Apr. 17, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen The bottom of the Gowanus Canal is not, strictly speaking, a hospitable environment. It’s covered in a thick layer of contaminated sediment, the product of more than 150 years of industrial pollution and combined sewer overflow. The toxic sludge, nicknamed “black mayonnaise, is packed with coal tar, heavy…
Mar. 28, 2025 By Kirstyn Brendlen A long-delayed project critical to the success of the Gowanus Canal Superfund cleanup reached an early milestone this week, as the city finished excavating space for a massive underground sewer overflow tank. The Red Hook tank — formerly known as the Head End tank — will catch 8…
Nov. 17, 2023 By Isabel Song Beer Newtown Creek is known among local residents and environmentalists as being one of the most polluted ecological sites in the continental U.S. The creek, runs for roughly 3.5 miles between Greenpoint and Long Island City, Queens, is one of the heaviest-used commercial bodies of water in the country. Industrial refineries line the bank of the creek and are responsible for managing recycled waste, sewage and — in the case of the 110 acre National Grid facility — volatile liquefied natural gas. It seems that since the dawn of industrialization in the region, the…
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May. 9, 2023 By Kirstyn Brendlen
Parents and students at P.S. 110 in Greenpoint are breathing a little easier, knowing that federal environmental regulators found the air inside the school is clean — putting to rest the worries that students were inhaling toxic chemicals from a federal Superfund site underneath the school grounds.