Mercury Clean-Up Near Manhattan School Leaves Parents Worried

SEAPORT DISTRICT, NY — A developer's plan to clean up mercury and petroleum near a Lower Manhattan school drew dozens of neighbors to a community meeting at Pier 17 Monday night.

Howard Hughes Corporation is in the middle of applying for a state program known as the Brownfield Cleanup Program after mercury from a historic thermometer factory was found in the soil, along with petroleum and an underground gas tank.

The property, at 250 Water St. is right across from an Peck Slip elementary school that uses a cobblestone street between the properties as a play area — are parents are concerned for their kids' safety.

At other clean-ups near schools, "nobody played on the street where the remediation of elemental mercury is," said Megan Malvern, co-president of the school's parent-teacher association. "We literally abut it."

Some parents have raised concerns that the state, which oversees Brownfield clean-ups, lacks the experience to deal with the mercury.

Other meeting attendees called for third-party testing and review — though there are no formal commitments as of yet.

Historical records detailing additional thermometer making sites of Italian artisanal manufacturer Giuseppe Tagliabue were also unveiled at Monday's meeting — details discovered by parents who dug through records and alerted Howard Hughes to their findings.

The additional historical sites sparked more concerns that exact mercury levels at the site remain to be seen.

Howard Hughes Corporation reps acknowledged the site is unique, but noted that in the city alone, 129 Brownfield clean-ups have been completed and 340 are in progress.

"This site is very unique," said Mimi Raygorodetsky of Langan Engineering, the developer's consultant for the clean-up. "There are very few schools in New York that take over a street and sidewalk that adjoins a construction site."

"That is not to say that mitigation, not only monitoring, but mitigation measures can be put in place to make a clean-up safe and protected for humans and children that abut the site," she said.

Mercury clean-ups have been conducted near a school at Hoboken and Hudson Yards, the latter where mercury levels six times that of the highest concentration at 250 Water St.

Howard Hughes Corporation, which bought the property last summer, and the Langan firm will work with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Health to work out clean-up details.

Further investigation will be completed this year if Howard Hughes is accepted into the program.

A timeline remains to be seen, but remediation could happen in "2020 and beyond," according to Raygorodetsky.

Parents have formed a new group called Children First to demand more rigorous testing and a guarantee that future development at 250 Water St. — another flashpoint for some neighbors — won't be taller than the Seaport historic district's 120-foot limit.

Community Board 1, which had several members in the crowd, is expected to vote on a resolution to ask Howard Hughes to detail its plans at 250 Water St. before proceeding with remediation under the Brownfield program Tuesday night.

Saul Scherl, the company's executive vice-president said the height of a future development is unrelated to the clean-up.

“Ten-story building or a 100-story building, I still need to know what’s in the soil," Scherl said.