Gowanus Residents Want More Info on Canal Cleanup Plan

• Pictured: Eastern Effects studio on Nevins Street. Image via Google Maps

GOWANUS, BROOKLYN — Gowanus community members want the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to share more information on its plans for a lot currently occupied by the Eastern Effects movie studio.

The city is working with the federal government to develop a cleanup plan for the Gowanus Canal, a stretch of water long fouled by industrial waste and raw sewage.

Part of that effort involves building a retention tank that can temporarily hold sewage during storms, preventing it from being poured untreated into the waterway.

The city wants to build the tank at the northernmost tip of the canal. To facilite that, it is considering using a plot of land at 270 Nevinst St. as a staging area for trucks and workers.

That site, however, is the current home of Eastern Effects, a film studio responsible for more than 200 union jobs, according to owner Scott Levy.

At a Tuesday night meeting of the Community Board 6 executive committee, Eric Landau, a top communications staffer at the DEP, explained why the city believes the Eastern Effects site is the best option for all involved.

Among the reasons: it would help contain dirt from the work, and would prove less disruptive to area traffic than other plans.

However, Landau stressed that the conversation is ongoing and no decision has been made.

(Unsurprisingly, Levy is pushing the city to consider an alternative plan.)

On Wednesday night, the full community board expressed concern that the city's plan could cost the area valuable jobs.

Chair Sayar Lonial then introduced a resolution, passed unanimously, calling on the DEP to "reexamine its criteria and process for the selection of a staging area and present its findings together with the underlying rationales for any site selection prior to moving forward with the seizure or purchase of a selected site."

As an example of the information the resolution is designed to elicit, Lonial said he's yet to see a city traffic study showing exactly what impact various work approaches would have on local traffic.

Landau said earlier this week that the DEP has several years to nail down a plan, hopefully providing the time needed for community members to get the answers they want.