equipment for her business, she said. Finding an affordable alternative and moving all of her materials there would be nearly impossible, she said.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay here, but I also don’t know where to go.”
Aparo and Rasmussen feel similarly. Their loft serves as both their home and the headquarters for their nonprofit the Bechdel Project. Over the nearly 30 years Rasmussen has lived there, the rent has remained manageable due to the Loft Law, but that’s not the case elsewhere in the city. Leaving the loft would mean leaving New York City altogether, they said.
Rasmussen feels that their situation is emblematic of a larger issue plaguing formerly-industrial neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Though he and Aparo and their immediate neighbors are feeling the brunt of the concrete facility’s effects, the polluted air is also filtering out to the fully-residential parts of the neighborhood on McGuinness Boulevard, just a block away.
“We have found ourselves in a situation where the city has grown, but the protections to protect the people living here have not,” Aparo said. “They’ve allowed the building of new properties, the building of new restaurants and businesses … and allowed families to move here. But not put in the safety net to make that viable. That’s a real issue that we’re only discovering now that we’ve had a bad actor move into the neighborhood.”
Update 7/31/2024, 11:35 a.m.: This story has been updated with comment from Council Member Lincoln Restler.
