SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Community Board 15 helped clear the way for a new storage facility on Knapp Street, voting in support of a waiver to existing zoning restrictions at their meeting last Tuesday despite objections from community groups.

The proposed location. Click to enlarge. (Source: Google Maps)

Metro Storage NY came before the Board in a process to repeal a “restrictive declaration” on the property at 2713-2735 Knapp Street, a wedge of land that juts into Plumb Beach Channel at Voorhies Avenue. The 28-year-old declaration prohibits any use other than a retail and marina development, a clause that has caused the land to stay desolate since the original plans fell through years ago.

“It’s derelict. What do I see here? I see some trucks, I see some cars,” said Metro Storage’s attorney, Howard Goldman, before the Board.

Goldman said the restrictive declaration and the lot’s proximity to the Coney Island Wastewater Treatment Plant means that few plans can get through the process to make use of the property. In 1996, an application was submitted for a two-story retail development was squashed, and, in 2005, a plan for a residential development was opposed by the Department of Environmental Protection.

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The FDNY’s Marine 3 headquarters in 2009. (Source: Vlad Iorsh/Flickr)

The fire eaters of the FDNY’s local marine unit will have to rebuild their summer headquarters – or find themselves homeless, thanks to Superstorm Sandy.

The Marine 3 summer vessel. (Source: FDNY)

The unit – FDNY Marine 3 – operates a summer base at the tip of Kingsborough Community College (2001 Oriental Boulevard) in Manhattan Beach. When the waters whipped through the campus, it ravaged the unit’s four-year-old quarters, rendering them useless.

“Marine 3′s quarters sustained damage from flood waters,” confirmed an FDNY spokesperson.

It wasn’t alone. Several firehouses were damaged and many have not reopened since the storm. All are in the process of being repaired, and trucks have been stationed throughout the affected communities to provide quick response.

Marine 3′s headquarters will also be rebuilt, the spokesperson said, although he was unable to provide a timetable or estimated cost for the repairs.

In the meantime, local mariners need not worry. Marine 3′s vessel – used only during the summer, when boating and other water sports are at their peak – was pulled out of the area ahead of the storm, and was unharmed. When summer rolls around, it will again be stationed at Kingsborough, whether the headquarters are rebuilt or not.

“There is no impact to fire protection or fire service in that area,” the spokesperson said.

The Marine 3 headquarters opened in September 2008, featuring 24-hour security, a new kitchen and bathroom, and a state-of-the-art floating concrete dock. The location also became a training center for members of the Fire Department’s Marine Division, which was given access to Kingsborough Community Colleges’ Maritime Technology Program, a high-tech sailing simulator that puts students at the helm of various vessels to prepare them for careers on the water. It helped grow the city’s small vessel program, which FDNY brass lauded as allowing them to provide faster, more efficient responses to water-related emergencies.

YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Local mariners have something to be happy about this New Year: the Department of Environmental Protection reversed course on plans to destroy a 78-year-old navigational aid between Manhattan Beach and Breezy Point that mariners say makes them safer and shows them the way home when gizmos can’t.

According to documents released under a Freedom of Information Law request filed by Sheepshead Bites, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection decided to leave a wastewater diffuser pipe that locals affectionately refer to as the “roundhouse” after sailors and other mariners objected to its removal.

“Comments received questioned whether it would be more advantageous to leave the existing outlet chamber in place,” DEP reps wrote to partnering agencies in a September 2012 letter. “If kept, it could serve as an underwater fish habitat and provide opportunity for sea birds to perch.”

It wasn’t just the environmentalists that the DEP sought to please; the agency determined the now defunct roundhouse served a crucial purpose for navigation, and as a marker for underwater infrastructure that could damage vessels.

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Ah, the simple pleasure of fishing. It’s a peaceful hobby that requires skill and patience. Not everyone is blessed with the skills needed to fish, and even more people aren’t blessed with the time… or the boat for that matter. Lucky for us, these boys in the video above hopped in their party boat, left Sheepshead Bay, set up a time-lapse camera and fished their way to internet fishing glory. Check it out.

According to a release by the New York Times, the city environmental officials lifted an advisory on recreational water activity issued last month after Superstorm Sandy. The environmental advisory applied to the East River, Hudson River, New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay and the Kill Van Krull.

The advisory was put into effect after power outages caused wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations to discharge untreated wastewater in New York City waterways.

The recreational advisory urged against activities such as swimming, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing or any other water activity that would entail possible direct contact with the water.

In related news, the Gateway National Recreational Area announced that it reopened both the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and Great Kills Park, however Floyd Bennett Field is still closed.

None of those advisories stopped the local Brighton Beach resident featured above from testing out the cold waters of Brighton Beach by going for a risky swim six days before the advisory was lifted.

Aside from the destruction of Emmons Avenue’s waterfront bungalows, Hurricane Sandy also left disaster and devastation at Sheepshead Bay’s boating clubs.

The worst hit was the Sheepshead Bay Yacht Club (3076 Emmons Avenue), where boats, moorings and marinas all swept in from the ocean approximately 80 feet to the yacht clubs’s back porch, as you can see above.

