Two of the biggest Gowanus Canal polluters are real estate development sites where remediation efforts failed, according to Environmental Protection Agency officials working on the Superfund cleanup at the canal.

One of them, the Daily News reported, is the 363-365 Bond Street site on which Toll Brothers had once planned to build 460 condos and townhouses. The developer, which was supposed to clean up the site before breaking ground, abandoned the project when the Gowanus gained Superfund status last year. (Toll had actively campaigned against the designation, arguing that it would render the development site unmarketable).

According to the EPA, it’s a good thing it did, because new investigations there have since found cancer-causing poly-aromatic hydrocarbons and other potentially harmful chemicals are present in the ground, and Toll Brothers would have never known about it because “the investigation they had done at the site was inadequate.” [more]

As threatened, Toll Brothers has walked away from its $5.75 million down payment on the Gowanus Canal site of a would-be 477-unit mixed-income housing development, because of the waterway’s recent designation as a Superfund site, the Brooklyn Paper reported. “It just didn’t financially make sense to close on the properties and then have to wait 15 to 20 years until we could develop them,” said Toll’s David Von Spreckelsen. Toll Brothers had been in contract to purchase three parcels on the banks of the Gowanus for $20.6 million since 2004, but fought hard against the federal government’s Superfund designation, vowing to abandon the project if it were to be delayed by an Environmental Protection Agency-led remediation, which is expected to cost $500 million. The city had also opposed the designation, arguing that it would discourage more than $400 million in private investment in the area, including the Toll Brothers plans. [Brooklyn Paper]

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Gowanus, the Brooklyn neighborhood long-derided for its toxically polluted Gowanus Canal, could sustain an extra 1,500 to 2,000 residential units, industry experts say, once the Environmental Protection Agency-mandated canal cleanup goes through, according to the Brooklyn Paper. Of course, this residential rebirth could take years and millions of dollars, with conservative estimates pegging the canal cleanup cost at $400 million. Insiders say the cleanup effort could take a decade or longer. [more]

It’s slow-going for remediation workers at the future site of a new Whole Foods supermarket in Gowanus, according to the Pardon Me for Asking blog. Although work to clear the site of toxic waste began only a few weeks ago, the site at 214 3rd Street has already been hit with two stop-work orders this month from the Department of Buildings, allegedly due to unsafe work conditions. The 2.15-acre plot, which sits near the recently-designated superfund site Gowanus Canal, is riddled with industrial waste, according to numerous environmental experts.

At left: The canal, a narrow 1.8-mile, tilde-shaped waterway, includes bits of neighborhoods like Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. At right: The EPA plan would curb runoff and remove the sludge in the Gowanus Canal.

From the April issue: Last month, Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal became one of the most polluted
places in the country, at least in the eyes of the federal
Environmental Protection Agency, which named it to the infamous
“Superfund” cleanup list.
While that environmental scarlet letter may not make for the most
compelling marketing gimmick — New York’s Love Canal, whose toxicity
led to the creation of the Superfund in 1980, is hardly prime real
estate today — Gowanus probably won’t see its property values dip,
according to many brokers, landlords and developers.
There are a couple of reasons for that counterintuitive assessment.
For one, the neighborhood around the canal, a narrow 1.8-mile,
tilde-shaped waterway, includes bits of established neighborhoods like
Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. What’s more, mopping up the mess from oil refineries, tanneries and
raw sewage, which have contaminated the Gowanus since it was dug in the
1860s, will likely mean better things to come. [more]

Robert Toll and a rendering of 205 Water Street

Toll Brothers’ planned residential tower on Dumbo’s Water Street cleared the first phase of the public review process when a Community Board 2 committee approved the project’s design in an 8-3 vote last night. Toll Brothers’ plans call for 67 market-rate apartments and 86 underground parking spaces. Current zoning in the district allows for up to 12-story buildings and does not have the 20 percent affordable housing requirement that other areas of Brooklyn have, so the steel and gray concrete project at 205 Water Street glided through the vote easily. “We loved the gritty nature of this industrial area, and that was our inspiration,” said Navid Maqami of Greenberg Farrow, which designed the project. Toll Brothers, which recently abandoned its long-planned Gowanus Canal development after it garnered a Superfund designation from the Environmental Protection Agency, will now need to win approval from the full community board before an April 6 vote by the Landmarks Commission. [Brooklyn Paper] [more]

The Environmental Protection Agency is on the hunt for responsible parties to pay for the $300 million to $500 million Gowanus Canal cleanup, after putting the site on its Superfund list last week. Already, nine responsible parties have been named, and 20 more — including Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Kraft and Citigroup — are being questioned about chemicals used on the site and how they were disposed of. “This reads like the Fortune 500,” said Superfund director Walter Mugdan. “It doesn’t mean that those companies had facilities on the Gowanus… they acquired somebody who acquired somebody who had a facility on the Gowanus.” Many of the companies that could be on the hook for the cleanup costs are typical Superfund offenders, Mugdan said. Other potentially responsible parties include Bayside Fuel Oil, BP America, Honeywell and ConocoPhillips and more are expected to get added to the list as those already named call out other polluters in order to spread out the costs. [NYDN]

The Environmental Protection Agency has named the Gowanus Canal a Superfund site, a move that places the polluted waterway among the agency’s top priorities and allows it access to federal funding. The designation is a hit to the Bloomberg administration’s agenda, according to the New York Times. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had raised concerns that a federal cleanup would raise legal problems between polluters and agency officials. Of concern, also, has been the negative connotation of a Superfund label – - city officials had complained that the Superfund status would put off potential area developers. The EPA’s most recent assessment puts the cleanup cost between $300 million and $500 million, and projects that the project could last upwards of a decade. [Pardon Me for Asking] and [NYT]

As the Environmental Protection Agency finalizes its Gowanus Canal Superfund decision, another polluted Brooklyn waterway could be made eligible for a federal cleanup. Newton Creek, a 3.8-mile rivulet in northern Brooklyn, near Greenpoint, has accumulated a tremendous amount of pollution due to its position near industrial neighborhoods, according to the EPA. While federal officials debated a possible Superfund designation for Newton Creek in April, EPA officials said that the fetid waterway is in dire need of immediate action. “By listing the creek, EPA can focus on doing the extensive sampling needed to figure out the best way to address the contamination and see the work through,” George Pavlou, the EPA’s acting regional administrator, said.

After saying last week that it had canceled plans to open a store on Third Avenue in Gowanus, Whole Foods now says it is “actively working on plans for a store at the Gowanus site,” the Brooklyn Paper reported. The project has been delayed for several years as a result of the recession and because pollutants were found at the site. The company made its announcement about abandoning the Gowanus project on the day the public comment period ended for a federal proposal to label the canal a toxic Superfund site. [more]