Environmental Cleanup Will Create Risks to Residents of Mott Haven
In the South Bronx celebrities stop to pose on dirt and a broken concrete walkway leading to one of the warehouses on the historic Mott Iron Works property on the Harlem River. Kendall Jenner, Naomi Campbell, and other professional celebrities party inside the dilapidated building during a Halloween “Bronx is Burning” party orchestrated by developer Keith Rubenstein of Somerset Properties.
Developers, Celebrities Celebrate a Tale of Two Cities At a ‘Macabre’ Halloween Party in The South Bronx
But that walkway and that dirt had already been tested as being a serious public health risk due of the amount of toxic contamination left there from years of industrial activity.
In fact testing showed enough contamination to allow the developer, Rubenstein, to declare this property and his property across the street as brownfield sites. A designation made by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) that is similar to the federal Superfund program.
The brownfield program started decades ago, and was incentivized by President Bush in 2002. During Mayor Bloomberg’s time in office, he used incentives to attract developers and their money.
The extra cost of cleaning up contaminated brownfield sites is offset by things like large tax credits for the developer. Bloomberg promoted these mostly vacant lots as a machine of job creation and “affordable housing” for communities.
The brownfield sites are offered up by the city as spectacular opportunities for developers to turn contaminated ground into profitable ground.
This is certainly the expectation for the Mott Iron Works site.
The Somerset project will consist of all market rate units. Latest plans call for up to six towers on each side of the Third Avenue Bridge.
Yimby reports, “Construction is about to begin on the smaller of the two buildings, which will grow on the former JLL Mott Iron Works site at 2401 Third Avenue, at the foot of the Third Avenue Bridge. The first site will be split into three towers — a standalone, 25-story high-rise and an eight-story base topped by a pair of 25-story and 16-story towers.”
But those towers cannot be built until the work of environmental remidiation has taken place — based on testing already completed. Last year I reviewed hundreds of pages of documents about the testing and cleanup recommendations while reporting for a story I wrote for the Mott Haven Herald:
Time running out for public to comment on contaminated development site
The environmental reports I was finally able to obtain are now filed at the Mott Haven Library and the Community Board Office, and are available to the public as is required.
The documents show that these sites have dangerous contaminants in the soil, air, and water. They include remedial investigation and studies submitted by the developer to the DEC which provide hundreds of pages of details on the environmental testing that has taken place in order to qualify for the brownfield opportunities.
According to the test results there are multiple metals “above standards in the unfiltered samples from all of the wells” including arsenic, chromium, copper, iron, and lead.
There is also varying degrees of BTEX — which stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. These are are some of the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in petroleum derivatives like gasoline. BTEX was found both in soil and groundwater. This presents the problem of vapor intrusion — a process that occurs when this toxic mix turns into vapor or gas and escapes into buildings — without any sign or warning to those breathing the air.
In addition there are multiple known underground storage tanks (UST) which must be safely removed.
Off-site concerns are also addressed in the documents. The report “indicates that the potential exists for off-site migration of site-related contaminants in soil vapor. Potential petroleum and solvent releases associated with the historical surrounding property uses may have adversely impacted soil, groundwater, and/or soil vapor at the Site.”
Further illustrating the environmental complications of building in industrial areas, there is also another chemical, PCE, in the vapor phase which “appears to be migrating on site from an off-site source since PCE was not reported in any of the soil or groundwater samples.”
When the cleanup process gets underway there will be serious risks to public health. These risks include possible exposure to contaminants, which according to the CDC are known to cause cancer.
One of the main components of the clean-up will be the excavation and off-site disposal of contaminated soil.
Preventing contaminated dust from getting into the air and into homes and businesses is a priority. There are orders to monitor the air not only on site but also to install monitors in the community.
The trucks hauling away contaminated soil must be tightly controlled.
The documents reveal that the DEC requires all trucks to be appropriately lined, tarped, securely covered, manifested and placarded. Along with that, the trucks are mandated to only travel on specific routes in order to divert the truck traffic from residential and more populated areas.
These truck routes are in the map below.
Since 1902 when Jordon Mott moved his successful iron-works business to New Jersey, there have been industries and abandonments of the property, and now Mott Haven is on the verge of seeing this part of its waterfront drastically transformed from industrial to what some call “cosmopolitan” and others call gentrification.
And as of this year, the demolition of the warehouse has taken Rubenstein one step closer toward his planned towers. And the Mott family is closer to losing a visible mark on the timeline of history in Mott Haven.
The demolition was done in order to make way for the development of the residential towers. The warehouse had been vacant since October of 2014, the same year the preliminary investigation found petroleum-related contamination in soil and groundwater.
Despite the serious possibility of health risks, the developer, according to the city’s policy, gains a release of liability for any future harm to public health. Importantly, it also gives adjacent properties the same release of liability — even as they are not required to participate in the cleanup.
Therefore the South Bronx will have no recourse if children develop leukemia, a possibility when humans are exposed to benzene, according to the World Health Organization and other established science.
