Red Hook Mystery: Who Is Stealing Toxic Dirt & Rubble from Ikea?
Today brings us the bizarre item of the week, if not the year so far. Someone may have stolen 300 cubic yards of toxic dirt from the Ikea site in Red Hook. The Daily News Reports:
Missing: 500,000 pounds of rubble, last seen at the planned Ikea furniture store site in Red Hook. Could be toxic.And the Post reports:Police are investigating the apparent theft last week of a brownstone-sized mound of concrete and brick left over from the demolition of about 10 mostly Civil War-era buildings.
"It's definitely a larceny," said an Police Department spokesman who said the debris that disappeared from Beard St. is valued at $2,000 to $3,000, and likely required 15 trucks to haul away.
"No leads yet," he added.
The four-story mound had been at the site since summer, when the historic buildings were knocked down to make way for an Ikea parking lot.
The debris was to be used to fill a dock, but the rubble collected dust until last week, when it was stolen from the site.
Red Hook Civic Association Co-Chairman John McGettrick charged the debris was contaminated and said the site itself needs to be investigated for traces of the rubble.
Tons of dirt are missing from the construction site of Brooklyn's planned Ikea megastore, and cops are investigating if and why the potentially toxic soil was stolen, a company spokesman said yesterday.The item presents so many interesting questions: Who would take toxic dirt? If it wasn't stolen, where did it go? Nobody noticed somebody driving off with 15 trucks full of stuff? How bad is the toxic issue at the Ikea site?The 300 cubic yards of soil were made up of crushed concrete and debris, according to Ikea's Joseph Roth.
John McGettrick, of the Red Hook Civic Alliance, which opposes the project, said toxic materials, such as asbestos, oil and mercury, have previously been found at the site, and demanded an investigation.
Roth said the site is safe and has been monitored by several agencies.
The possible dirt theft aside, the most interesting thing about the story is the toxic Ikea site angle (AKA Toxic Ektorp), which is a fascinating companion to the big box store angle, the Graving Dock angle (which merges with the toxic rubble angle), the landmark destruction angle and the overwhelming Red Hook with traffic angle.
How about a new furniture line called Toxisk or Giftig, which a handy online English to Swedish translation tool tells us are Swedish for toxic?
posted by rsguskind at 8:35 AM
3 Comments:
I wonder how much money the "thieves" just saved the contractor doing the demolition? If the fill is worth $3000 but was 15 truckloads, I doubt anyone would really go to the trouble of stealing it.
Motive? How expensive would it have been to legally remove and remediate that much toxic waste? Much cheaper and easier to cart the stuff away, illegally dump it somewhere, and report it stolen...
love your blog. btw, 15 truckloads equals much less than one barge. how about that angle?
No one enjoys watching Ikea squirm more than yours truly. However, this time I think they are innocent. The missing debris is clean construction fill that was slated for the dry dock. The contaminated and hazardous fill is stockpiled separately and there is a hell of a lot more than 300 yards. Even if it was hazardous the most it would cost to remove is $110 per yard or $33,000. With what they are spending on this project, $33,000 is nothing.
Still, it's not easy to disguise 15 trucks. One of the contractors must have taken it. That guarantees it wasn't contaminated or hazardous. They took it because it was clean and they could use it at another job.
Post a Comment
<< Home