Keep reading, and view more photos.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has issued the following advisory:

Due to flooding and power related shutdowns caused by Hurricane Sandy, wastewater treatment plants and pumping stations have discharged untreated wastewater into New York City waterways. The New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene advises that direct contact with the Hudson River, East River, New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay and the Kill Van Kull for recreational activities such as swimming, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing or any other water activity that would entail possible direct contact with the water should be avoided until further notice.

The Department of Environmental Protection is responding to the impacts caused by Hurricane Sandy on its waste water treatment facilities and will monitor water quality conditions through testing to verify when these water bodies are safe for recreational uses.

Source: Geoffrey Croft via awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com

The following is a press release issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation:

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and state Department of Health have lifted the boating advisory in Paerdegat Basin in Brooklyn that was in place since the oil spill that led to discharges into the Basin while National Grid was plugging a decommissioned underground gas pipeline.

The agencies continue to advise the public to avoid eating any fish or crabs from Paerdegat Basin in Brooklyn and 200 yards from the mouth of Paerdegat Basin in a small portion of Jamaica Bay as a precaution until further notice. The public is also reminded that all New York City waters are closed to shellfishing (harvest of clams, mussels, oysters or scallops).

An environmental investigation is underway to determine if there is residual contamination in the Basin. To date, National Grid has performed preliminary testing of the Basin’s surface water, and sampling data indicates there are no PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in the water. DEC will verify the data in the coming weeks.

As part of the clean-up efforts, National Grid conducted an initial cleaning of boats impacted by the spill. DEC is currently evaluating the results of that cleaning to determine what further actions are needed to assure the vessels meet criteria for decontamination. National Grid also flushed the storm sewer line, cleaned the street and removed spilled condensate from the manhole.

National Grid will submit a draft workplan next week to DEC outlining a schedule for sampling basin sediments, biota and upland soil. Once DEC approves the plan, the company will be responsible for collecting and analyzing necessary samples. The results of the sampling performed under the workplan will determine whether any additional remediation is required. A timeline will be included in the workplan.

DEC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are currently reviewing a plan by National Grid to clean out the remainder of the pipe that was not filled with concrete when the incident occurred.

Source: Geoffrey Croft via awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com

When we first broke the story about the Paerdegat Basin oil spill, in which an estimated 800 to 1,400 gallons of natural gas condensate, compressor oil and turbine oil poured into the waters near Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, info was scarce. Representatives of the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Environmental Conservation told us the spill had happened while an old pipe was being capped, but how the oil got into the water remained unclear. The company responsible for the spill, National Grid, did not respond to requests for comment.

National Grid has now weighed in, issuing a press release late last week that indicated the spill actually happened on land. Firefighters responding to complaints of a smell of natural gas in the neighborhood, created by the release of mercaptan, an additive that gives the gas its odor, arrived at the scene and flushed the oil and residue from the ground and into storm drains, which flowed into Paerdegat Basin.

Keep reading and see how what National Grid had to say.

Source: Geoffrey Croft via awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com

National Grid is expected to wrap up decontamination operations of last week’s gas and oil spill by the end of this weekend, while authorities note that the problem may be worse than originally expected.

A test of the oil that gushed from an old National Grid pipe found a PCB level of 10,000 ppm, 200 times the acceptable level and high enough to be deemed hazardous waste, a Department of Environmental Conservation bulletin notes. The sample was taken directly from the oil and not from areas where it has mixed with Jamaica Bay’s protected waters, where the concentration would have been diluted.

PCBs are a cancer-causing toxin.

The unusually high PCB level is due to the fact that the defunct pipe held old oil and gas from a different regulatory era, not the cleaner compounds circulating in National Grid’s active pipes.

Samples have not yet been tested from Paerdegat Basin – the site of the spill – itself, but the state Department of Health will review data on contaminant levels in the water and sediment to determine long-term effects on fish and wildlife. The DEC will conduct an investigation once cleanup is completed.

National Grid is also working with DEC and the Coast Guard to clean any boats and structures that have been contaminated by the spill.

The company led a tour of the area for local politicians including City Councilman Lew Fidler, who is skeptical of the company’s evaluation of the damage.

“You never take the word of the person who did it for how bad (it is),” Fidler told the Daily News. “I know it’s not on the level of the Exxon-Mobil spill, but if it’s in your neighborhood it sure feels like it.”

The spill was reported to authorities at 1:30 a.m. on September 28. National Grid was capping the unused pipe by injecting it with a cement slurry, but something went wrong and between 800 and 1,400 gallons of natural gas condensate, compressor oil and turbine oil poured into Paerdegat Basin, part of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge.

National Grid and the Williams Company are currently seeking the government’s permission to build a natural gas pipeline underneath Jamaica Bay, with a metering station in Floyd Bennett Field’s hangars. The proposal has already received the green light from federal legislators and is currently under review by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

However, environmentalists say National Grid and Williams both have a history of accidents like this and the plan should be blocked in favor of protecting the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, a national park.

The DEC and Coast Guard are advising the public to avoid recreational boating and fishing near Paerdegat Basin. They also say to avoid consuming fish and shellfish from the area’s waters.