In the two years since a 45-acre chunk of North Brooklyn was declared a Superfund site, EPA inspectors have been knocking on doors in Greenpoint and East Williamsburg. Their goal is to determine whether in the 1,000 properties built over the Meeker Avenue Plume, a pretty massive pollution site that may be spewing poisonous vapors into the basements and ground-level units of those buildings.
Seems simple and reasonable enough, right? And yet, according to Gothamist, the inspectors have only been able to test about 200 of the buildings on the site, and landlords of the remaining properties aren’t exactly lining up to open their doors for air testing. Inspectors are looking for traces of chlorinated volatile organic compounds or CVOCs—including PCE and TCE—which can turn into a toxic vapor and enter through cracks in the floor and walls of a building. Sustained exposure to those chemicals is associated with damage to the kidneys and liver, as well as an increased risk of cancer.
“ I’ve been incredibly disappointed by the lack of buildings in our community that have had testing completed by the EPA,” said Lincoln Restler, a city council member representing those neighborhoods. “The Meeker Avenue Plume is really dangerous. There is a plume in the Eastern Greenpoint, East Williamsburg area that can get into people’s homes and businesses and cause very significant health issues,” Restler added.
The Meeker Avenue Plume became the latest Brooklyn Superfund site in 2022. However, pollutants were initially discovered in 2005 during Exxon and the NY State Department of Transportation’s ongoing clean-up of a 1978 oil spill, which dumped between 17 and 30 million gallons of oil into Newtown Creek. Prior to that, the Creek had been a dumping site for all sorts of industrial chemicals from nearby factories and dry cleaning operations dating back almost a century.
Inspectors hope to identify where the air pollutants are turning up so they can offer a free ventilation system to those units and ensure the safety of residents. But that would require actually letting them in. At the time of publishing, the EPA claimed it would be attempting to inspect 20 more properties this week.
All property owners can request tests directly from the EPA or their community advisory group. A local advisory group is holding a meeting at St. Nick’s Alliance in Greenpoint at 6 p.m. on April 9, where they’ll share the latest information on testing in the neighborhood.
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