In this episode, we hear from Willis Elkins, executive director of Newtown Creek Alliance. Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based local New York City organization dedicated to restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek. Newtown Creek is a 3.8 mile tributary of the East River, an estuary, a border between Brooklyn and Queens, and a federal superfund site. Historically, the creek has had over 50 industrial refineries along its banks. In this conversation with Willis, we discuss the history of industry & legacy pollution on Newtown Creek, the Greenpoint oil spill, environmental remediation efforts, water quality, green roofs, and the vision for a more sustainable future for the creek.
In this episode, we hear from Willis Elkins, executive director of Newtown Creek Alliance. Newtown Creek Alliance is a community-based local New York City organization dedicated to restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek. Newtown Creek is a 3.8 mile tributary of the East River, an estuary, a border between Brooklyn and Queens, and a federal superfund site. Historically, the creek has had over 50 industrial refineries along its banks.
In this conversation with Willis, we discuss the history of industry & legacy pollution on Newtown Creek, the Greenpoint oil spill, environmental remediation efforts, water quality, green roofs, and the vision for a more sustainable future for the creek. This episode was recorded at Kingsland Wildflowers Green Roof in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Check out the video version of this episode on youtube to see the green roof!
Video version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj6ToprNazs
Connect with Newtown Creek Alliance:
www.instagram.com/newtowncreek/
www.kingslandwildflowers.com/
CREDITS:
Hosted and produced by Kiana Michaan
Edited by Maxfield Biggs
Videography by Jae Minard
Sound Recordist & Co-produced by Lucy Little
00:00:23:16 - 00:00:25:14
Willis Elkins
So we're here at Kingsland Wildflowers.
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This is a 25,000 square foot green roof project that we help manage. Newtown Creek Alliance for a community based, nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring, revealing, and revitalizing Newtown Creek, which is industrial waterway here that is significantly polluted and has a lot of challenges facing it. So we do a lot of work in the community, a lot of educational work, advocacy work, to improve the waterway in the surrounding communities.
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Kiana
Amazing. Yeah. I know a little bit about Newtown Creek and the history, but I definitely have a lot of questions and curiosities.
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And I feel like, you know, I grew up in here in New York City. Yeah. And I think it's something that I should have known more about for longer and talking to, to friends and family. I think a lot of New Yorkers don't know about what's happening here.
00:01:13:01 - 00:01:14:06
And the work you're doing is
00:01:14:06 - 00:01:16:03
Unknown
so important.
00:01:16:05 - 00:01:31:06
Unknown
one of the biggest issues we have on Newtown Creek, with legacy pollution is the Greenpoint oil spill. It's the largest underground oil spill in the history of the country. And it covers about 50 acres of Greenpoint, approximately 20 million gallons of oil underground.
00:01:31:06 - 00:01:51:14
Unknown
And it's not like a traditional spill the way we think of it, in terms of it happening in one single event, this was decades of mishandling of product, of illegal dumping, into the ground of oil. And when we talk about the oil industry here, I mean, this is the first modern oil refinery in the US. Was right here on the banks of Newtown Creek.
00:01:51:19 - 00:02:16:14
Unknown
So it goes back a very long time to the 1860s, and it goes back to not just the length of time that they were handling and processing oil and other fossil fuel, but also operating at a time when there was completely disregard or not even awareness about the environmental implications, of producing fossil fuels and so over time, a lot of this oil seeped into the ground.
00:02:16:14 - 00:02:19:09
Unknown
And late 70s, it was, quote unquote, discovered because it was
00:02:19:09 - 00:02:19:23
Unknown
right,
00:02:20:01 - 00:02:33:18
Unknown
seeping into the creek like basically a river of oil. So there was a number of actions in the late 70s, early 80s to start cleaning it up. But in the early two, thousands residents in the neighborhood got kind of fed up with the slow process that was happening.
00:02:33:23 - 00:02:52:19
Unknown
Concern about the impacts of the oil spill. And there was a number of lawsuits that started happening first by, Riverkeeper and a handful of local residents and eventually by New York State Attorney General's office, major lawsuit against Exxon, who was the main responsible party for the oil spill. And the result of that, lawsuit was twofold.
