I own two residences within a block of the Gowanus and can share my reason for being pro Superfund.

Firstly who created the mess in the first place? Not residents but the land owners and businesses along the canal. Maybe not the current ones but either way there was a drastic lack of caring that allowed this to happen. I think the land owners and businesses along the canal should bear the brunt of that. Clearly they did a bad job at policing each other.

The prices might go down but they should. The current unreasonably elevated prices do not reflect the fact that the Gowanus is a shit heap. We’ve all been happily ignoring this.

Bottom line, if you bought along the canal or are a business along the canal then you made a poor investment. I feel for you, but it was irrational to think you could ignore the blaring fact that you set up shop or bought next to a toxic sludge pond.

Anyone against the Superfund wants to continue with their head in the sand trying to pass the buck to the next poor sucker who buys into the stack of cards.

We need to stop passing the buck and finally take responsibility for our parent’s really stupid decisions. We also need to stop making them ourselves.

I am fine with my property values going down. I see it as a worthwhile investment into the long term health of the community.

There will be a day when we can swim in the canal. Then the property values will go up considerably. It is worth it.

And the EPA, although in my opinion a pretty useless organization, is the best for this job. They have a dubious track record and yes some Superfund sites are a real fiasco but I think they will do a better job than the alternative.

Why in the world would we trust the city to do it? The city allowed the toxic dump to occur in the first place and they have made no effort to remediate it since then. The only remediation they have done was mandatory.

The problem here is that everyone along the canal has big dollar signs in their eyes. They see all these developers with huge wads of cash. It is a fantasy. The canal is a mess and we need to stop ignoring it.

don’t let the money blind you into doing what is right for the community. Once the site is cleaned up then you can get your well deserved money from developers who will build conscientiously.

But the current set of developers are more of the same old crap. They are money hungry idiots without any care for the real community or ecology of the area.