“The Park Slope Civic Council hosted a great Sustainability Meeting titled PlanPS2008: How You Can Start Fighting Climate Change Today last night, well attended by over a hundred people. Introductions were by PSCC trustee Eric McClure and Ken Freeman, PSCC’s president.”–I’m Seeing Green

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The Park Slope Food Co-op will ban the sale of bottled water if its members vote to approve it. Bottled water has become a big environmental issue as an estimated 30 million bottles a day end up in landfills and manufacturing the bottle consumes an estimated 1.5 million barrels of oil a year. The Brooklyn […]

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The Park Slope Civic Council is hosting a community forum on sustainability on March 6. It’s called “PlanPS2008: How You Can Start Fighting Climate Change Today.” Per the PSCC: The forum will be chock-full of everything from easy-to-implement, everyday, eco-friendly tips to how-tos on solar-panel and green-roof installations. Expert panelists will provide you with the […]

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Whatever the MTA was doing in terms of asbestos removal at the Carroll Street Station this weekend had wrapped by up by yesterday afternoon, but a local City Council Member Bill de Blasio said he was “deeply concerned” about the work and criticized the MTA for not notifying the community in advance. Yesterday, we reported […]

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Coal is not a “Brooklyn story” unless, of course, there happens to be a cool new documentary about the coal industry from a Brooklynite. Then, it’s very on topic. Chandru Murthi, who does the superb blog I’m Seeing Green, has put up a post about a new film called “Burning the Future: Coal in America,” […]

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The Federal government is going to try to figure out whether there is unexploded ordinance at the bottom of Gravesend Bay that might cause a very unwanted kind of boom on the Southern Brooklyn waterfront. The issue has come up in the context of plans to dredge the bay so the city can open up […]

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Sustainable Flatbush is sponsoring a “Greening Flatbush” event on Sunday, February 24. Here’s something from the release we got about it from Chris Kreussling, who is also the person behind the Flatbush Gardener blog: On Sunday, February 24, residents and other members of the greater Flatbush community can learn what they can do to beautify […]

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The Burg is getting a green building at 439 Metropolitan Avenue. It will have a mix of apartments and office space from Helder Design. It’s NYC’s first LEED Platinum rating for a mixed-use buildings and one of several green buildings going up in Brooklyn, including the Greenbelt, another Williamsburg structure. The bad news is it’s […]

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We don’t know for a fact that this brown mass we found floating on the Gowanus on Saturday is, uh, crap. However, it looks disturbingly like what might happen if King Kong had the runs at the Carroll Street Bridge. (Actually, we watched the mass of whatever it was float from the Union Street Bridge […]

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Anyone interested in the topic of water quality in the Gowanus Canal and plans to improve it will want to mark their calendars for February 12 when there will be a meeting to present that massive Gowanus Canal Waterbody/Watershed Facility Plan Report. The 564-page document deals with water quality in the canal and plans to […]

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While the Department of Environmental Conservation has sent a letter saying that the contamination of the Roebling Oil Field / Warehouse 11 site was confined to that property before a clean up took place, some local residents are skeptical and want to see all the documentation. GL has been told to expect at least one […]

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The Queens Ledger published a story yesterday that has some good news and bad about the former Roebling Oil Field, which is the site of the new condo called Warehouse 11. The good news is that Department of Environmental Conservation head Pete Grannis sent a letter to Assem. Joe Lentol saying, “Based on our analysis […]

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Is the Department of Environmental Conservation stonewalling and not turning over reports about all the test wells it drilled adjacent to the Roebling Oil Field (as recently as this fall) where luxe condos are now on sale? That is what a neighborhood activist who’s been working through a State Assembly Member and a City Council […]

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Have some old or (newly made old by holiday gifts) electronics devices? Well, here’s another opportunity to get rid of them in an environmentally friendly way: Sustainable Flatbush’s Post-Holiday E-Waste Recycling Event. It will take place on Saturday, January 5 and on Sunday, January 6 fromm 1PM to 5PM. The location wil be 462 Marlborough […]

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We forgot to repost this item yesterday, but better late than never. There is an electronics recycling event in Park Slope this weekend which offers the chance to get rid of computers, monitors, printers, and other electronics devices in an environmentally friendly way. The drop off spot is PS 321, which is on Seventh Avenue […]

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The building that we’ve been waiting for–having been photographing and posting about the building site for more than year–is upon us. The Roebling Oil Building Warehouse 11 is on the market. It is “modern industrial design redesigned.” There are eight apartments listed so far and the opening screens of a website, a couple of screen […]

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The Roebling Oil Building, now known as Warehouse 11, as it enters the marketing phase (although the banners outside the building and the website haven’t gone up yet), is getting windows. This is exciting to us as we have followed every development at this building since it was just a construction site with a big, […]

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Do you have any electronic devices–computers, monitors, printers, etc.–that need to be recycled? If so, there are opportunities coming up in both Fort Greene and in Park Slope. The Fort Greene recycling drop off spot will be the Habana Outpost on Fulton Street at South Portland Avenue. The dates and times are: Saturday November 24, […]

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Things are moving forward at the Public Place site in Gowanus. A reader emailed us the other day to note that work crews were still on site with a drilling rig taking soil samples or digging test wells, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle has reported five developers have submitted proposals–including many heavyweights–to develop the environmentally […]

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What was a truck from a firm that bills itself as “helping solve many of America’s toughest industrial waste problems” doing sucking stuff from beneath a grate on Grand Street in Williamsburg yesterday? Hopefully, it was something run-of-the-mill, but nasty. In any case, a reader left word on our post about the drilling for samples […]

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We have previously reported activity in the last week on the heavily polluted Public Place site between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal. Vegetation has been cut and barrels often used for the storage of hazardous and non-hazardous waste have been scattered around the property. Yesterday, we spotted a drilling rig and a work crew […]

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Don’t look now, but people–well, at least, a handful of people–are fishing in the Gowanus Canal, catching fish and taking them home and eating them. We are not making this up. A very reliable source tells us that the fishermen put their hooks in the water near the Third Street Bridge and that they are […]

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We got an email from a GL reader late last week that there was activity on the highly toxic Public Place site between the Gowanus Canal and Smith Street. Our reader wrote that “a large amount of the underbrush (trees, weeds, shrubs) have been cleared away, at least on the Smith Street side.” A trip […]

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Perhaps you saw our coverage yesterday of the Greenwood Oil Spill or Brownstoner’s excellent coverage of the same issue. Brownstoner took the time to swing by the site and reported that a worker at 716 Sixth Avenue (at 23rd Street) said reports of underground gasoline were “bullshit,” but was unable to explain the huge turnout […]

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Gasoline was found in Greenwood Heights yesterday. It’s unclear how much gasoline is underground there–whether it’s an isolated, small pocket or something indicative of a bigger spill–but excavation at 716 Sixth Avenue (at 23rd Street) encountered gasoline. Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights sent out an email saying “light headed here” in reference to the “bad […]

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