Message from the Mayor: Waterfront, Moon
Posted on: September 28, 2017 - 7:33pm
Fellow residents,
Updates, primarily on the Waterfront.
Building 52
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The demolition comes to an end for Building 52, the last one on the waterfront, with the final bits of the building now down. This over-two-acre structure was a century-old artifact of our industrial heritage and housed cable manufacture ranging from more mundane power cables to specialized high-quality cabling used on submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Unfortunately, it was also where PCB's were industrialized, literally for the first time ever, and those toxic chemicals exist under it and in its surface and so it had to go.
Demolition was halted on two occasions - both times, dust triggered the alarm threshold on one of the several monitors installed on and around the location. In both cases, engineers determined the reason for the dust condition, it was addressed, and work continued. (The alarm threshold was set below the danger threshold so it was triggered well before it became a more significant problem.) The rubble from the structure is loaded on barges and transported downriver for ultimate transfer to a train for final disposal. BP Arco will spend a couple of weeks cleaning up the site, and then will seal the foundation with epoxy to encase the cement, which is saturated in some locations with PCBs. This should all be done by October 20th. The Village's engineering firm, which has monitored the demolition throughout, will also carry out its own tests in the next few days to verify the site and surrounding area are clean.
Subsequently, BP Arco will carry out a series of test borings through the "slab" to complete testing to identify where further PCB contamination exists beneath the former structure. These test bores will provide the necessary data to finish determining where excavation will need to occur under the slab when the remediation effort finally begins.
The views exposed by the demolition are revelatory, literally and figuratively. Ten years ago, over a half-dozen structures had stood on the waterfront, blocking views that had not been seen uninterrupted by most people in 120 years. We look upon the Palisades, an ancient basalt rock formation created 200 million years ago when the North American plate tore from Africa (Morocco was our neighbor then) as the planet's surface reorganized itself through tectonic movement. They used to tower 1000 feet high and have now shrunk to a mere 400. The cliffs have a high iron content (hence their reddish pallor) and periodically shed pieces and sometimes entire vertical slabs, most recently in 2012 directly across from Hastings, setting off car alarms as hundreds of tons of falling rock slammed the ground and registered as an earthquake on the Lamont Observatory's seismographs directly to the north. The more recent cliff delaminations stand out - a lighter color that (literally) rusts in a few years to the same color as the rest.
Water Tower
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It was around now that we were going to issue a survey seeking public input on the future of the one remaining structure on the waterfront - the iconic water tower that still stands a somewhat lonely sentinel. This tower (another century-plus artifact in surprisingly good shape) is located over a well-contaminated spot and must come down prior to clean-up. So, the question as originally mooted was: 1) is this a demolition and removal, or 2) will the water tower be deconstructed carefully and ultimately replaced when the remediation is done in the early 2020's, or 3) will it be replaced by something new? We have had several residents recently make a compelling case that the determination of whether it should be deconstructed and stored for eventual restoration, or replaced by something new and different is a decision that should proceed over a a longer period of time as the constituencies that support restoration versus replacement have a chance to lay out their case in greater detail. However, BP Arco needs an answer sooner (and our legal agreement insists on this) than this process would likely involve, so we are going to reduce the question to a binary one: "1) Demolish and remove the water tower, or 2) deconstruct and determine down the road whether to restore or replace". We are adjusting the resident poll document to reflect this new, simpler choice and it will go out in the next ten days. Eyes peeled.
And Beyond
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BP Arco is finishing up a first draft of the engineering design - they have been told by New York State to what level they must clean up the waterfront (both land and offshore) and BP has been determining *how* to do this, step by step. This draft plan will go before the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and then the two parties will tussle through the details (with input from the Village) until a final plan is agreed, sometime next year in 2018. At that point, the "yellow iron" shows up (the caterpiller tractors and other heavy equipment) and the real remediation *finally* begins, forty years after closure of the last plant. To say it has taken a while is an understatement. But once they begin work, there will be no incentive to tarry, and it should move along apace. It is an very large project - $350 million at least - and will take 3 to 5 years. There will be dredging of the river, digging up of a fair amount of the waterfront up to 12 feet down to remove the toxins, and then a final capping with soil before it is turned over for development. By the end of it, most of the site, but for a few acres reserved as parkland, will be rendered suitable for development uses up to and including human habitation (the highest standard).
When I'm asked what will go there, I've responded for years that we aren't anywhere near that discussion yet - our focus has been on getting us to this point - a waterfront cleared and ready for remediation, legal issues addressed. The current zoning supports uses ("marine industrial") not likely to be seen again in our high-wage, high-energy-cost, highly developed area. So we face a rezoning process that will likely take a couple of years, and we are finally heading toward that moment where this will begin. It first starts with the creation of an economic model that will help drive the rezoning effort. That model, to be created by independent consultants, will kick off in the fourth quarter. We will also begin looking for residents interested in staffing up the committee that will drive the rezoning effort itself. The committee will be supported by consultants, have ample input from the community, and take a year or two to get it right while the remediation gets underway. If you are eager to get your name in, you can submit your interest to volunteer@hastingsgov.org . It will be the most consequential impact on the Village you can have: helping to writ large the parameters for what, ultimately, will be erected some day on the waterfront.
Other items
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This weekend, we have Dava Sobel, discusses her book "The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars" and Hastings unique place in lunar history. Her lecture, book signing and reception will be at the library this Sunday from 2Pm to 4PM. She is part of the series of events structured around the Art Commission's "How High the Moon" exhibit, and if you haven’t seen it, take a walk around the Municipal Building some afternoon (or right after the Farmer's Market) and check it out. A juried competition resulted in remarkable works on the walls, as well as historical artifacts associated with this Village's non-trivial role in astronomy associated with the moon and beyond.
Finally, curb and road work is about to commence. If it is going to occur on your street (see here), you will be leafleted to get your car off the street - we will move it if we have to, and there is always risk in that. Better to just park in your driveway for the duration (if at all possible) so work can proceed unhindered. There's going to be quite a bit of paving (almost five years worth condensed into one), so patience for the few weeks of disruption. The outcome should be worthwhile.
Sincerely,
Peter Swiderski
Mayor