No
Smoking Please http://www.nypress.com/16/9/news&columns/feature.cfm Theres an optical illusion visible from the intersection of Manhattan
and Greenpoint Aves. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It appears as if theres a
power plant at the base of the street, on the waterfront: Four smokestacks
churn out cartoon clouds that swirl over the brownstones, row houses and
warehouses. The
vision is, in fact, the aging Con Edison facility at 14th St. in Manhattan, just
across the East River. A state agency will soon decide whether to turn this
illusion into reality by paving the way for another plant on the Brooklyn side. It
is a decision that locals hope will end what has already been a fierce
two-year battle for the future of the North Brooklyn waterfront. TransGas Energy Systems first proposed building a $1 billion, 1100-megawatt power
facility on the East River at the Greenpoint/Williamsburg border in September
2001. Since then, the story has been characterized as everything from syncretic
community coalition pitted against evil outsider to nothing more than quixotic
idealism coming from waterfront advocates. The real story resists such
simplifications. At
stake is the future of the waterfront. Will a new TransGas facility spew toxins
over the area? Or will parks and housing bloom in the now-vacant lots without
the shadow of smokestacks? The
TransGas proposal interrupted a more than decade-old community plan to revitalize
the waterfront by rezoning formerly heavy industrial sites for residential
and light manufacturing use. To meet the TransGas challenge, the community
mobilized quickly and enlisted several real estate developers to influence officials,
particularly Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff. This alliance between housing developers
and community leaders has temporarily set aside another central concern for
locals: the exorbitant cost of housing. The struggle against TransGas isnt
just about defeating the plant, but how to beat it without betraying the
interests of the people of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Nobody denies that the city needs energy. Just how much and by what means, however, are
questions obscured by a messy mix of politics, economics and ideology. New York
Independent System Operator, the group that oversees the states deregulated
energy market, projected in March 2002 that in-city energy needs would increase
by 580 megawatts between then and 2005. Yet that report recommends an
additional 2000-3000 megawatts. A spokesman for the NYISO did not return calls to
explain this discrepancy. "We build power plants to meet demand [based on] a few [peak] hours a
year," says E. Gail Suchman, Senior Environmental Counsel with the New York
Lawyers for the Public Interest, a group that represents low-income communities
on environmental issues, referring to the broiling summer afternoons when around-the-clock
air conditioning causes energy usage to spike. "Most of the time, the
base load is substantially lower than the amount of available
capacity." In
other words, the future demand estimates are too high. So
why have over 4000 megawatts of new energy been proposed along the East River,
from Sunset Park to Astoria? Seven potential energy projects have queued up in the
siting process, and the state has already certified four of these. The Polotti
Station expansion broke ground in November, while the Ravenswood Cogeneration
Project is expected to go online by the first quarter of 2004. The other two are
in Astoria and lower Manhattan. Two other projects, in Astoria and Sunset
Park, have filed for approval. At the end of the list is the proposed TransGas
facility in Williamsburg/Greenpoint. "The common thread," says Suchman, "is these plants are virtually
all located in low- income communities of color, and they all emit fine-particulate
matter [that accumulate in human lungs]." After
public health, the other central concern is the effect the plant will have on
plans to develop the waterfront. "If this power plant goes up and you
dont save this waterfront, it will be dead," 50th District Assemblyman
Joseph Lentol warned Gov. Pataki last November. The occasion was a press
conference held aboard a ferry in the middle of the East River. He spoke facing the
proposed TransGas site, against the backdrop of the Bayside Fuels hulking
white gas storage containers and the twisted, rusted skeleton of Greenpoint
Terminal Market. "The power plant will kill it. Its right smack in the middle, as you can
see right here. Right smack in the middle of all of our plans, all of our
hopes, and all of our dreams," said Lentol. These
dreams envision a complete transformation of the waterfront: a U.S.S. Monitor
Museum at the Bushwick Inlet (where the Civil War ironclad was launched), a
combined state park and NYU facility at N. 7th St., Olympic fields at N. 9th St.,
waterfront promenades, including one under construction at Java St., and affordable
housing. All of this to rise from vacant rail yards, abandoned warehouses and
trucking lots. Assemblyman Lentol grew up blocks away from the waterfront on S. 2nd St. He rarely
visited it, though. The factories and warehouses blocked any access to the river.