00:02:52:19 - 00:03:28:15
Unknown
One was to implement better remediation process. And that has worked. Oil is no longer seeping like it used to be into Newtown Creek. They've put in number of, recovery wells. They recovered over 30 million gallons of oil today. So that has been successful. The other part was a local fund, to create environmental projects to help make up for all the harm that, that Exxon and their parent companies, Standard Oil, Mobil Oil, etc., had caused and so that local fund known as the Greenpoint Community Environmental Fund helped create this green roof.
00:03:28:15 - 00:03:50:21
Unknown
It's here. So it was the brainchild of, local landscaper here in Greenpoint who was doing green roof projects. And, she said this funding is a great opportunity to do a green roof on Newtown Creek. She connected with us. Given the proximity, the waterway, our interest in green infrastructure. The building owner, Broadway Stages, was very supportive.
00:03:50:21 - 00:04:12:14
Unknown
And the New York City Audubon was the final partner that oversaw the entire grant. So in 2016, finished the first, few roofs here, 25,000ft² total. And, we use it a ton for community programing, even though it's a private building. We had a field trip in here earlier of second graders. We have people from the public that are here now.
00:04:12:14 - 00:04:27:23
Unknown
We do open events for people to come and experience the roof, learn about the value of green infrastructure and the ways that you can also incorporate this in very heavy industrial areas. And how it can help mitigate climate impacts, air pollution, urban heat,
00:04:28:03 - 00:04:30:13
Unknown
stormwater runoff, etc., etc..
00:04:30:15 - 00:05:00:09
Unknown
They had 100 years of refining oil. And again, this is like figuring out how to make all these products out of, out of raw oil. Which is kind of amazing to think about the whole context and where that sort of led the development of the entire world. But also to think about 100 years of operations and then we don't really realize the implications of the environmental harm that that created until they've already shut down and left, in terms of the refineries.
00:05:00:09 - 00:05:21:23
Unknown
So that's one of the things about legacy pollution is that it can happen in a very short period of time, but the implications can continue for much, much longer. And so it's interesting we you know, we're very focused on things like that. We'll talk about the creek, the legacy pollution that's there. But it's also it's very similar to what we're dealing with now with climate.
00:05:22:01 - 00:05:27:22
Unknown
there's also been like tons of other industrial activities. Right. Like a lot of other industries. Yeah.
00:05:28:00 - 00:05:33:12
Unknown
what were some of those industries? And what are the different pollutants that you're bringing?
00:05:33:18 - 00:05:49:02
Unknown
obviously the fossil fuel industry had a huge impact, but yeah, there's a number of other industries that historically had a lot of environmental harm here. And so in addition to energy infrastructure, we've also had and continue to have a lot of waste infrastructure as well.
00:05:49:04 - 00:05:57:07
Unknown
Okay. So right at the the wastewater treatment plant right across from us. Yeah. We're just wastewater treatment, recycling major recycling facility.
00:05:57:09 - 00:06:11:10
Unknown
This is back in the late 1800s, when before we had cars. There's a lot of horses. A lot of horses were dying. They had to process those. So a lot of just like things that seem so distant from modern day, we're located here.
00:06:11:15 - 00:06:12:08
Unknown
Manure docks
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Unknown
and things like that. But we also had a lot of other, chemical processes as well. So we had a major copper refinery. It was further back in the creek where they were refining copper and producing sulfuric acid.
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Unknown
So incredibly toxic stuff. They left a lot of pollution again in the ground and in the creek.
00:06:31:02 - 00:06:33:10
Unknown
It's also incredibly difficult to clean up as well.
00:06:33:13 - 00:06:52:05
Unknown
we mentioned the wastewater, the recycling or any of those other industries are still active or are is the majority been shut down in the last few decades? Yeah. So the, petroleum refineries, have shut down and moved elsewhere. We still have fuel storage, which fortunately now is much more regulated than it was.
00:06:52:05 - 00:07:17:11
Unknown
Yeah. And you're thinking of like the 1880s. There's virtually no no regulation. Yeah. The big concern was things like fires, which there were a lot of. Right. Incredibly harmful and deadly and everything else. But most of those industries have transitioned. The national grid site is a big issue for us, because it's a 117 acre facility back in the creek here, and it's where the manufactured gas plants.
