A legal battle over Gowanus Canal cleanup shines a new light on 150 years of pollution

A lawsuit filed last month reveals in gory detail the laundry list of putrid chemicals that for more than a century spilled into the Gowanus Canal, earning it the title of Superfund site and making it the subject of seemingly endless litigation.

The cleanup of the canal — an exhaustive process that includes dredging large sections of its base — began in 2016 and has ramped up since 2020. National Grid, which acquired the company that dumped toxins into the area for decades, has largely been held responsible for paying for the cost of the work. Through a lawsuit the company filed in Brooklyn federal court, the company seeks a judge to force 40 other groups and companies to help foot the bill for the decontamination, which is estimated to cost at least $1 billion. National Grid suggested in legal filings it could be forced to hike gas rates for New Yorkers if other groups don’t help pay for the work.

The lawsuit paints one of the clearest pictures to date of what was dumped into the Gowanus Canal and rendered it one of the country’s most polluted waterways.

“This canal right here is mutant water. If you jump in, you're not coming back out, you're straight sinking in,” said Kay Ali, 22, who likes to hang out by the canal — when the smell is tolerable.

National Grid has been held as the primary party responsible for the canal’s pollution because the company in 2007 acquired the Brooklyn Union Gas Company, which from the late 1800s to around 1960 dumped a cocktail of toxins in the area, including mercury and lead. But the company argues 40 other groups — including the city of New York, the U.S. Navy, Con Edison and Verizon — have also spilled chemicals into the waterway since the mid-19th century and should help cover the cost.

“National Grid inherited the responsibility for the clean up from its predecessors and we take our responsibility very seriously,” National Grid spokesperson Karen Young said in a statement. “We’ve been working with EPA for more than 15 years. During this time we have made numerous attempts to work with the 40 responsible parties for the contamination associated with their operations over the past 150 years.”

Over 150 years, all manners of industry came and went along the banks of the canal and areas of Brooklyn with sewer lines that flowed into the waterway.

The lawsuit includes dozens of accounts that detail a foul docket of industrial waste that washed into the canal, including garbage mixed with dead animals, leaks from underground oil tanks, and barrels of lead paint and zinc powder gushed into the waterway by factories.

Some of the nastiest activity highlighted in the lawsuit includes:

• As early as 1918, the Navy used coal barges at a yard near the canal. The massive piers were used to repair ships during World Wars I and II — but also produced toxic waste that flowed from the site to the water. Workers even used hot ashes to fill low spots at the site, according to the lawsuit.
• For decades, a Con Edison yard on Third Avenue dumped chemical-containing wastes directly into the canal via a dirt pit.
• Beginning as early as 1892, the city operated dumps and incinerators at multiple sites along the canal for more than 80 years, causing industrial waste to enter the waterway.
• A set of underground fuel storage tanks exploded in 1976, spilling more than 2.5 million gallons of oil into the canal.

Crews removed around 35,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the base of the canal in 2020. A year later, workers drilled into the base of the canal to hold sediment in place and then capped it off to prevent toxins from bubbling up in the future. National Grid said the work won’t be finished until at least 2030.

But some locals aren’t holding their breath for a true fix to the deeply rooted contaminants that continue to seep towards the waterway, and worry that the lawsuit might hinder the ongoing cleanup.

Katia Kelly, who works with the advocacy group Voice of Gowanus, said National Grid knew that the companies it acquired were responsible for much of the pollution since it purchased Keyspan, a successor of Brooklyn Union Gas.

“This is not unusual, this is basically all over the United States that these utilities when they merge... they buy, by law, the responsibility for the pollution goes with the land. You buy the land, tag, you’re it,” Kelly said.

“That used to be the Fulton manufacturing gas site,” Kelly said, gesturing towards a building on Sackett Street, where there is now a public swimming pool and park. Gas was manufactured there from around 1879 to 1929, according to the EPA. A remedial investigation found coal tar and oil contamination in the soil at the site.

“They're beautiful old black and white pictures showing you what it looked like. I shouldn't say beautiful because it's horrifying, actually. But coal tar from that site, over decades, made its way across the canal and made it onto the canal,” said Kelly. “They have the responsibility. It really seems ridiculous that National Grid is starting a lawsuit now, basically saying, ‘Hey, we want the other polluters to pay,’ when really they have the lion's share of the cleanup and have polluted other sites outside of the MGP [manufacturing gas] sites.”

Allison Maser, a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams, said the city is already holding active settlement talks with National Grid. The city of Brooklyn assisted with the canal's development from 1853 until about 1870 — decades before the city's five boroughs were consolidated — according to the lawsuit. The city now owns the contaminated bottom of the waterway, which is home to the infamous “ black mayonnaise ,” a mix of carcinogenic contaminants that crews are working to dredge up.

The chemicals make the waterway so putrid that it’s uninhabitable for natural life. Back in 2013, a dolphin died after it made its way into the canal.

Lenny Speregen, a professional diver who has for years made a hobby out of personally braving the canal’s foul waters in a wetsuit, said you don’t need to be a chemist to understand its filth.

“I haven't mutated yet, but it is a disgusting place,” he said. “If you drop a tool, just let it go. Do not dig through the mud to find a screwdriver, a hammer, whatever you're working with.

“The Gowanus Canal is a much bigger problem than anyone gives it credit for. It's not a good situation. It doesn't speak well for the human race that this is how we treat the place,” Speregen said.

All the contamination is coming together to reveal a cleanup with escalating costs that National Grid said could be passed along to its customers.

National Grid says it is committed to cleaning up the site, but claims in the lawsuit that the total cost will climb past $1 billion: “a sum far too large to be disproportionately shouldered by Brooklyn Union and its local Brooklyn customers,” according to the lawsuit.

Kelly and her group have long advocated for a deeper cleaning of the canal and surrounding areas. They say the area runs the risk of suffering from the pollution indefinitely

“You can say that I was naive, but in America in 2024 in New York City, if we cannot go ahead and get the cleanup that we're deserving of by law, I have no hope for other communities,” Kelly said.

Chris Smylie, who regularly walks near the canal, said the waterway can be temperamental and that he regularly notices noxious substances bubble up from its basin, earning the canal the moniker “Lavender Lake” for the colorful sheen from chemicals that sometimes blanket the water’s surface.

“We used to get the oil burps along the water every time the tides would change significantly. And that's where the Lavender Lake name came from,” said Smylie, 65. “It was all on the bottom and would come up. Absolutely beautiful, but terrifying. Just slicks of purple oil all the way up to the tunnel.”

Smylie said the cleanup so far has helped make the area less repulsive.

“You would not be standing here 15 years ago on a quiet Sunday with no breeze because it would be a little strong,” he said. “This is a whole new world now.”