Gowanus dredging set for November

Barge-mounted excavators will start dredging the Gowanus Canal in mid-November, reports Brooklyn Paper.

“We are on schedule for mid-November start of dredging,” said the Environmental Protection Agency’s Christos Tsiamis at the September 22 Gowanus Canal Advisory Group meeting.

“We have made a lot of progress – we’re getting ready.”

The federally-supervised cleanup is split into three phases, starting with the scrub of the upper third from the canal head at Butler Street to the Third Street Bridge, which EPA anticipates lasting until July 2023 and costing $125 million.

EPA, NYSDEC and the New York State Department of Health will be overseeing the work, which includes plans for community health and safety monitoring. 

More than a dozen contaminants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and heavy metals, including mercury, lead and copper, are present at high levels in the Gowanus Canal sediment.

The cleanup plan for the Gowanus Canal Superfund site includes dredging to remove contaminated sediment from the bottom of the Canal, which has accumulated because of industrial and combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges.

Following dredging, construction of a multilayer cap in dredged areas will isolate and prevent migration of any remaining chemicals in the deep native sediments.