00:07:17:11 - 00:07:39:11
Unknown
But it has stored liquefied natural gas, for now, which is a huge topic right now. Yes, yes. And, you know, liquefied natural gas is something that you can no longer permit the creation of a LNG facility in New York City because of concerns over safety and and harm. However, this has been there for a number of decades.
00:07:39:11 - 00:08:04:05
Unknown
So it's basically grandfathered in. And, and so the site itself is incredibly polluted from what used to be there. And National Grid is continues to seek right now they're going through this rate case process to invest over $350 million in that facility that's focused not on transitioning away from harmful fossil fuel. And when I say harmful, obviously it's not just the climate, but the local impacts as well.
00:08:04:07 - 00:08:29:05
Unknown
It's not about transitioning. It's about doubling down on that infrastructure. And, and it's a great case. So, yeah, it's not just that they're investing in, harmful, toxic infrastructure, putting that cost on. We have the consumers, which is mind boggling. Yeah. Bill on that. Crazy. So, so that's a major issue given the size of that site, the scale of it.
00:08:29:06 - 00:08:34:19
Unknown
as we know, the winters are becoming warmer and warmer because of climate change. And
00:08:35:01 - 00:08:50:04
Unknown
So with warmer winters, you have a lot less demand for liquefied natural gas. And so there's in the past decade, there's been years where they've only utilized this backup source twice prior year.
00:08:50:04 - 00:09:04:22
Unknown
And so you're talking about a whole 117 acre facility. The land is incredibly the soil is incredibly polluted. If polluted the creek, they're polluting the air, which is a block away from New York City public housing development. And they're trying to double down on this.
00:09:05:04 - 00:09:25:08
Unknown
But it's not just that National Grid wants to do this. The state has to approve it. So. Well, New York State has approved all these measures to get us off of fossil fuel. They're also engaged in the rate case and allowing the grid to further invest in this and seek the money from the customers to pay for that, infrastructure.
00:09:25:09 - 00:09:31:09
Unknown
So it's very frustrating that this sort of New York State as an entity is sort of doing both of these at the same time.
00:09:31:15 - 00:09:48:10
Unknown
I'm curious with kind of the community engagement work. Yeah, that the organization does, I know, are you engaging at all with, like, community members and the fossil fuel companies such as, like, you know, I know Exxon and maybe National Grid as well?
00:09:48:10 - 00:09:55:11
Unknown
Are they have to engage the community to a certain extent, even if they do not want to. Yeah. And like, what does some of that look like in
00:09:55:11 - 00:10:15:12
Unknown
with the Newtown Creek Alliance, we we want to have a conversation with everybody who is a stakeholder in the Creek, whether that's whether you're live nearby and you're interested in the creek, whether you work at a facility near the waterway, or whether you're a company that's responsible for the contamination there.
00:10:15:14 - 00:10:39:02
Unknown
And so, you know, I would say different companies handle it differently. And, some companies have more obligation to engage through different processes. So, you know, sometimes the state may be overseeing like a cleanup program and there's a responsible party that's, that's doing that cleanup. But the state is, you know, requesting that there's a public process.
00:10:39:04 - 00:11:05:14
Unknown
There's also the whole the entire Superfund process, right? Yes. Let's talk about that. Yeah, right. We're a federal Superfund site. It applies to the entirety of the waterway. And, one of the interesting things about our Superfund site is that EPA has identified a number of responsible parties, but they started with six main parties. And so those parties have to pay for not just the eventual cleanup, but also the investigation.
00:11:05:16 - 00:11:28:21
Unknown
And I can talk about why that's both beneficial and also problematic in our eyes. But it means that those entities and that includes five corporate, potentially responsible polluters Exxon, BP, Chevron, National Grid and Phelps Dodge, which is the copper refinery, as well as the city of New York, is a responsible party. So those six were the original.
