As we were watching footage of Hurricane Irene's effects on New York City, Joy and I saw footage on NY1 that looked like the Gowanus canal flooded pretty high, flowing around vehicles. Those who aren't familiar with the unique smell of the Gowanus canal may not realize how gross that thought is. The Gowanus Canal is one of America's most polluted waterways, including both the water itself and the soil around it, saturated by years of pollution.

Local developers, Mayor Bloomberg, and many local politicians had wanted to develop the Gowanus Canal with hotels and luxury housing. Now this COULD be a good idea if it wasn't for the all that pollution. Thanks to considerable efforts on the part of community activists, the Gowanus Canal has been declared a Superfund site, so it is finally getting cleaned up. Here is what the EPA has to say:

As a result of years of discharges, storm water runoff, sewer outflows and industrial pollutants, the Gowanus Canal has become one of the nation's most extensively contaminated water bodies. Contaminants include PCBs, coal tar wastes, heavy metals and volatile organics. The contamination poses a threat to the nearby residents who use the canal for fishing and recreation.

In fact, since the EPA declared it a Superfund site, it has found that the site is even more contaminated than everyone thought!

Sounds like a perfect place for hotels and a Whole Foods (which is still being built!).

Here is YouTube footage of the flooding near the Gowanus canal near Smith and 9th St:

Joy and I went walking with Jacob to check out the canal after the waters had receded. To give an idea what is right across the street from the future site of Whole Foods, here is a picture Joy took of the water on the shore across by the 3rd St. Bridge:

(Video from this guy's YouTube Channel...looks kike he has more Irene footage as well)

That oily gunk floats all along the shores, presumably leaching out of the soil. In places like this picture is taken, the oily gunk gets so thick cans and bottles just rest on top of it. The smell is so horrible my son kept commenting "I can't stand by that horrible stench!"

Can't say I'd want a hotel or shop for food by that!

The Superfund status will clean up the canal itself. The community has dedicated a small monument to this, which we took a picture of as well:

I should note that the Superfund is not cleaning the soil further around the canal, so sites like where Whole Foods will be need additional cleaning up. After much fighting (the very conservative owned Whole Foods did not want to bother cleaning up before building a food store on a toxic site) Whole Foods agreed to clean up BEFORE building.

Just hoping that eventually the Gowanus canal will lose that oily gunk and that "horrendous stink." I'd say after that we can talk development.