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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now we're going to wrap up this series for Earth Week that we've been doing on the show this week by previewing a special Earth Day broadcast coming up on today's All Things Considered, which will be live from WNYC Transmitter Park in Greenpoint starting at four o'clock. Yes, if you didn't know, there's a public park in Greenpoint named for the original home of this station's transmitter back when it was owned by the city, back when we actually were government-affiliated media, Elon Musk, that's another show, but we will still take a special interest in the park that bears our name going forward and the surrounding neighborhood.

The reason we'll be broadcasting from there for Earth Day is that Greenpoint is home to a lot of new development and a lot of old pollution. We'll learn more now as we are joined by WNYC's host of ATC as we refer to All Things Considered by its initials around here, none other than our own Sean Carlson, and environmental reporter, Nathan Kensinger, who's contributing to our reporting on this. Hi, Sean and welcome to the show, Nathan.

Sean Carlson: Hey, Brian.

Nathan Kensinger: Thanks so much for having us.

Sean Carlson: Happy Earth Day eve to you.

Brian Lehrer: Earth Day eve. Eid and Earth Day eve. Alternate side of the street parking is suspended not for Earth Day, but it is for the Eid. We'll talk about Eid later in the show, by the way, listeners who are interested in that, and you'll be on site in the park. Sean, briefly tell us more about why. Why Greenpoint on Earth Day?

Sean Carlson: As you were just saying, Greenpoint, for anybody who's familiar with the neighborhood, has a long history of industrial use. We're talking the first kerosene factory, at least in North America, maybe the world, was along the creek there. Nathan can probably fact check me there. At the same time, there's still a lot of pollution along the creek, especially as you get deeper into the creek. Near the mouth there's a lot of new development. Again, Nathan's reporting talks about this legacy of rezoning over the years.

Again, it's Earth Day. We want to use it as a time of reflection, education. We're going to celebrate a little bit as well, but also say, "Hey, there are some pretty serious environmental issues that are still ongoing in our area." At the same time, there's also a long history of activism in that part of Brooklyn, so we're going to talk to some of those activists. Again, we thought what better place to have an Earth Day show where we can bring the community together to talk about those issues.

Brian Lehrer: Cool. Listeners, especially if you live in Greenpoint, give us your take on the challenge of living in what was once an industrial zone, or if that also describes a different neighborhood you might live in, Williamsburg, Gowanus, even places not in Brooklyn, we want to hear from you and invite you to call in, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Nathan, in the story that was published on Gothamist yesterday as part of this project, you quote an environmentalist referring to Greenpoint's "layer cake of environmental pollution." What a vivid image. What kinds of pollution are found on the ground in Greenpoint?

Nathan Kensinger: That was from New York City Assembly Member Emily Gallagher who represents the neighborhood. She described it as this layer cake of pollution because it really has just so many different sources of pollution. Currently, it has two federal Superfund sites, the Newtown Creek and the Meeker Avenue Plume. It also has the Greenpoint oil spill, which is the nation's largest urban oil spill, and just a whole slew of other state Superfund sites and brownfields. The neighborhood is contaminated below ground in its water and even in the air from truck traffic and from the BQE that cuts through the neighborhood. It's facing a lot of really serious environmental issues because of that.

Brian Lehrer: The history of Greenpoint that left this pollution in its wake. Now we have apartment buildings, are taking the place of heavy industry. It was rezoned along with Williamsburg under Mayor Bloomberg, right, Nathan?

Nathan Kensinger: It was, yes. In 2005, there was a massive rezoning in Greenpoint and Williamsburg that covered a huge swath of both neighborhoods. The idea there was to allow for the cleanup of some of these sites, and in exchange, to have them be developed to become residential areas. The industrial waterfront of Greenpoint was part of this, and the idea was that developers would come in and have to remediate the site in order to build a new tower on top of it for some of the people moving to the neighborhood.