00:11:29:01 - 00:11:54:04
Unknown
And so they're very involved in this whole process. So, when we have meetings with the EPA and there's a whole entity called the Community Advisory Group or the CAG, and that's separate from NCA. But we're very involved with that. So the CAG has monthly meetings. We invite the EPA to come present and give updates. We also invite the responsible parties to come and give presentations, depending on what the topic is or what we're interested in hearing.
00:11:54:09 - 00:12:18:02
Unknown
But they're very, very involved. They have a heavy presence at the meetings and, you know, and so we seek to gain information from them because they know more about this than we often will because they're spinning, you know, literally hundreds of millions of dollars on the investigation. And of course, we we disagree sometimes with. Yeah, with what they're pursuing or what their findings are.
00:12:18:02 - 00:12:41:10
Unknown
can the investigation truly be like, you know, neutral or if they're funding it. Yes. So that that has been a concern on the community side is that it's the positive thing about having what they call cooperating parties is that the cleanup is not paid for by taxpayers. Right. That is not true. Yes. Taxpayers to pay for the cleanup.
00:12:41:12 - 00:12:59:17
Unknown
Something is not their responsibility. So it's good that it's it's not what they call like an orphan site. And the government has to pay for it, which is us. The bad side is that or the thing that's more problematic for us, is that the responsible parties are involved at every step of the process,
00:12:59:17 - 00:13:17:09
Unknown
unfortunately that's the trade off of having a situation like this where we have, cooperating, responsible, potentially responsible parties. So it's been, it's been very frustrating. You know, we got our Superfund designation in 2010, which is late considering how long this has been happening. Right, exactly right.
00:13:17:10 - 00:13:43:23
Unknown
So. Yeah. All right. Felt like, okay, finally we got this designation. And now, after 14 years, we still don't have a cleanup plan in place. And so you think about. That's upsetting to hear. And like I said, we monthly meetings. So the EPA 14, you know, regular meetings where we've learned a lot of information, we discussed a lot of information, but we don't know what the cleanup is actually going to look like, you know?
00:13:43:23 - 00:13:45:19
Unknown
And so that becomes very difficult.
00:13:46:00 - 00:14:08:15
Unknown
It's a ecological concern. It's a human health concern. So one, it's like any delay in that is allowing for these hazards to continue those many years. But it's also that, you know, people have been impacted by this situation for many, many years, decades, you know, yes, I mean, I joined the organization and learn from lifelong residents in this neighborhood, been fighting for this for decades.
00:14:08:16 - 00:14:47:04
Unknown
And, you know, the sad reality is, the longer this goes on, those people who started this work 80s, 90s, etc., they're not going to be around to see this. Yeah, the result of that. So that's really difficult, you know, to, to, to bear witness to you. And, and then the other side of it too is the engagement that a lot of people are really concerned about the state of the creek and wanting to see it cleaned up, but to go to 14 years of meetings where there's no real product, it's very hard to engage a lot of people.
00:14:47:04 - 00:15:17:13
Unknown
And it's the material's very technical. So it's already a barrier of entry. But when there's no sort of, you know, when the process is so slow, it's hard to keep people engaged, in a significant way. And we feel that with less community engagement, it makes it easier for the responsible parties to do a less thorough investigation and cleanup, of course, because if they're just dealing, if all they have to deal with is the EPA comments and what the state says, that's one thing.
00:15:17:15 - 00:15:38:11
Unknown
But, you know, they get pushback at the community meetings. They get pushback from elected leaders. And we need more of that to ensure that this is a thorough process. Yeah. And that's part of the tactic of making the process right. Harder to more technical, more complicated, not easy to figure out. It delays. And you see like that situation isn't unique.
00:15:38:11 - 00:15:55:02
Unknown
You see this all over right with different environmental challenges. And even like globally with climate negotiations, which have been going on for like 30 years, right, with barely any progress, because there's just, you know, so much bureaucracy and yeah, about small things.
00:15:55:03 - 00:16:14:15
Unknown
So, so this is a very, you know, active facility. They do bring in fuel both by pipeline and by barge. But yeah, this is also, you know, thinking about moving forward if we're getting off home heating oil, electrifying cars and transportation, you know, hopefully this will be obsolete sooner than later.
00:16:14:19 - 00:16:20:12
Unknown
And so it is kind of like, what is the opportunity to do something more meaningful with this
00:16:20:14 - 00:16:21:13
Unknown
right.
