Good news, bad news at former Brookfield dump
Cleanup of toxic site to begin in May ... but work will last 3
years longer than expected
Sunday, October 08, 2006
By GLENN NYBACK
ADVANCE STAFF WRITER
For 13 years, Great Kills residents have been told that the toxic
former Brookfield landfill will be cleaned up and turned into a park.
After repeated promises from city and state officials that the
272-acre site's environmental restoration is imminent -- and subsequent
delays because of a lack of funding -- construction to encapsulate
millions of gallons of pesticides and other hazardous materials is
finally set to get under way in May.
But just as neighbors and elected officials believed that their
seemingly endless fight to break the stalemate at the state Superfund
site was over, came word last month that the project won't be completed
until 2014 -- three years later than the city Department of
Environmental Protection estimated last year and five years later than
the agency's original target date.
"It's three years longer now and the next time we meet it will
probably be three years longer then," said Dennis McKeon, a Great Kills
resident and a member of the Brookfield Citizens Advisory Committee. The
group organized in 1993 to work with the DEP to develop remediation
plans for the site and has waited until now to see actual plans for the
site come to fruition.
"I don't understand who they [DEP officials] answer to," McKeon said,
who said the DEP has not maintained an open dialogue with the group
regarding the project's progress. "I guess they don't feel that we
deserve an explanation. They just say that's the way it is. At this
point, I don't believe anything they tell us."
About 130 acres of the site, bordered by Richmond Avenue, Arthur Kill
Road and LaTourette Park, was used by the city as a landfill between
1966 and 1980. Between 1974 and 1980, industrial hazardous wastes, such
as waste oil, sludge, metal plating wastes, lacquers, pesticides and
solvents were dumped there. Work to remediate the site is scheduled to
get under way in May and last about seven years, according to the DEP.
The DEP last week put the project out to bid and will hold a pre-bid
conference at the site on Oct. 18, according to the City Record. Bids
are due by Nov. 1.
Once the work begins in May, it will continue until October 2012,
said DEP spokesman Ian Michaels. The additional two years are necessary
to plant trees and shrubs and for growth and stabilization to occur,
Michaels said.
CAPPING CONTAMINENTS
According to the remediation plan, the landfill will now be covered
with thick "impermeable" plastic layers -- meant to prevent gas or
liquid from bubbling to the surface -- a foot of clean soil and six
inches of top soil before planting can begin.
In addition, a three-foot-wide, 40-foot-feet-deep clay wall will be
installed underground, surrounding the entire landfill site, to prevent
lateral runoff. Inside the wall, advanced collection systems will trap
leachate and landfill gases.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation approved the
project design on May 29, Panzone said.
Once complete, the site will become a city park that will include a "ponding
wetland" with wooded areas and a substantial amount of land set aside
for ball fields and recreation.
"This is not something we can afford to put on the back burner," said
City Councilman Andrew Lanza (R-South Shore), who along with Assemblyman
Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) is trying to organize a meeting with
officials from DEP, the state Department of Transportation and
representatives from the mayor's office in an attempt to expedite the
process.
The state DOT owns and maintains the Korean War Veterans Memorial
Parkway, a critical highway that would be used by construction vehicles
during the project in order to keep them off local roads.
HAVEN'T AGREED YET
The agency and the city have not yet agreed on a financial
reimbursement rate for allowing trucks to use the road which is reserved
for passenger vehicles, Lanza said.
"I know they want to do this," Lanza said about the $110 million
project, which will mostly funded with state Superfund money.
Twenty-five percent will be covered by the DEP.
"At the end of the day, we will have pulled [Brookfield] out of the
ashes [and] it will really be transformed into a wonderful, beautiful
natural area."
McKeon said that the community's concerns about dust resulting from
the construction project, and what will happen to rodents that currently
call the landfill site home when the work gets under way, have not been
adequately addressed.
But Michaels said the contractor will be required to have a
comprehensive rodent monitoring program to contain rodents on-site.
Automated dust monitors will be set up on-site and in the residential
community and all trucks leaving the site will be washed with an
advanced automated washing system.
In addition, a DEP resident engineer and the contractor's
construction manager will be on-site at all times during construction,
and the dust monitoring devices "will be rigged to automatically alert
them in case of a problem with dust emissions," Michaels said.
Neighbors said the development can't come soon enough.
"We've been waiting for the city to come through for many years,"
said Bill Holtermann, a co-owner of Holtermann's Bakery, which abuts the
Brookfield site on Arthur Kill Road.
"I would like it to become a park back there ... recreation,
ballfields, whatever they can do as long as it's safe. It will be nice
to see people enjoying what was a swamp when I was a kid."
Charles Leone, a Brookfield Avenue resident for 28 years, is torn
about what he wants to see done at the site. While he believes the
contaminents in the ground must be taken care of, he worries about
additional cars congesting local roads in his Great Kills neighborhood.
"If they're going to build a park, there's only going to be more
traffic," he said. "It's just going to create more problems."
But Great Kills resident Teresa Pastor, who has four young boys,
hopes the city accelerates the project so that her sons can enjoy the
park before they're grown up.
"Hopefully, they'll clean it up rather quickly," she said.
Glenn Nyback covers environmental
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