It "People realized that this beautiful waterfront [is] laying fallow and
nobodys doing anything with it," he said. "Why cant people enjoy
the most magnificent view of Manhattan from anywhere in New York
City?" Mostly because the lots remain desirable for other uses, including waste transfer, fuel
storage, light manufacturing and power generation. In his 30 years as assemblyman,
a position his father and grandfather both held, Lentol has watched what he
calls "corporate predators" like USA Waste and Con Edison try to
capitalize on the neglected waterfront. Though both companies were ultimately
deterred from building on the river, it didnt take long for another firm to
make a bid on the land. Neighbors first heard of the TransGas plan on Sept. 13, 2001, when the smoke and
dust of the World Trade Center was still visible from the proposed site on N.
12th St. In
its statement, TransGas announced plans for "a state-of-the-art electricity and
steam production facility to rise on the site of a 100-year-old contaminated
oil storage facility in Greenpoint, Brooklyn." They proposed erecting the plant
on the almost nine-acre Bayside Fuel Oil site, complete with a 300-foot
smokestack. The only nearby structure comparable in height is the Williamsburg
Bridge. Adam
Victor, the president of TransGas, says the plant will rely primarily on natural
gas in generating electricity and supplying Manhattans vast steam
system. The real benefit, he argues, lies in the competitive threat that TransGas
will pose in an energy market dominated by facilities built forty years ago.
Plants like the proposed TransGas facility, he says, could ultimately drive the
dirtier Con Edison plants out of the market. "We are in the 80 percent efficiency range, meaning 80 percent of the [total
energy units] that go into our plant will come out as useful energy, whereas the
most modern electrical plants you have [now] are in the 50 percent range, and
the typical power plant you have in New York is in the 20 percent range. So
we are three to four times more efficient," Victor says, characteristically
referring to the as yet unbuilt plant in the present tense. If TransGas lives up to
Victors hopes, the facility will one day generate 10 percent of the citys
total projected needs. Victor is singularly confident that the TransGas facility wont poison the
neighborhood. "Theres no other community that is going to benefit
moresimply from an environmental point of viewthan Greenpoint and
Williamsburg," he maintains. Few
residents agree. To locals, the plant just means more deadly pollution. In its
Preliminary Scoping Statementrequired by law for an air quality
permitTransGas admits that the facility will emit 300 tons of nitrogen oxides, sulfur
dioxides and particular matter each year. These pollutants are linked to a variety
of health problems, including respiratory and pulmonary illnesses and the
aggravation of existing cardiovascular disease. Greenpoint and Williamsburg have
already housed two small power facilities, 23 waste transfer stations, a sewage
treatment plant and Radiac, the citys only radioactive waste storage
facility. Greenpoint also suffers from the citys highest asthma rates, and community
members worry that further toxic emissions will aggravate the
situation. "Theyre basically a Johnny-come-lately," says Adam Perlmutter, a member of
the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force (GWWTF), the community
group leading the charge against TransGas. Perlmutter is an attorney who has lived in
Greenpoint for six years, and is representative of a rising generation in the
community that shares Lentols hopes for the waterfront. Many members of
GWWTFartists, attorneys, business ownersare veterans of an earlier power plant
fight in 2000, when Con Edison sought to build a plant at the Greenpoint
Terminal Market. ConEd pulled out of the project and the residents claimed
victory. That fight taught them how to unify and educate the community while preparing
for an impending legal battle. In
December 2001, Victor was jeered and heckled by a community audience at the Polish
National Home. With the TransGas chairman stood Stephan Solzhenitsyn, the son of
Nobel-winning novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn and a consultant on the project. Shortly
after, GWWTF countered with its own p.r. offensive, recruiting Patti Smith to
take the same stage at the Polish National Home for a New Years Eve
concert. Over
the course of 2002, TransGas continued to reach out to the community with
gestures viewed by GWWTF as attempts to buy legitimacy and divide the opposition.