00:16:21:15 - 00:16:31:15
Unknown
of you were talking about solar earlier, other kinds of renewable clean energy, that we could potentially use some of these industrial sites for, would be really great.
00:16:31:17 - 00:16:32:06
Unknown
So
00:16:32:08 - 00:16:40:02
Unknown
yeah. And that is happening. And but, you know, no, it's none of it's fast enough of course. Right. You know, little little by little. Yeah.
00:16:40:08 - 00:16:41:02
Unknown
in terms of water
00:16:41:04 - 00:16:54:23
Unknown
quality in the creek. Right. So there's sort of two main things. One is the industrial, historic, chemical pollution. And as you mentioned, that's primarily in the bottom of the creek, down in the sediment.
00:16:55:01 - 00:17:11:17
Unknown
But of course it does. It's in the water as well. So you think about all this stuff that's down, what we call the black mayonnaise, and it's filled with heavy metals and PCBs and all this other sort of nasty chemical stuff. But, say a tugboat goes by and it's a shallow area. It's going to dredge up some of those toxins.
00:17:11:17 - 00:17:33:01
Unknown
Exactly. Churns it up and it goes into the water column. Right. And there's fish presumably, and birds and other wildlife, and also that humans might have very, very limited exposure to the sediment. Right. There's a few places where you could walk into the, say, like the intertidal or the muddy areas of the creek. No one's going for a swim, you know.
00:17:33:03 - 00:17:54:13
Unknown
So not a lot of swimming going on here. There's not a lot of, you know, like scuba diving, things like that. Fortunately, but the animals are, you know, a vector. And so what I mean by that is, if you're a blue crab and we have thousands of blue crabs here and they get in the summer large, you know, and we're talking this is what people like to eat.
00:17:54:13 - 00:18:12:16
Unknown
You go to a seafood restaurant, you get a soft shell crab. That's the same thing that's coming out. You know, I'm living here in Newtown Creek and it's potentially a free meal, right? You can go catch a crab, and there's even very little limitations on what you're allowed to, you know, eat and there's fish warning advisories and things like that.
00:18:12:16 - 00:18:34:16
Unknown
But it's basically there's free meals that are here on a regular basis. The problem is that that crab is probably lived most of its life in Newtown Creek, especially down at the back. So it's going to be eating other smaller animals that are living in the sediment and consuming those toxins. Right? So if you're a human, you go catch that crab, you go home, you cook.
00:18:34:16 - 00:18:53:11
Unknown
It kind of depends actually how you cook it. That can have a big, impact on what kind of toxins you're exposed to from the animal. But you cook it so you make a stew, put that crab in there. And then you serve that to your family. It could be carcinogenic. Exactly. Yeah. Really? Really. Not a good idea.
00:18:53:11 - 00:18:53:14
Unknown
And
00:18:53:14 - 00:19:01:06
Unknown
water quality in terms of more direct impacts on a day to day basis on humans is through combined sewer overflow.
00:19:01:08 - 00:19:19:15
Unknown
Yeah. So combined to overflow is basically when it rains. We have all the stormwater going down our streets off our rooftops, and they go into a pipe and it's the same pipe we flush our toilets into. And so if it's not raining, that pipe goes through a wastewater treatment plant, and the treatment plant can handle all of that volume.
00:19:19:17 - 00:19:31:11
Unknown
However, a little bit of rain in a place that's so paved over New York City means a lot of sewage going into that pipe. So the treatment plant can't clean all that sewer, so backs it up, discharges to the waterways.
00:19:31:17 - 00:19:40:03
Unknown
And so New York City overall we have over 450 of these outfalls, over 20 billion gallons of untreated sewage going to the waterway.
00:19:40:04 - 00:19:57:22
Unknown
8 billion gallons, 20 billion. It's a huge issue. Yeah. And I mean, our green roofs are part of the solution because, as you were saying, party issues, when everything's so paved over, there's no for the excess water to absorb. So having green roofs is a pathway to have more surface area where we can absorb some of the water.