Brian Lehrer: As the remediation is happening, as people are moving in, I guess in a way the central question, Nathan, is as heavy industry moves out of cities generally, and Greenpoint as an example, can that land be safely converted to residential use?

Nathan Kensinger: There's certainly been a lot of cleanups that have happened over the last few years since the rezoning took place, but they're pretty serious problems. It's really going in and taking out a century of toxic chemicals or oil that's buried underground. Then some of these larger issues still remain that are surrounding these development sites, the Superfund sites, that are even larger than just one footprint of a tower. There's a lot of work to be done to remediate these areas, and it's going to be an ongoing cleanup around Greenpoint for really decades to come.

Brian Lehrer: Greenpoint listeners, again, you are invited. How do you live with your neighbor's toxic residue, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, your neighbor's various kinds of toxic residue, the layer cake layers of toxic residue, as that member of the state legislature described it to Nathan for his Gothamist article, 212-433-9692. Do you have to do anything special? Did your real estate broker have remediation papers when they were trying to sell you your apartment if you're an owner there? 212-433-9692, or anything related. Sean, tell us a little bit about what we can expect to hear later today on ATC. What are you going to do live from Greenpoint around this?

Sean Carlson: Well, to start, one of the things I'm really excited about, as you've mentioned, the park is named after the old transmitter site. WNYC has a great archivist, so he's been able to find a lot of really gray tape over the years about the site, both when it was opened, and then throughout the years. That's going to be really fun. WNYC's community partnerships desk went out and talked to folks who live in Greenpoint to talk about their concerns around the environment. We should say Nathan's going to be there, so if folks want to talk to Nathan about his reporting, he will be on the show. Again, we'll be there in person.

We'll talk to activists who are going to come along as well. Current city council member Lincoln Restler is going to come. He'll talk to us for a couple of minutes. The celebration part that I was talking about, we'll have an eco rapper. She's pretty cool. Hila Perry is going to be there. She may or may not be in a globe costume, so folks want to come to the park and see that, we might drop a beat as well for Hila to show us what she's got. Then also, I should say too, we did this about a week ago or two weeks ago, I literally got into Newtown Creek like Nathan was talking about, to go along the creek and see the legacy of all that industrial use and then the ongoing industrial use.

Brian Lehrer: In a boat, we should say. [crosstalk] You didn't go swimming in the Newtown Creek.

Sean Carlson: No, I did not. I did ask, just out of curiosity, "What if I do fall in this water right now?" Obviously it's not advised, mostly because the sewage, there's huge sewage outfalls that still go into the creek. The city has plans to remediate some of that and reduce some of that, but still, we're talking millions of tons of sewage every year into that creek, not a place where you want to get the water into your mouth, obviously.

Brian Lehrer: Editorial comment from my producer, longtime Brooklynite who writes, "God, please. No one should swim in there." Evan in Greenpoint, you're on WNYC. Hi, Evan.

Evan: Hi. I moved into Greenpoint about three years ago, and I knew vaguely that it was a Superfund site, but never researched what that meant, and still don't really fully understand it. The only time that it ever really comes up in daily life is in this kind of tongue in cheek, elbow to the ribs kind of thing with the people who live in my neighborhood about us living on a Superfund site, it being toxic or radioactive or I'm not even sure what it is.

I know the industrial past probably means there's heavy metals and sludge, or I don't even know, but I'm wondering, what does that mean for-- there's lots of new people moving into this neighborhood. I'm one of them. A lot of young people moving to the neighborhood, property values go up, rents go up. Does the fact that it's a Superfund site have any kind of intersection with real estate or commercial viability? If it is a Superfund site, why doesn't that just deter people massively? Why isn't it a largely vacant plot?

Brian Lehrer: It's a great question, and it's really a two-part question. It's a real estate market question and it's a public health question. Nathan, is there any data that you've seen in the course of your reporting as an environmental journalist that the toxic chemicals that have been left behind or dumped in Greenpoint are dangerous to people's health and are causing any health problems?