In one case, the company offered the local Polish- American Leadership
Council $10,000 to study the potential impact of the power plant. "We wanted to see if the idea of a power plant was sound," says Marek
Tomaszewski, a member of the council and a reporter with Nowy Dziennik, a large
Polish-language paper in the city. "We knew GWAPP [the umbrella organization of the
Greenpoint-Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force] was against it, but we wanted to have our own
opinion." The Polish group backed away from Victors offer before a check was
cut, Tomaszewski says, "because GWAPP is a very powerful organization and
they started to attack us and call us sell-outs." "We recognize that not all groups have the technical experience or ability to
review a very arcane technical document," TransGas said in defense of the
offer. "We therefore offered to any group that would listen $10,000 for
them to go hire their own engineer." The
waterfront fight flared up late last summer when the Trust for Public Lands
bid to purchase 2.6 acres of overgrown waterfront property surrounding the
Bushwick Inlet adjacent to the proposed TransGas site fell through. The Trust
sought to buy the land for the community and develop a park and U.S.S. Monitor
museum on the site. Motiva, the Shell Oil affiliate that owns the property,
terminated negotiations with the Trust. GWWTF saw TransGas hand in
Motivas pullout, believing that the inlet is vital to building the
plant. Victor denies the charge: "We were not involved in those negotiations. We were
actually talking to Motiva well before the Trust got involved. When we were told
by Motiva that they were in a deal with the Trust, we backed off and refrained from
talking to Motiva about the site." Victor also denies the GWWTFs
assertion that the inlet is essential to the TransGas project. Assemblyman Lentols office has since pleaded with Motiva to restart
negotiations. "Were waiting to meet with [them]," he said. "My
sense is that theyd rather be out of this mess. They dont want to
be involved in a fight between us and Adam Victor." Behind the scenes, members of GWWTF have also attempted to negotiate with Qorvis
Communications, the public relations firm representing the Saudi government, in an effort
to influence Motivas decision on the inlet. Their hope was that the
Saudi government would benefit from the publicity of pushing for a park and
museum in New York City. As of now, the inlet remains in limbo. The
fight for the waterfront is now entering the legal stage. New York States
Public Service Commission (PSC) must determine that the TransGas application is
in compliance with Article X ("Article Ten")that there is
environmental compatibility as well as a public need for new power facilities. The
final decision will be made by a board consisting of the heads of the New York
States Public Service Commission, Dept. of Environmental Conservation, Dept. of
Health, Economic Development Corporation, and Energy Research and Development
Authorityall Pataki appointeesas well as two ad hoc members representing the
community. Based on the recommendation of an administrative law judge overseeing the
application, these representatives will decide the fate of the proposal. "Its a very political process, although you do have a chance to present your
testimony and try to get some leverage with what the applicant has already been
getting ready for a while," said Victor Tafur, attorney with the Pace Energy
Project, the legal team representing the community in the Article X
proceeding. Once the clock begins ticking, Tafur explains, the communitys defense takes two paths: one in the form of public hearings and another, a legal course, wherein the community will present evidence to the Public Service Commission. At the outset of the legal battle, the parties must define what will be litigated with the commission. Tafur expects the major issues to be the incompatibility of the plant with the waterfront and the potential environmental impact. The Greenpoint/Williamsburg Waterfront Task Force is now playing catch-up in countering the proposed utilitys environmental data. Within weeks of TransGas Article X applicationassuming its compliant$300,000 in intervener funds will be dispersed to groups seeking independent environmental impact studies. With the community coalescing under GWWTF, the hope is that the organization will receive the entire $300,000 to conduct their studies. The fact that residents of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, including large low-income and minority populations, have endured an environmental mess for generations wont figure into the proceedings. "New York State does not have an environmental justice review, so were really lacking any legal support and thats very unfortunate," says Tafur. Environmental justice calculations cropped up in the TransGas bidbut just barelywhen the company applied for a federal air permit. TransGas application concluded, "portions of the study area exceed EPA Region 2 thresholds for minority and low income representation." The