Upcoming: "Virtual Toxic Tour"--Do You Know Where Your Superfund Site Is?

Here's a fun event: a Virtual Toxic Tour and Community Mapping Workshop that will be taking place on Saturday (4/19) from 3-6PM. It will be happening in Manhattan at Eyebeam, which is located at 540 W. 21st Street, but will involve toxic issues in Greenpoint. Here's a bit about it:

In collaboration with fellow Brooklyn activists, Brooke Singer (www.superfund365.org) and Emily Gallagher, Habitatmap invites you to participate in our Virtual Toxic Tour and Community Mapping Workshop...The virtual tour will focus on groundwater contamination and hazardous vapor concerns in several areas of Greenpoint which are currently under evaluation by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. We will explore the neighborhood's historic and contemporary industries, detail the contaminants of concern, and discuss potential remedies. This case will serve as a reference point for participants as we work with them to document toxic exposures in their own neighborhoods, brainstorm effective community organizing strategies, and help them recruit a network of activist peers to their cause.

Check out Habitatmap here.

FUN WITH TOXICS BONUS: The marker in the image above that is about three-fourths of the way down over the BQE in Williamsburg is a state superfund site at Meeker Avenue between Metropolitan and Union Avenues. If you have ever walked under the BQE on Metropolitan Avenue to go to the neighborhood on either side of the highway, you've passed this site. It's the former Ansbacher Color & Dye Factory, which would appear to have been demolished to make way for the BQE without being cleaned up. For the record, it is directly to the west of the future site of the Gateway to Williamsburg development and to the east of several properties being developed or being sold as development sites. It is also a couple of hundred yards from a Karl Fischer-designed building at 525 Union Avenue.