Nathan Kensinger: Yes, that's a great question. Not all of Greenpoint is a Superfund, just to clarify, there are two superfunds there, but really, the largest Superfund under the neighborhood is something called the Meeker Avenue Plume, and that is a collection of toxic chemicals that are floating around underneath the neighborhood, about 45 blocks of the neighborhood, mostly in the eastern part of Greenpoint. The chemicals within that plume have been linked to a variety of cancers including lymphoma and leukemia and kidney, liver, brain cancer.

There have been some studies done by the health department and it's not 100% conclusive whether or not Greenpoint has seen elevated cancer rates as a result of that pollution. Certainly in '92, I think that the health department reported there was higher rates of stomach cancer and some forms of leukemia and then more recently they found that, again, the stomach cancer rates were high but the leukemia rate may not be lower than other parts of the city. Certainly, neighbors living there for a long time have described a whole harrowing list of cancers and other autoimmune diseases that have afflicted their families.

Brian Lehrer: You're an environmental reporter, not a real estate market reporter, but do you have anything on how the specter of this has deterred or not deterred people from investing in the area or moving to the area?

Nathan Kensinger: That's a great question. Greenpoint continues to be a very popular neighborhood for people to move to, but along the waterfront is really where this massive new redevelopment is happening. That's an area where there is meant to be a very in-depth clean-up first before any of these new luxury apartment towers are built. In that area, one would hope that the cleanup would be thorough and would remove as much toxins as possible that might be buried along the coast there on the East River.

Brian Lehrer: I guess it's a function of the housing shortage in New York City that you go, "Oh, yes, well, the Superfund site isn't right under my building. I guess it's all right and this neighborhood is cool." Now, Sean, you were talking about going out in a boat on Newtown Creek. I think you're going to be particularly interested in our next caller if she says what she told our screener. Courtney in Buffalo, formerly from Greenpoint, you're on WNYC. Hi, Courtney.

Courtney: Hi. It's very exciting to be on. Thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for calling.

Courtney: I lived in Greenpoint from 2017 until August. My very first home in New York City was an illegally parked sailboat in Newtown Creek. I had to trespass through the railroad yard there, hop across a fence and jump off a wall to get to my squat boat. It was astonishing how much garbage, physical regular garbage was regularly going through Newtown Creek on a daily basis. Everything you can think of from candy wrappers to tampons and condoms. It was the whole spectrum and it was constant.

Brian Lehrer: Just floating on the surface of the water?

Courtney: Yes. I was there in September 2016 and the weather was very nice. I would be out on the deck doing some garbage spotting, and when I would have friends over to the boat, we would keep tabs of everything that we saw because it was just so much consistently and regularly. When they're doing processing of whatever they do over there, there's some yard that seems to do something with scrap metal. It sounds like cars are getting crushed. Sometimes when there would be a lot of noise for whatever they were processing over there [unintelligible 00:14:01] accompany a wave of more garbage.

Brian Lehrer: You moved to Buffalo because you wanted a more aesthetic environment.

Courtney: I'm a [unintelligible 00:14:11] baby. That's why I was a [unintelligible 00:14:14]

Sean Carlson: Drawn to the creek. [crosstalk]

Courtney: That was why I was comfortable in Greenpoint [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: It's an amazing story, amazing chapter in your life. Is there a moral of the story for public policy or anything in your opinion, Courtney?

Courtney: For sure something more serious needs to be happening. I know from following up as a member of a community garden in that area and we're looking into installing bat boxes and because there has been no real meaningful mediation of the Superfund site in Newtown Creek, it was unthinkable to attract small mammals to the creek as a water source. Something needs to change from the beginning to the end. There's visible garbage that's a whole other level of pollution that we're dealing with. From the molecular toxic to the actual just physical visible plastic streaming through our city.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead, Nathan. Oh, Sean, that you.

