Gowanus Canal Sponge Park

Gowanus Canal Sponge Park is the Conservancy’s model for a linear park, 40 feet wide, on both banks of the 1.8 mile long Gowanus Canal.  This vision, to be realized over many years, would not only provide an important regional landscape for public access and recreation, but would also capture and clean the surface runoff that drains into the canal.  This water would be collected in retention basins and other planted areas, and the captured water would be cleaned by plants that naturally absorb toxins out of water.  Preliminary designs were completed under a 2008 NYSCA grant by distinguished landscape architect Susannah Drake of dlandstudio.

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Superfund Community Advocacy

On April 8, 2009, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominated the Gowanus Canal as a possible addition to the Superfund’s National Priorities List (NPL), a list of hazardous waste sites that pose or may pose in the future a risk to human health and/or the environment. Once added to the list, the EPA has powerful legal tools they can use to force polluters and their successors to pay for clean up and has Federal funds that can be tapped into to cover the balance.  The City opposes the NPL listing and has developed an alternative that they feel will reach the same goal.

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School Program:“Discover the Canal…Discover the City”

Launched in Nov. 2008, we piloted this program with three local 1^st grade classes and aim to serve additional 1^st grade classes from additional schools in the Gowanus Basin.  In their classrooms and in canal-side field trips, the children learn how water flows through their neighborhood and how the Gowanus Canal serves their urban environment.  The chair of this program is Conservancy Vice-Chair John C. Muir and coursework is being developed and instructed by an experienced early childhood/science educator formerly of Center for the Urban Environment and P.S. 107, Eileen Blank. This program is funded in part by a grant from Con Edison.

Brownfield Clean Up

The Conservancy has an advisory role on the Steering Committee for a 2009 NYS Brownfields Opportunity Area grant (“BOA”) which will study and identify 4 – 5 sites of contaminated land around the Gowanus Canal suitable for cleanup and redevelopment.  We are currently engaged in helping execute the contract on this grant so investigatory work can begin.

Volunteer Program:Clean & Green

This monthly volunteer program (April – October) organizes community members to pick up trash and debris, and to weed and plant in the debris-filled street ends along the Gowanus Canal.  The program is offered in collaboration with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, the GreenStreets program, and the NYC Department of Sanitation.  Co-chairs of this program are Conservancy Board members Brett Wallace (LEED AP, Certified Arborist, Landscape Designer) and Katie Osborn. If you are interested, please email us to register.

Community Outreach and Advocacy

The Conservancy meets regularly with environmental agencies, elected officials, and local residents to make sure that accurate information needed to inform decision-making is shared and current.  In 2009, we produced the Gowanus Basin Neighborhoods Environmental Priorities Summit where representatives of over 30 local organizations identified and ranked the environmental concerns of the community, and presented the community’s concerns in a report to local elected officials.  The Conservancy was invited to participate in a harbor tour teach-in as part of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance’s 2009 City of Water Day where we spoke with interested people about the environmental problems affecting the canal and possible solutions.