By Joe Hirsch
news@huntspointexpress.com
The city has decided not to build two 13-story story towers with a space age profile at the giant sewer plant on the East River next door to Barretto Point Park—for the time being.
Instead, it will refurbish the existing silos, using funds from President Obama’s economic stimulus package.
The egg-shaped towers would have been the tallest buildings in Hunts Point. They had drawn criticism from local residents and advocates because of their size and because they would have cast shadows on the park.
Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg announced on September 8 they will direct $220 million of Economic Recovery funding toward projects in all five boroughs in order to modernize and repair the city’s aging fresh water system. Of that, $47 million have been targeted for the Hunts Point Water Pollution Control Plant, whose four massive tanks were built in the 1960s.
Local advocates who serve on the Hunts Point Monitoring Committee (HPMC) to bring neighborhood concerns to the city Department of Environmental Protection hailed the new plans, calling them environmentally sound.
A spokesman for the environmental protection confirmed that plans for the new towers had been shelved for now. After the upgrade, everything will be “brand new,” she said.
According to a spokesman for the state’s Environmental Facilities Corporation, which will administer the $220 million grant, improvements will allow sludge to be processed more efficiently.
The spokesman, Deirdre Miller, said operation and maintenance costs will go down and less energy will be required to operate the plant, thereby producing less pollution.
In a statement, the governor called the federal funds “an important down payment on protecting and improving our urban waterways.”
The plant will employ new fuel cells to convert the methane gas produced by the digesters into low-cost electricity that can power the plant, said a spokesman for the federal Environmental Protection Agency in an email response to questions.
The environmental impact statement for the plant, completed in 2007, included a rendering of the new towers, called digesters. It outlined plans to scrap the current containers and build two of the towers during the current expansion of the plan and two more down the road. The $200 million price tag for four new digesters forced officials to downsize the project.
HPMC members said fitting the new machinery inside the current tanks would make a significant difference. “This is something HPMC has been asking for for years,” said Jaime Stein, environmental policy analyst for Sustainable South Bronx, of the energy saving advances that will stem from the improvements. “This is a good thing.”
Others expressed relief that new digesters will not be built in Hunts Point any time soon.
“Do they have to be 13 stories?” Maria Torres, director of community center the Point CDC and a HPMC volunteer, wondered out loud. “Do they have to be at the edge of the park?”
Construction to rehabilitate the digesters is expected to begin within a few months, with an anticipated completion date of January 2012.
A version of this article appeared in the October 2009 edition of The Hunts Point Express.