The city has a Christmas present for long-suffering Fort Hamilton Parkway residents.
The Department of Environmental Protection plans to install odor-squashing filters in approximately half a dozen key manholes along the strip, between 95th and 99th streets, to stop the stench that has plagued the area ever since the agency completed an extensive $6.8 million sewer replacement project, back in 2006.
And, if all goes as hoped, the work will be completed before the holidays, said Josephine Beckmann, district manager of Community Board 10.
The new carbon filters, Beckmann said, are intended to absorb the noxious odors that occur from time to time because of underground irregularities in the terrain.
“It’s an air flow problem,” Beckmann explained, “so they are going to put in equipment that will absorb the odors.”
Nearby noses had a mixed response to the news.
“I’ll be very happy to get rid of the smell,” said Christine Mascialino. “I want to have faith that they’ll fix it. I hope it works.”
But, her neighbor Irene Rivera was less sanguine.
“It’s still bad,” Rivera said about near St. John’s Church, at 99th Street. She also said that, inside her house, the smells still come and go.
“I doubt everything till I see some proof,” Rivera said. “I hope it works, but I won’t know till I see if we get the smells.”
The stink actually may have been less pervasive in recent weeks, Beckmann said, possibly because of other changes the city made.
For one thing, she said, environmental engineers think that work recently completed at the Avenue V pumping station clear across Brooklyn is “helping to flush the system better.” In addition, she added, the city has “hooded and sealed all catch basins” in the Fort Hamilton Parkway area, “to prevent air (and odors) from escaping.”
