Residents to Whole Foods, Gowanus Edition: Hold the Hole

The planned Whole Foods in Gowanus has drawn a negative review from a Gowanus group. Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG), have submitted comments to the Department of Environmental Conservation calling on it to reject the grocer's current clean up proposal for the environmentally-challenged site. There is much in the seven-page document (which is not posted online, but which one can presumably get from FROGG). To make a long story short, the organization particularly opposes the plan to build more than 80 percent of the Whole Foods below street level and suggests that Whole Foods has "misused" the ability to build below street level in order to skirt the local review process. They write:

This land sits at one of the lowest elevations in Brooklyn...at the bottom of an urban drainage basin known for flooding. And along with all that, the soil they need to build the market down under is contaminated. The Brownfield Cleanup Program is being improperly used to endorse this scheme.

Whole Foods plans to remove some, but not all of the toxic soil at the site, and to cap the site with a "protective membrane" that would prevent any seepage of vapors into the store or other problems. The FROGG statement points out that the site is in a wetlands/watershed area and says that "local drainage in this area is a concern to the community...because the site is within the FEMA 100 year flood zone there will be additional impact locally from storm seawater rise given this large cellar structure."

One could go on at length about the problems that FROGG notes with plan, including the potential for "the change in hydrology" caused by construction "to move contaminants" around underground.

FROGG's alternative: Do a cleanup, cap the site at street level and build the store above ground. It also suggests a green roof for the building. "It seems so silly that so many people have been drawn down the road to achieve a design of a building and a site-cleanup focused around skirting local zoning limits," FROGG writes. It ask DEC to reject the proposed site cleanup and only approve one that would involve an above-ground store.

Related Post:
Residents to Whole Foods, Park Slope Edition: Modify It
Gowanus Whole Foods #2: Execs Say Toxics Under Control