Questions, Concerns Raised Over Toxin Cleanup Plan at Seaport Site

Peck Slip Principal Maggie Siena, at a gathering outside her school, thanks activists "who are working tirelessly to make sure that this [cleanup] is happening in a way that makes our children safe." Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

UPDATE 10/5/21 Opponents were unsuccessful in their effort to extend the comment period until Oct. 15. In addition, a judge on Oct. 5 rejected the Seaport Coalition's suit against the Landmarks Preservation Commission's approval of the planned 250 Water Street project. 

A 480-page draft plan [1] for excavating and trucking away toxic debris from a planned construction site across the street from two elementary schools is adding more controversy to the proposed 345-foot tower in the South Street Seaport.

Community Board 1, parent activists and some political leaders are calling on the state agencies that oversee the cleanup to extend by about two weeks the Sept. 30 deadline for commenting on the highly technical and detailed plan for waste removal from the future Howard Hughes Corp. development site at 250 Water Street. 

“I could not make a more impassioned plea for that [extension],” said Lawra Dodge, president of Excel Environmental Resources [2] and CB1’s expert consultant on the plan for removing the toxic waste—especially mercury—from the former thermometer factory site, now a parking lot. “I think there are just so many moving parts to this document, to the work that’s being proposed.”

Dodge met with representatives from Langan [3], Howard Hughes Corp. consultant’s on the project, and state environmental and health officials, at a remote meeting this week of CB1’s Environmental Protection Committee.  

Opponents of the project have already sued the Landmarks Preservation Commission [4] in an effort to reverse its approval of the Howard Hughes Corp. project, and CB1 and others are fighting against the land use actions [5] required by the city to legalize the development. 

Toxic waste removal from the site has been a central concern of Children First [6], a group organized in response to the Howard Hughes project across the street from the Peck Slip School and Blue School. Earlier this month, they staged an event calling for the extension of the comment period on the plan, which Langan released for public review on June 25. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has set Sept. 30 as the end of the public comment period before it begins its own review as part of the state’s voluntary Brownfield Cleanup Program [7]. 

“Our children are coming back full time for the first time in 18 months and the DEC decided that the best time to draw up a draft remedial work plan was on the last day of the school year last year and to end the comment period at the end of summer before we could come together as a parent community to convene, to understand what is going on here,” said Grace Lee, co-founder of Children First and a Blue School parent.

“We send our children here every day, we make them wear a mask in school, we make them socially distant, we do everything we can to protect them” added Megan Malvern, the Peck Slip School PTA co-president and co-founder of Children First, “and Howard Hughes refuses to wait until we have a better handle on what’s happening to our children in our schools.”

The initial work will involve drilling test pits into the parking lot pavement, an operation that CB1 consultant Dodge said needs to be detailed more fully. The release of mercury vapor continues to be a worry, she said, especially now with the requirement for additional air circulation in the schools. 

“Under the current Covid guidelines the windows of both the Peck Slip School and the Blue School will in large part be open, where in other circumstances that might not have been the case,” Dodge said. “It raises the level of concern higher, maybe, than it was before.”

Heidi Dudek, who oversees the toxic cleanup for the DEC, said she “will bring your comments back,” but noted that the agency had already extended the deadline twice.

“We are trying to make sure that everything that’s being done out on the site is protective of human health and the environment,” she said, adding that there will be a “very robust air monitoring plan to ensure that there are no risks to the general public.”

A Howard Hughes Corp. spokesman referred questions about the comment period deadline to the DEC. In a statement, the spokesman said the developer is “committed to the safe and thorough cleanup of the 250 Water Street site, which will occur under the oversights of the New York State departments of Environmental Conservation and Health. Throughout that process, we will work closely with the Peck Slip and Blue schools to minimize any impact to operations to ensure a safe learning envirnoment.”

When it comes to her students’ safety, Peck Slip School Principal Maggie Siena said it’s all she can do to maintain the strict Covid protocols in her school. Speaking to the crowd at the Children First event, she said, “We need your help to make sure we don’t have to worry about the safety issue across the street.”