Beware the blob.
A huge smelly blob of black sludge was unearthed this week at a construction site for new housing going up along Brooklyn’s toxic Gowanus Canal, and concerned neighbors said the noxious material was left exposed for days, feet from a busy intersection and school.
Residents complained to state environmental officials on Monday about the mystery mound at Bond and Union Streets, and accused the developer of utter indifference.
“They don’t give a sh-t,” a concerned parent told The Post on Friday. “This site is half-a-block away from an elementary school, and the sidewalk is 10 feet from that stinking sh-tberg. They should’ve had it covered immediately” with thick plastic and a vapor suppressing foam.
The material is suspected to be coal tar — a highly toxic byproduct of plants that produced coal gas and coke for a century.
It gives off an “acrid, toxic mothball-type smell,” the parent said, likely because it contains naphthalene, a harmful hydrocarbon used to make mothballs and insecticides.
“If its toxic, it should have been removed, not just left out in the open,” the parent added. “It would be like taking fuel rods out of Chernobyl, and putting them on the sidewalk and collecting them later. It’s outrageous.”
The state Department of Environmental Conservation visited the site on Tuesday, and issued a stop-work order.
Since then, large sheets of plastic were placed over the 20-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide pile, and work has resumed.
Pictures shared with The Post confirm the developer, Tankhouse, also covered all of the viewing windows along the boarded construction site as well as a gate to the site, preventing anyone from looking in on the work.
A city Department of Buildings spokesperson confirmed to The Post such coverings violate the city’s building code, but noted they’ve received no complaints about the obstructed viewing holes. “If DOB does receive 311 complaints about this issue, we will route an inspector to the site to investigate,” the spokesperson said.
The DEC said it was “committed to addressing community concerns and ensuring a comprehensive cleanup of the 450 Union site,” and that “upon being notified of the community concerns about the odors, DEC immediately contacted the contractor for the cleanup to develop a plan to address the nuisance smell and had personnel on site the following morning.
“DEC proactively shut down the activity on site to fully investigate the complaint and is closely overseeing the cleanup to ensure compliance with the approved work plan that includes odor control foam and covering the stockpile. The community air monitoring program has been ongoing since the cleanup work began and will continue until the work is completed. There were no exceedances of the volatile organic compounds (VOC) and the site is protective of public health in the community. DEC staff will continue to perform in-person oversight throughout the ground intrusive work.”
The state has been investigating roughly 100 blocks in and around the Gowanus Canal to determine how many are contaminated with cancer-causing vapors and other hazardous substances.
The state DEC began its probe in September following public outcry over reports it waited nearly two years to alert the public that cancer-causing vapors nearly 22 times the amount considered safe escaped from polluted soil and into a popular shuffleboard club.
One building, which DEC refused to publicly identify, had air levels of the chemical trichloroethylene, or “TCE” — an industrial solvent linked to cancer, Parkinson’s disease and other ailments — 450 times above acceptable levels, according to tests taken last year.
Similar tests conducted in 2023 at 543 Union St., a massive 19th Century-era building occupied by 22 businesses, also found TCE fumes on site dozens of times, including one reading 255 times above “safe” level.
Parents, who have to walk by the site to take their kids to PS 32, also noted there is no protective tent over the site.
“This whole episode shows that the DEC and the DOH are reactive and not doing their jobs,” the concerned dad said. “It also shows the lack of care and contempt the contractors have for the people in this neighborhood.”