00:19:57:22 - 00:20:22:02
Unknown
Yeah. But and we're seeing as we're seeing increased storms, increased flooding. Right. These like historic amounts of flooding we're having because of climate change. This is becoming an even bigger issue. Yes. Right. Totally. So we have you know, and it doesn't take a lot. For combined sewage overflow to begin about a quarter inch of rain. Wow. Basically flood out the system in most parts of the city and start kicking into the creek.
00:20:22:03 - 00:20:50:07
Unknown
most of the harbor, you know, a part of this estuary. We have water. It's moving really fast and that helps the toxins, the pollutants wash out. You're talking Creek is very stagnant and the biggest outfalls are at the head end with further from the East River. Right. And the water barely moves. So the impacts of dumping sewage here are more severe than, say, the East River or down near the Verrazzano Bridge, or somewhere else where there's a lot more movement of open water.
00:20:50:08 - 00:21:08:05
Unknown
So it means that basically Newtown Creek is almost never meeting Clean Water Act standards. When you look at their measurements that they use in terms of like geo means and things like that. Sure. If it hasn't rained for a week and we go take a sample of the water right here, we're closer to the mouth. It's going to be pretty good.
00:21:08:11 - 00:21:13:16
Unknown
But on average so far for meeting, the standards. So that is the biggest issue.
00:21:13:18 - 00:21:20:20
Unknown
the problem is so large, even though this roof is tremendous, it's collecting thousands of gallons of stormwater and a rain event.
00:21:20:22 - 00:21:24:09
Unknown
But you know, this is one. We need it everywhere. We need it everywhere. Yeah.
00:21:24:12 - 00:21:41:01
Unknown
having things like green roofs doesn't just improve water quality. It's a directly a climate tool reduces it. These plants are capturing carbon. They're producing oxygen. They're reducing extreme heat, which is the most deadly form of climate related, impact.
00:21:41:03 - 00:21:57:02
Unknown
the building more energy efficient. So you mean you save more energy? Yeah, etc.. Provides habitat in places where we've completely paved over, the natural world. So there's so many clear benefits of green infrastructure, that we really need to see more of it.
00:21:57:02 - 00:22:14:05
Unknown
And again, the city has it started doing this. They've done a, over you know, I think it's 11,000 rain gardens around the city at this point, which is great. It's huge when you when you think about it in the whole scale of it. But then when you are really looking, you know, we need leads on basically every single block, to start making an impact.
00:22:14:05 - 00:22:21:11
Unknown
So we want to empower city agencies to be able to do more of this, to fund more of it, and to better maintain it.
00:22:21:13 - 00:22:33:04
Unknown
I'd love to hear more about solutions. Yeah. As in your work and like, what's giving you hope and joy and what is restoration in the long term of the creek look like.
00:22:33:04 - 00:22:59:19
Unknown
Right. Like when we're thinking also about it's these native habitats that have been harmed and how we're restoring them and restoring quality of life for both, you know, animals and humans along the creek. Yeah, yeah. So that's a great question. Restoration. There's sort of multiple tiers of it that we want to focus on, starting with in the water that our goal for the creek for one.
00:22:59:19 - 00:23:24:00
Unknown
And I sort of skipped over this. But our goal the creek is not to transform this whole area and return it to nature or develop it into residential park space. Use our goals for this to maintain, industrial, manufacturing area. We obviously want the industry that's here to not have harmful impacts on the local environment and on the larger climate.
00:23:24:04 - 00:23:40:08
Unknown
So that's a big challenge. And how can we transition these sites? Because we need we need industrial areas. We need manufacturing places. There's a lot of really good, accessible blue collar jobs that are located here. And New York City has lots of a lot of those, a lot of that zoning in the past few decades.
00:23:40:13 - 00:23:55:12
Unknown
you know, this creek was once surrounded by 1200 acres of salt marsh. Wow. It would be very difficult to recreate 1200 acres, right? You know, getting air down all these buildings. You have to, you know, massive, massive change.
00:23:55:14 - 00:24:15:06
Unknown
Our goal, though, is to is to bring back some of that habitat that was lost. And salt marshes are incredibly valuable ecosystems. They provide invaluable space for birds, fish, I mean, crabs, horseshoe crabs, I mean, you name it, all sorts of marine animals that are here. A lot of people don't realize Newtown Creek is an ecosystem.
