Coney Island Creek should be a superfund site, locals say

Brooklyn’s most notoriously disgusting Gowanus Canal is finally getting its $507 million clean-up from the Environmental Protection Agency, purging trees, tires, and other surprises, but the Superfund site has a long way to go. The borough’s second Superfund site, Newtown Creek, patiently await its turn for revitalization but according to locals in Coney Island, there is another cruddy creek that should be added to the party.

According to Brooklyn Daily, locals in Coney Island voted unanimously at a recent community board meeting to request Albany to declare Coney Island Creek a State Superfund site (h/t Bensonhurst Bean). “In the past few months an awful lot of new information has turned up about the creek and what a danger it represents to the people who swim there, fish there, and live there — it’s time to clean up that creek,” stated environmental activist Ida Sanoff.

Coney Island historian Charles Denson told the Brooklyn Eagle that the creek has been flooded with toxic chemicals for more than 50 years and even today, auto shops along Neptune Avenue dump cars into the creek.

Local officials are planning to work with the community board to come up with facts to back their suggestion to name the creek a Superfund site, before presenting it to Albany.

• Locals want Albany to deem Coney Creek a ‘state Superfund’ [Brooklyn Daily]
• Locals Want Coney Island Creek To Be Designated A Superfund Site [Bensonhurst Bean]