Gowanus Cleanup Threatens Nearby Swimming Pool
A popular City pool that has already been saved once from city budget cuts is now threatened with closure by the pending cleanup of the Gowanus Canal, DNAinfo reported. The pool at the Thomas Greene Playground, nicknamed the Double D for its location on Nevins and 3rd Avenue between Degraw and Douglass, sits where the…
A popular City pool that has already been saved once from city budget cuts is now threatened with closure by the pending cleanup of the Gowanus Canal, DNAinfo reported. The pool at the Thomas Greene Playground, nicknamed the Double D for its location on Nevins and 3rd Avenue between Degraw and Douglass, sits where the EPA plans to build an underground sewage storage tank. The tank will house raw sewage runoff from the canal during rain storms. Nearby residents have started an online petition protesting the closure.
Locals Rally to Save Swimming Pool Threatened by Canal Cleanup [DNAinfo]
Photo by Brooklyn Paper
Some reporter should do a story of the scandal of the Admin Committee of the Community Advisory Group, CAG, for the cleanup.
A cobble hill junta has taken over and has shut down the CAG’s outreach function. And has most recently blocked admission to the CAG of new members from Gowanus community groups.
The CAG now cannot function at all. And that suits the cobble hill homeowners faction just fine. They now effectively control each committee of the CAG, and have obstructed nearly every effort to inform the public and to solicit input before the april 27 deadline.
Why not do a story on this cabal and what they have done to red hook and gowanus voices? Its pretty juicy stuff. and the public should know who is shutting them out.
I was on the CAG but left for some of these reasons. I feel that anyone who has an interest and is willing to attend meetings should be able to serve on the CAG. However, the CAG has made it a distateful and almost impossible application process for people to join especially the working. It is operating more akin to a community board. I don’t know about any Cobble Hill junta but the outreach to Red Hook, Wycoff Gardens, and the Gowanus Houses has been lacking. I am not sure how well informed residents east of the canal are either.
This is great! The canal needs to be cleaned up. The city needs to fix the sewage dumping problem. The gas company has to get to work cleaning its polution under the park and pool.
Signing the petition supports the canal chemical and sewage cleanup, and tells the EPA to make the polluters, not the families who use the pool, pay.
The pool really should be rebuilt a few blocks away. That way the families who use it can have uninterrupted use. Otherwise, if they close it for several years, that’s an unfair burden on the kids. After all, the kids are not the polluters, and they are not the deadbead city, state and gas company, who are responsible for the pollution and its clean-up. City, state and Natty Grid have been awful in their attempts to avoid cleaning up the poison in the ground and in the canal.
The EPA should really take the entire clean-up over, and force the city, state, and gas monopoly to give the EPA the money for the clean-up.
That money should include funds to buy a new piece of land a few blocks away for a new pool that is not on highly poisined ground.
The gas monopoly made a fortune from poisoning the ground. They can pay back some of that to the community, the greedy so-and-so’s.
Residents could really use some clarification about the pool. So many rumors floating around the neighborhood. I have heard everything from the pool will be closed for a season or two and reopened to the city and state will use this issue to remove the EPA from the clean up process.
Yes. Sorry. The reply was not about you. It just got put in the wrong place. I know you left because of the cabal. I have never been on the Cag myself. But they will not let me on with their new rules so I will never go through the b.s. they put you through.
Just want to point out that on some devices the comments on this page are in a jumbled order. Some of my replies to specific comments are now following completely different comments. So the replies make no sense or worse.
Cag’s admin committee has shut down the website, blocked men era from outside of cobble hill, been obsessed with blocking the only hurricane proof housing development on the table, and effective sly shut down the cag’s outreach. There are many people who know this, but the story of their attempts to hijack this half billion dollar EPA project are over the top. This is the story that must be told. They are the ones who will drive out the EPA by their reckless and autocratic tactics.
This is the big money story that should be front page news. It does not have to be this way. Democracy can work if we can get these dangerous controlling fools out of the way.
I’m not a member of any cabal. I resigned awhile ago but did contact the EPA about my concerns. I think things might not get done because of the Charter. For awhile general and committee meeting reports were being posted to the EPA Gowanus website but this stopped. I’m not sure if they resumed doing this but I received no response when I asked.
Aha! A member of the cabal!
This is their usual song and dance. But where is the CAG web site?
childhood, unlike a car, only lasts a few years. this is a misleading analogy. the kids deserve to have a working pool each and every summer. how can you be so cold hearted? get behind a plan for a replacement pool. and if you drive, consider using pulic transportation. its better for everyone.
a few people from one neighborhood have dominated the clean-up debate. these people only care about themselves, and not about the people in red hook and gowanus. these people are generally property owners, and not renters.
i urge you to have a heart ant to push for a clean-up that takes others into consideration.
the CAG’s outreach has bee sabotaged repeatedly to the point where its website is not even up yet. the saboteurs do not want non cobble hill people to have a say. this is pretty evil, if you ask most people in the hook or the uplands. but a few nasty women are shutting everybody out.
if its not true, then make the website public, stop shutting out new members from gowanus ( i am talking to you, admin committee dictators) and do some actual outreach.
comments like this one are unproductive and elitist.