00:24:15:06 - 00:24:31:04
Unknown
Despite all the abuse we've done. We were actually out this morning. We caught a kind of baby eel in one of our truck. Wow. And so that life. And you think about that eel that he was born in the Sargasso Sea, like over a thousand miles away, swam all the way up here and ended up in Newtown Creek.
00:24:31:06 - 00:24:50:18
Unknown
And and it's going to live its adult life, you know, on the East Coast. So there is there's a rich ecology that's here, but it's missing. It's native home. Right. This used to be surrounded by those grasses places for that eel to go hide. And so what we want to do is find key areas where we can do real restoration work.
00:24:50:20 - 00:25:01:13
Unknown
And that's primarily the tributaries where there's shallow areas already where there's not, heavy, maritime use, a lot of areas. There's no longer barge traffic coming in and out.
00:25:01:15 - 00:25:20:01
Unknown
And then we want to connect that with upland. And so that's not just things like green roofs, but also finding pocket areas where we can do more upland restoration, more trees, more native plants that is either on private sites and doesn't disrupt their industrial operations. And so again, a lot of opportunity here to do that.
00:25:20:03 - 00:25:24:03
Unknown
But also key little spots where we can create more public access as well.
00:25:24:05 - 00:25:33:14
Unknown
I think that, you know, for us some of the biggest wins are are harder to measure and it's more about public awareness about things like green infrastructure.
00:25:33:16 - 00:25:53:13
Unknown
You know, I feel like ten years ago going to a public meeting that was about infrastructure in the city and maybe a street redesign and that no one was really thinking about stormwater and how to capture it. And we're not we're certainly not taking credit for it. There's a lot of other groups. And also the city has been doing this as well.
00:25:53:15 - 00:26:14:07
Unknown
So advocating for that, where it's more on the public radar that we need to be doing more green infrastructure. I think that conversation shifted, and that's been pretty big for us. It's great. I think climate change, the conversations around climate change have almost pushed some of these issues more to the forward. Exactly. Yeah. So so that's been a big a big change.
00:26:14:09 - 00:26:29:21
Unknown
You know, we're getting there. But I feel like overall, the support from the community, from the electeds, from people in the agencies, is much stronger than it has been before. And so that that's really what's needed to lay the groundwork for the rest of this work to happen.
00:26:29:23 - 00:26:34:02
Unknown
Thank you so much for all the work that you do and for your time today.
00:26:34:04 - 00:26:36:03
Unknown
Thank you so much. Thank you I appreciate it.
00:26:36:03 - 00:26:36:14
Unknown
Yeah.
00:26:36:16 - 00:27:03:13
Unknown
I had a super informative conversation with Willis, executive director of Newtown Creek Alliance, and I learned a lot more about the history of this creek, and the legacy of toxic pollution from many different polluting industries, which I have a much more robust understanding now of how many different industries they were, how long, 100 years. Some of that oil pollution was taking place.
00:27:03:14 - 00:27:17:14
Unknown
And how it ends up persisting in the environment and impacting every aspect of the ecosystem, and also just how much this landscape has transformed from the original ecosystem that was here, the the salt marshes.
00:27:17:16 - 00:27:24:04
Unknown
So I learned about all the solutions that are taking place
00:27:20:04 - 00:27:24:03
Unknown
you know, super beneficial on multiple levels. Right from the green roof. We were on
00:27:24:06 - 00:27:28:02
Unknown
providing purification for air quality, absorbing stormwater,
00:27:28:06 - 00:27:33:15
Unknown
insulating the building to create more energy efficiency, and also creating a community space for education.
00:27:33:15 - 00:27:33:18
Unknown
So
00:27:33:18 - 00:27:34:08
Unknown
So,
00:27:34:14 - 00:27:41:08
Unknown
I feel optimistic to know that there are organizations such as Newtown Creek Alliance and many other community stakeholders
00:27:41:08 - 00:27:59:21
Unknown
cultivating a space to get people informed and excited about being involved in solutions, because we need that community engagement piece
00:27:59:23 - 00:28:00:11
Unknown
You.