Development of 250 Water Street Site Begins, and Worries Abound

Rasmus Bille, father of a 3rd grader at the Peck Slip School, was among the parents and other activists who rallied outside the school on May 26 to demand better safeguards against noise and toxins from the 250 Water Street development site. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Activists have long warned that excessive noise and toxic air and dust from construction at 250 Water Street would be a threat to the community, especially to children at two nearby schools. Now they say they’re being proven right. 

In early May, excavation and pile driving commenced at the construction site of Howard Hughes Corp.’s controversial  345-foot residential tower [1], which will rise across the street from the Peck Slip School and Blue School. On May 26, at a rally outside the site on Peck Slip, parents and other activists long opposed to the project insisted that they are still waiting for effective measures to prevent disruptive noise and potentially toxic dust and air. Some, including City Councilman Christopher Marte, are calling for the site to be tented.

“These are demands that our parents and the community have been talking about for a long time, but the danger is now and here,” said Emily Hellstrom, co-founder of the advocacy group Children First.

Nineteenth-century thermometer factories occupied the full-block site where mercury-tainted soil is now being dug up and trucked off as part of a Brownfield Cleanup program [2] to safely dispose of the toxic debris. But during excavation on May 11, on a portion of the site not considered a “hot spot” for toxic soil, monitor readings for mercury vapor approached the level that, according to safety protocols, would trigger the work to stop. “This is something that needs to be looked at hard before you move over to the mercury hot spot area,” Lawra Dodge, the independent community monitor on the project, told Community Board 1’s Environmental Protection Committee at its May 16 meeting [3]. Excavation of those areas are expected to begin after the school year ends.

On May 21, there were spikes in the measurements of mercury vapor that exceeded allowable limits, causing workers to spray the area with a vapor suppressant, according to a daily report issued by Langan, the contractor on the job. On some other days, higher than acceptable mercury vapor and dust readings also occured. The contractor in its reports attributed those readings to faulty equipment or external environmental factors. (The “action” level, when work must stop, is based on 15-minute averages, not on individual spikes in monitor readings.)

Maggie Dallal, a former high school science teacher who has been closely monitoring and graphing the data said she blames the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the agency overseeing the cleanup’s safety, for poor oversight.

“They’re a state agency watchdog and they’re not doing their job,” Dallal said. “They need to have people on site. And they need to be paying attention.”

A DEC spokesman did not respond to emailed questions about the agency’s oversight of the project.

Dallal and her husband had a 3-year-old at the Blue School and a kindergartner at the Peck Slip School when discussions about toxic soil remediation for the site began several years ago. That’s when they decided to move to Battery Park City, where their children now attend PS 276.

“I saw the writing on the wall,” Dallal said. “I said I have no faith in anybody and I’m leaving because I’m not going to pull my kids out in first and third grade when they’re established in the school.”

At CB1’s Environmental Protection Committee last month, Peck Slip School Principal Maggie Siena said that noise from pile driving on a recent afternoon “was loud enough to significantly disrupt” a teacher who was trying to read to her students. In addition, the floor was shaking.

“That makes me nervous,” Siena said. “I don’t have to tell you it’s been a rough couple of years.”

Siena, a former PS 234 teacher, recalled that in 2005 a deal over noise mitigation from pile driving had been struck between the then City Councilman Alan Gerson and the developer of a planned residential building, the future home of Whole Foods, opposite PS 234. Following months of negotiations, Edward Minskoff, the developer, agreed to quieter pile driving methods and fewer piles. In addition, a sound-dampening plywood wall was built to cover the school building’s entire south facade. (Minskoff, who needed City Council approval to buy the city-owned lot, originally rejected fears that pile driving would affect the students during test taking. Citing the school’s stellar reputation, he once told the Trib, “If those kids had clowns dancing outside the room they would do well.”)

“I haven’t heard anything from Howard Hughes or anyone saying that anything is being done to mitigate the noise of the pile driving,” Siena said.

In an email statement, a Howard Hughes spokesman said: “We continue to implement appropriate mitigation measures at the site, which NYC [Department of Environmental Protection] has inspected and found compliant with all relevant rules and regulations. And work is being conducted in accordance with the approved Remedial Action Work Plan that state DEC and DOH deem protective of public health and the environment.” The spokesman said noise mitigation measures such as the erection of a noise absorbing fence, rerouting of trucks via Pearl Street and quieter construction methods when possible have been implemented.

A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection, the city’s noise regulating agency, said in an email that DEP inspectors have responded to several noise complaints and “all noise readings taken to date have been in compliance with the law.” In order to take continuous 24/7 sound readings, the agency needs permission to install sound recording equipment on a building, the spokesman said, “but no residents have agreed to host the recording device as of yet.” As a result of talks between DEP and the contractor over noise concerns, the spokesman said, the developer is putting off work until the end of the school year this month and has “modified” work schedules to accommodate end-of-year exams, he said. He did not specify the types of work being affected. 

At the rally, Colleen Robertson, a Peck Slip School parent and part-time teacher at the Blue School, had just begun to speak about the impact of noise on the two schools when, as if on cue, what easily could be mistaken for a bomb blast shook the ground. A truck at the site had dropped a dumpster onto the asphalt lot.

“That’s what we’re talking about,” someone said.

The $850 million Howard Hughes Corp. project includes 270 rental units, 70 of which will be below market rate. A five-story base is slated to house office, retail and community space.

Lawra Dodge, the independent community monitor on the project, is scheduled to give an update on the site cleanup at the June 16 meeting of Community Board 1’s Environmental Protection Committee. The meeting, which begins at 6 p.m., can be viewed remotely here [4].

Note: A statement from the Howard Hughes Corp., which had not been received at the time of this story’s original posting, has been added.