Sean Carlson: I should say, about that issue specifically, this is a family program so I don't know how much I want to get into the details, but that is one of the things that we talked about with the person we are on the boat on about condoms specifically, tampon applicators. Again, there's so much sewage that goes into that. Think about how many condoms are flushed down a toilet in New York City over the course of a year. Those things end up in the creek. That's literally what happens. The sewer system can't handle all that water and it just dumps the sewage directly into the creek. That's where it is a problem, those things specifically.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks for your call, Courtney. A few more minutes with our own All Things Considered host Sean Carlson, and our environmental contributor, Nathan Kensinger, who will be broadcasting live this afternoon during All Things Considered, beginning at four o'clock from Greenpoint, Brooklyn, from the site of the old WNYC transmitter there which is now called WNYC Transmitter Park in Greenpoint as part of our Earth Day and Earth Week coverage, the special All Things Considered live from Greenpoint this afternoon at 4:00.

Sean, this show has committed to doing a weekly climate story for all of this year in response to the climate emergency. We're talking in this conversation about good old-fashioned pollution from candy wrappers to condoms, to tampon applicators floating in the water, but there is also a climate change element here, right?

Sean Carlson: Yes. Nathan can probably speak to the broader projects. I think actually Nathan you've been on my show talking about it before, about the efforts to address sea level rise generally speaking in New York City and in the region. One of the interesting things about the creek, interesting maybe not the right choice of words, but the idea that when it comes to addressing climate change and sea level rise, yes, the government can get involved.

You can get the city, you can get the state, the federal government, and they are involved. That's not to say that they're not to some degree, but when you go along the creek there, so much of the responsibility about addressing that will be up to the people who own the property along Newtown Creek. You go along in it and it's, yes. It's what I remember seeing as a kid when I was 12 or 13 where I grew up. Derelict areas, I hate to use that word, but areas that could use some love.

You get sea level rise, it's already happening in some of these properties along the creek there, and as we've talked about, has all the sewage in it, it has all this oil, other carcinogens in it, it floods. You get all of that stuff along the property right along the creek there. It's a complicated issue because it could use investment. I'm not talking about out-of-control gentrification, but more than what's there at the same time. That is a concern, the fact that you see a lot of these retaining walls along the creek crumbling into it. You can see it. It's happening now.

Brian Lehrer: Did you want to add anything to that, Nathan?

Nathan Kensinger: Yes, talking about sea level rise and the threat to the neighborhood, it's not just the Newtown Creek, but the whole East River where they're building these new massive 40-storey towers. They're building those towers inside what's already a flood zone, at high risk of flooding, according to the Department of City Planning. We're moving tens of thousands of people right to the waterfront that we know is going to potentially be flooded by sea level rise and future storm surges.

One of the big projects that's proposed for Greenpoint would put a gate at the mouth of the Newtown Creek, a storm surge gate, and the gate itself would involve building a mile-long wall through these new neighborhoods that are being built on the waterfront of the East River. At the same time, the city is encouraging us to all move back to the water and live close to it, the federal government is proposing to build a 15-foot-high wall in front of the entire waterfront, blocking off this access that so many people have struggled to get along the coast of Greenpoint.

Brian Lehrer: Here's Jordan in Greenpoint who says he's a real estate agent. Jordan, you're relevant to this conversation. Thank you for calling in.

Jordan: No problem. Thank you so much for having me on. I just want to point out, I'm pretty sure the data would back me up that the environmental and pollution situation in Greenpoint has not affected property values at all, compared to other neighborhoods. Whether or not it should or not is another question, and a pretty sticky one.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Okay. You're leaving that question unanswered. I guess you're not an environmental health expert, you're a real estate agent. Sean, he testifies to the fact that all these environmental aspects that we've been discussing regarding the neighborhood aren't affecting property values.

Sean Carlson: I think a lot of activists there would say, "Hey, come invest in the Creek." The person that I took the boat trip with Newtown Creek Alliance, Willis Elkins, he made a point to talk about the fact that these areas-- and I keep going back to where I grew up as a kid, Northern New Jersey. There's a Superfund site 10 minutes away from my house. I remember going through old abandoned factories when I was a kid. I probably threw a rock through a window and thought it was cool, but 20 years later, it's been a Walmart now for 20, 25 years now and it's completely transformed.

