EPA issues cleanup plan for Gowanus Canal
ROD stands for “record of decision” and is one of a slew of initials and acronyms that those following the progress of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund designation and investigation of the putrid brew that is the Gowanus Canal have had to familiarize themselves with. The actual cleanup will not begin until 2015, and the process is likely to take a decade, but the ROD, made public on Sept. 30, means there is no going back. Because of over a century of industrial waste dumped and piped into the Gowanus, it will never be a pristine waterway, but it does promise to be a whole lot better after remediation.
In spite of protests from the Bloomberg administration, which wanted to handle the cleanup itself, the Gowanus Canal was declared a Superfund national priority in March 2010. What followed were months of investigation and field studies, including a bathymetric (underwater depth) evaluation and the analysis of both native and soft (deposited after the canal was created) sediment, as well as studies of surface and ground water. Tissue samples from marine life were also examined and evaluated. CSOs (combined sewer overflows), the waste-waters that overpower the sewage system during heavy rainstorms and flow into the canal as a result, as well as other outfalls—some still fouling the waters—were studied as well by the EPA and other government and private conservation entities.
What resulted was a hefty RI (remedial investigation) published in 2011 consisting of thousands of pages of documents that included long lists of toxic chemicals, heavy metals and organic compounds deemed hazardous to humans and wildlife alike.