Well this stinks.
The New York City School Construction Authority is considering breaking ground on a new elementary school in Brooklyn – across the street from a state Superfund site with a history of carcinogens.
The site on Dupont Street in Greenpoint, the former location of vinyl and plastic facility NuHart Plastics, was designated in 2010 due to its dual underground plumes with toxic phthalates and trichloroethylene, or TCE – the same carcinogen found around the notoriously-toxic Gowanus Canal.
“Being across the street [from a Superfund site] looks bad from a perception standpoint, but from an environmental standpoint, this is the cleanest site we found in Greenpoint,” a rep from the SCA told The Post.
“None of those [alternative] sites were feasible for school construction,” the rep added. “Greenpoint as a whole has a long history of heavy industrial uses – the kinds of problems you find in Greenpoint, you find all over Greenpoint.”
Despite the site’s proximity to the proposed Franklin Street school, the SCA said it is going “above and beyond” code requirements to keep students safe should the project move forward – including last year’s addition of a hydraulic barrier between the two locations to prevent future contaminants.
While the agency says there’s no risk of toxic vapors rising from the soil, the construction authority plans to build a protective slab over the ground anyway – and won’t include a basement or cellar in the plans.
The contaminants “will never reach the school site” and it’s impossible for the public to come into contact with the hazardous material as it’s 12 feet underground, an SCA rep declared.
“NuHart Plastics has never impacted our site, and in our opinion, it never will,” the rep added.
Despite the confidence, the proposal isn’t without its critics — which panned a previous iteration of the plan in 2019 due to concerns over the school’s proximity to the hazardous waste (the Dupont Street site is listed in the state’s registry of inactive hazardous waste sites as a “significant threat to public health or the environment”).
“No child should have to go to school next to a toxic waste site, but a generation of Greenpoint children will unless an alternate location for a future school is found,” reads a 2019 petition from North Brooklyn Neighbors, which amassed more than 6,700 signatures at the time.
“Locating the school near these hazards represents a reckless disregard for the physical and mental well-being of the future school’s students, teachers, administrators, and families,” the petition added.
SCA documents also show there is a “potential” presence of asbestos-containing materials and lead-based paint at the proposed school site, as well as PFAS-containing materials.
But no contaminants from the NuHart site were found at the proposed school site during two separate investigations, the SCA said.
All “suspect” materials found at 257 Franklin St. will be tested and abated as necessary per state Department of Environmental Protection requirements, an SCA rep told The Post.
“This proposed school site has been a source of controversy in Greenpoint for two decades due to the significant nearby contamination,” Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) told The Post. “Fortunately, there has been significant progress to remediate the NuHart Superfund site.”
A town hall on the revived plan is slated to take place virtually on Jan. 22.
This isn’t the first time the agency has filed plans to build on a potentially dangerous site. In 2011, a North Bronx elementary school closed just two decades after opening due to the presence of TCEs. The school had recorded hundreds of cases of sick students, the New York Daily News reported.
SCA officials told The Post the Franklin Street site remains the safest option for Greenpoint’s growing student population, which is already seeing children in “overcrowded” classrooms. The under-18 population in North Greenpoint rose marginally from 11 to 11.6%, according to US Census data.
The site near the Greenpoint Landing development is also a 20-minute walk from the nearest school, a rep pointed out.
Locations for the new school are limited, according to SCA documents, and the proposed location of the new school – slated to have 450 seats – was selected since the site is outside of a flood zone. It also has two street frontages for student pickup and drop-off.
Remediation on the Dupont Street Superfund site began in 2022 and is now wrapping up, according to an engineering report filed in November – which found TCE dissolved in groundwater at concentrations “significantly exceeding applicable standards.”
The NuHart Plastics site itself is slated to become a 471-unit residential housing development with two buildings and a cellar, according to state documents.
If the school project does move forward, officials say it will still take years for students to fill the halls.
“We urgently need a new elementary school in Northern Greenpoint,” Restler, the local council member, added, “but we are committed to soliciting community feedback and hearing from young families about whether they believe this site is safe for their children.”