Ivette Gonzalez is a bright and engaged woman. A proud mom who loves to talk about Mott Haven and the resilience of the people, her people, who are still here. Gonzalez lives in an area that could be affected by contaminated dust during construction — a few streets from the Mott Haven library and the waterfront. Gonzalez says she had no idea the planned development was on contaminated land.
“They should have definitely put some information in newspaper to tell us about this,” she says.
Gonzalez says her community gets engaged when they are informed — and the state and developers should be far more transparent about their plans and the risks to residents. “They should be honest. They should say, this is what is happening. This is what we want to fix. This is what we want to do long-term.”
Shaking her head, Gonzalez adds, “They should do this before it becomes menacing.”
A name that remains menacing to New Yorkers is Sandy. Although Hurricane Sandy did not cause the same destruction as other areas, it did cause flooding in the area. The community was reminded how quickly a storm can put a waterfront under water. Environmentalists and concerned Mott Haven residents worry what might happen if another hurricane hits and causes the kind of flooding that happened with Superstorm Sandy.
“At a time of impacts from climate change reaching critical levels, and living in a Post-Sandy NYC, these waterfront spaces should be preserved as open public greenways to provide a resilient coastline to prepare for future flooding. It’s no longer a question of if but when,” said Ed Conde Garcia, South Bronx writer and founder of the popular local website Welcome 2 the Bronx.
Garcia said he is glad to see a positive step forward to cleanup the waterfront in South Bronx, but he is against this development and current market rate developments in the area because they do not address the immediate needs of the community which is true affordable housing.
As far as the cleanup he said, “It is disappointing that this is only happening now that Somerset Partners is planning a luxury development on the site.”
As of now, work on the site has actually stalled because of the location on the water. The developer is waiting to obtain a dewatering permit. The need for dewatering is due to the location of the project adjacent to the river.
Dewatering, or unwatering, is a process of water removal by draining groundwater from a riverbed or construction site. But this can introduce hazardous contaminants into surface waters. These contaminants can include petroleum hydrocarbons. Because of this, dewatering activities are subject to authorization by permit and the actual procedure must be done safely and correctly.
According to an email from Rodney Rivera (NYDEC) in early March, “The on-site building has been demolished. The building slab remains in place. Waste characterization sampling results have been sent to multiple disposal facilities for pricing, though a disposal facility is yet to be selected. No field activities are currently ongoing at the site, as…applicant is waiting for a New York City dewatering permit. Excavation of contaminated soil is anticipated to begin once the dewatering permit received, however, that isn’t expected for approximately two months.”
On June 21st I checked back and was told, “No dewatering permit has been issued and no remedial work has begun.”
The controversial Bronx is Burning Halloween party did not endear the developers to the community. The goal at the time was to rebrand the South Bronx as “The Piano District” by recalling a part of the area’s manufacturing past. (Rubenstein talks about this in the Somerset video above)
The party was intended to showcase what was to come on the waterfront. A new and hip neighborhood with coffee shops and a quick subway ride into Manhattan. But instead it spurred protests and the #whatpianodistrict hashtag on twitter and instagram.
#WhatPianoDistrict, Say South Bronx Residents
After the party, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito took to twitter.
So it is not only better messaging that is needed, it is better communication with the community. During the public comment period last year, it took repeated requests for me to gain access to the documents that are required to be made available to the public.
“This is not the first time the community has needed to become involved with this developer and the state. Another time the DEC was ready to issue a go-ahead without a proper environmental assessment. We didn’t publicize that, but it’s in the record,” said Harry Bubbins, long-time environmental advocate in Mott haven. Bubbins said the developer responds when they are forced to respond.
One thing for certain is that this cleanup process will not be quick once it begins in earnest. “While the excavation portion of the remedy will take only weeks to complete, the final remedy will not be completed until the majority of the building development is done, and that may take up to two years,” Rodney Rivera from the DEC said.
Bubbins pointed out careful consideration of the environmental aspects of this development is also important for any eventual residents “who go to live in these high towers.”
“If you don’t look at what they’re doing, they will do anything. They will say it’s clean. It’s very important to review and analyse.”
One extremely unfortunate fact is that any new health risks will be in addition to the ongoing hazards already faced in Mott Haven. The South Bronx, dubbed asthma alley, is already choked with commercial trucking.
On humid days there are times when the air is nearly indistinguishable from the fumes that consume it. It is thick. A smog settles to ground-level and the smell of diesel can seem overwhelming even to the healthy among us. The residents of the South Bronx are already victims of their environment with high asthma rates that never seem to be prioritized or addressed.
“In the South Bronx, we have an asthma epidemic. Asthma hospitalizations are five times the national average; deaths are three times the national average; and it’s estimated that one in every five children in the South Bronx has asthma,” Mychal Johnson, a community activist and environmentalist in Mott Haven said.
Unfortunately, Johnson also faces this “epidemic” in the most personal of ways.
His son was already using a nebulizer for asthma at 16-months old.
In the coming months, and years, it will be critical to make sure this cleanup proceeds in a way that keeps Johnson’s son and all the residents of the South Bronx safe from further harm.