When I go along the Creek, it still feels like me going along the factories and throwing the rocks through the windows and that there's not really much there. I don't know if that's because people don't want to invest in land right along the Creek where there's-- the entire creek is a Superfund site, but I should say it's a far cry from Gowanus. I think you mentioned Gowanus earlier.

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

Sean Carlson: The Gowanus Canal is seeing all sorts of redevelopment there, rezoning and things like that. It's a big issue you've talked about on your show. I know, Brian. It's different. It's not nearly at the same level, if at all, as you'd see if you went to Gowanus in Brooklyn.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take one more call, who's actually going to expand this out from Greenpoint, Alison in Manville, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Sean, you just mentioned growing up in New Jersey and living among some of what you just described. Alison, what you got? Hi.

Alison: Hi, Brian. How are you today? Listen, I grew up in the Borough of Middlesex, but it's also close to Bound Brook. I currently live in Manville, New Jersey, and when I was growing up, we lived within five miles of five major Superfund sites. Union Carbide, Cyanamid, GAF, the creosote plant, and from my now hometown, Johns Manville, the asbestos company.

It's something that's been at the forefront of my mind since I was a child really, and your last caller talking about walking around the haunts of these old huge industrial complexes-- Even when I was in high school, the Cyanamid Plant in Bound Brook, New Jersey, there were sections of that factory where they were making, I think largely pigments and dyes, but there were dirt floors in that industrial facility.

I never was in the Johns Manville facility, but they were all of the same era. There's a lot of area around me now that can't be built on. The Johns Manville site actually turned into one of those huge auto auction places because all they could do was curb it and pave it. It's a thing that I don't think everybody thinks about unless they had the kind of presence in their life of this stuff, just being surrounded by it.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Thank you for that, Alison. As we wrap up, Nathan, we don't want to leave the impression that anybody who lives in Greenpoint is living in a toxic environment that's a danger to their health. I imagine that there are standards that the city enforces and/or the state and federal government enforces before development can take place in a particular place where people can be rented to or sold to there, or am I wrong?

Nathan Kensinger: Certainly, as part of this rezoning there, the idea is that the developers would have to clean up the property to the degree that a residential would be possible. That has been one potentially positive outcome from this rezoning, which honestly, it's been 18 years and the neighborhood has just seen almost two decades of nonstop construction and hasn't seen any of its promised green spaces built.

Hopefully, it could lead to more of a cleanup, at least along the East River waterfront. The Newtown Creek, of course, is a different story. The cleanup there has been actually delayed in recent years. They've delayed the whole process by about five years, and they don't really even have a plan yet for how to clean up the Newtown Creek.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. That pollution is how old?

Nathan Kensinger: The Newtown Creek along with the rest of Greenpoint, the pollution is centuries old. It's a process that's been ongoing through more than a century of industrial use around the entire waterfront of Greenpoint.

Brian Lehrer: What another five years while they delay until August dumping radioactive isotopes into the Hudson near Indian Point?

Sean Carlson: Oh, yes. That's a whole other-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: That's another show. We leave this show here. Be sure and tune in to All Things Considered this afternoon, starting at four o'clock when WNYC will be broadcasting from WNYC Transmitter Park in Greenpoint as part of the station's Earth Week coverage. You will hear WNYC's All Things Considered host Sean Carlson, who has been our guest for this preview these last few minutes. Long workday for Sean.

Along with more special programming from Greenpoint, including more from our other guest, environmental reporter, Nathan Kensinger. I'll mention also that Nathan's work is also part of a group show at the Staten Island Museum on the effects of climate change in that borough, that's opening at the Staten Island Museum tomorrow. Sean and Nathan, good luck this afternoon in Greenpoint, and I'll be listening.

Sean Carlson: Thank you, Brian.

Nathan Kensinger: Thanks so much.

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