message was not lost: minority and poor communities would breathe TransGas emissions. "Youd be taking a really dilapidated waterfront and turning it into potentially beautiful apartment houses and open space," says City Councilman David Yassky, who shares the vision most locals have of a rejuvenated riverside community. "Now theres just zero public access to the waterfront throughout Greenpoint and Williamsburg. Part of developing it for residential use would be creating some park space, and a long promenade along the waterfront. I [also] want to make sure that theres a range of housing built in terms of affordability and that its not all luxury housing." Politicians like Yassky and Lentol now find themselves in uneasy alliances with developers driven by profit, rather than the communitys interests. Lentol assembled the five principal waterfront developers to meet Deputy Mayor Doctoroff last fall. They included George Klein of Park Tower Realty, Norman Brodsky of CitiStorage, Louis Silverman of 4Gs trucking, DUMBO loft-lord Joshua Gutman and Michael Kay of Levine Builders. All have made the case for housing development in lieu of a power plant, and each has acquired large tracts of waterfront property. A sixth, B&H Photo, has since joined the group, purchasing the Consolidated Freightway trucking depot on West St. "There are few places in New York City where you can talk about real estate by the acre," says Perlmutter. The Bloomberg administration has identified the waterfront as prime for developing his $3 billion affordable housing plan. The shift from industrial to residential use of the property is nothing new, and has been under way since illegal loft conversions lured artists and professionals to the neighborhood from Manhattan during the late 80s. When Williamsburgs housing market exploded in the 90s, the boom priced many longtime residents out of the area. Greenpoint now faces the same trend. Commercial realtor Anthony Yazetti watched converted commercial loft spaces peak at $2.30 per square foot in 1998, while the same loft used as a warehouse or manufacturing space would have rented for $.75 per square foot. "Their manufacturing business is not good," he says, explaining why landlords illegally allow tenants to live in buildings that are zoned as commercial. Provided the landlords keep up to fire code, says Yazetti, the city wont bother them. This trend worries Paul Parkhill of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center, a nonprofit concerned with retaining light-industry and artisan spaces in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. "Our long-term concern is that small manufacturing businesses will be able to continue to do work in Greenpoint," says Parkhill, who has been working with the community boards rezoning task force. "There is a sense of people who actually make stuff being able to do that here." Development also threatens to drive rents upward. "Its obvious that rents are through the roof," says Assemblyman Lentol. "The price of housing has skyrocketed to such an extent that you cant afford to buy a house or rent an apartment. We have to think of more creative ways to deal with that." Lentol is proposing a bill that will give tax credits to landlords who retain tenants rather than seek out higher-paying ones. Similarly, his colleague Yassky hopes to incorporate "zoning" tools into the rezoning plan that will allow developers to build more units, provided a portion are lower income. Then theres the problem of independent developersparticularly Joshua Gutman. His two Water St. loft buildings in DUMBO drew media attention and prompted an updating of the Loft Law when residents were summarily evicted. (They settled for $35,000 last summer with Gutman after a two-year struggle.) Since the 1980s, Gutman has also racked up dozens of Dept. of Buildings violations, many for working without a permit. But the main concern with Gutman in Williamsburg/Greenpoint, a community member says, is that he will flip the property as soon a decision is made on the TransGas situation. Greenpoint and Williamsburg face a decisive year. TransGas certification will be decided by early 2004 (the entire process is meant to take no more than 14 months). In the meantime, the final rezoning of the waterfront could be finalized within 14 months. Residents will continue to work, pay their mortgages, renew their leases and shop and linger on the strips along Manhattan and Bedford Aves. Meanwhile, the future of their community will hang in legal briefs, PowerPoint presentations and vapor stream analyses. The decisions will determine who ultimately benefits from the waterfrontthe community, housing developers or an energy firm. But whatever the Public Service Commission decides, its the residentsnot Joshua Gutman and not Adam Victorwho must live with the long-term consequences.
Residents and developers battle transgas for the north Brooklyn
waterfront
wasnt until industrial businesses fled the city, and the waterfront
literally collapsed, that he and other residents saw what the factories had
obscured.