Minutes of the June 1, 2026 Meeting of the Gowanus Canal CAG’s Water Quality & Technical Committee

Attendees, CAG Members: Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Moderator. Eymund Diegel, Emily Mitchell, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Yarish, Susan Yung.

Guests: Irene Baker, National Grid. Fabio Perla, Gowanus Remediation Trust.

You can view a video recording of the meeting here. Please enter code %m0$UAWI when prompted for access.

Agency Questions –

Long discussion on how to get basement flood water tested. Per Eymund, if there is a repetitive flooding condition, people could bottle the water (clean container) and have the Water Quality Testing Committee send the sample to the lab at Brooklyn Army Terminal but mostly what they are testing is enterococcyx, not chemicals. Eymund says it is hard to know what chemicals are from historical industry and what is stuff just lying around the basement. However, they would consider doing the testing if the flooding is consistent like Peter’s building.

Thus – Joan will email the three agencies below to see if test kits could be made available and one of those agencies could do basement flood water testing. DEC, DEP & DOH
– Basement floodwater testing: Can residents/businesses have a practical way to check floodwater for contamination (kits or an agency-supported sampling option)? If kits aren’t recommended, what alternative is feasible?

Further discussion of whether real-time canal monitoring/public reporting is a possibility: Can agencies evaluate deploying monitors along the canal/outfalls (storm-event focused) and publishing results (e.g., open data/dashboard) with public health context? Prepare an email to DEP – Alicia West – ask for it at Bond Street and 2nd Street outflows. (Double check these locations with Eymund). Also reach out to FLOOD NET at NYU.

Additional questions as a follow-up to Alicia West’s answer to some of our questions (see email correspondence in the addenda here):.

Addressing Sewer Backups – When or will the City turn to Gowanus? June 9, 2026 Gowanus Oversight Task Force meeting will cover flooding issues.
– Does the new sewer Alicia West described for the west side of the Canal already have a funded line in the City budget?
– Has DEP started to measure how much of first flush the new buildings are capturing?
– A government agency is supposed to model projections for population increases and climate change. Did the scientific projections in the LTCP account for the results of climate change?
Can we get a presentation on the issues above?.

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Minutes of the May 4, 2026 Meeting of the Gowanus Canal CAG’s Water Quality & Technical Committee

Attendees, CAG Members: Joan Salome-Rodriguez (Moderator), Corinne Brenner, Eymund Diegel, Erica Eliason, Katia Kelly, Louis Kleinman, Emily Mitchell, Jason Schwartzman, Susan Yung.

Guests: Irene Baker, National Grid; Aaron Kaufman, Gowanus Remediation Trust.

You can view a video recording of the meeting here. Please enter code bK&51$#6 when prompted for access.

Housekeeping:
1) PowerHouse walkway at TB1. NO INFO YET – Brian says we need community advocacy on this.
2) Mounding: Just waiting.
3) Dissolved Oxygen Levels: Any acknowledgement from Fagel, Waldron or Smith to our resolution re: DO levels? No. Erica followed up 5/4/2026.
4) OMP: What is EPA’s demand for responsible parties to maintain an operation and maintenance plan (OMP) for the Gowanus Canal clean-up strategy? Who will ensure that the OMP is done going forward? Will EPA continue to check that the water quality remains good and that the cap is intact? Does EPA have an OMP Plan? Where is it? No answer. Katia followed up 5/4/2026.

HYDROLOGY: Current hydraulic conditions, including groundwater elevations and flow direction. DEC is working on it. They are not including toxins in the study. Suggestion – overlay the map – see link (https://dec.ny.gov/maps/interactive-maps/decinfo-locator).

Turning Basins – what can be done?

Housekeeping:
5) How much water are we losing? Update is – a lot because of steel bulkheads, tiebacks and toes at bottom we lose surface area but gain depth due to dredging.
6) How will what we lose here be returned to us at Turning Basins 1 & 11 (near Lowe’s in RTA 3? Does not look that way. We get a little back at 5th Street turning basin. GRT is not up to planning at 11 yet.

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Minutes of the June 1, 2026 Meeting of the Gowanus Canal CAG’s Archaeology & Historic Preservation Committee

Attendees, CAG Members: Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Moderator. Eymund Diegel, Peter Reich, Jason Schwartzman.

Guests: Irene Baker, National Grid; Fabio Perla, Gowanus Remediation Trust.

You can watch a video recording of the meeting here. Please enter passcode O4AK1%A2 for access.

1. Discuss ways to get the Storyboard and other materials out to the community..

2. Agreed to work with Outreach and reach out to Celeste at Dredgers for an event including a projection of the Gowanus Graffiti materials and various dredged objects.

3. Joan emailed John Quadrozzi to set up a visit with Peter to the site and get photos and a sense of what could potentially be moved for display.

4. Eymund to share a bunch of Gowanus Graffiti subway art from 2011.

5. Peter suggests that a few of the images in our collection of graffiti be printed and framed and ask the nearby buildings where the artwork was to display in their space. See notes in the Gowanus Graffiti collection.

6. Joan reported that Clinton and Union Street library scheduled to open in the fall.

Still To Do

7. New semester so outreach to Brooklyn College Museum Studies Program and to Pratt’s archaeology team is timely now to see if there are any opportunities there. https://www.brooklyn.edu/bc-news/curating-excellence/. If we are going to set up exhibits they may be able to help. bbingham@pratt.edu – What should an email to these programs say?

Minutes of the May 4, 2026 Meeting of the Gowanus Canal CAG’s Archaeology & Historic Preservation Committee

Attendees, CAG Members: Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Moderator. Joseph Alexiou, Eymund Diegel, Katia Kelly, Michael Kilian, Louis Kleinman, Peter Reich, Jason Schwartzman.

Guests: Irene Baker, National Grid; Aaron Kaufman, Gowanus Remediation Trust.

You can watch a video recording of the meeting here. Please enter passcode fp^+^7v^ for access.

1. Get the Storyboard out to the community – It is already integrated on Arc GIS and we can share. Arc GIS is a multi-media platform that allows photos, video, text and audio, and the Story Map is the Hx of the Gowanus Canal.

Getting our stuff out there

2. Shared materials with committee to send first tranche to Johnny & Emily (Arts Gowanus) for the Walkabout Tour. Many of the Gowanus Graffiti items are already on Michael’s Instagram site but Joseph and I are building out the Google docs for sharing with Arts Gowanus. Eymund has material that can be added.

3. Then we can share the other Gowanus dredged material.

Gowanus Canal Remedial Target Area 1 Supplemental Mitigative Action Scope of Work

At its June 23, 2026 general meeting, the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group asked the EPA to provide the Supplemental Mitigative Action Scope of Work for Remedial Target Area 1 (RTA1), the upper portion of the Gowanus Canal. The supplemental work is intended to remove observed nonaqueous phase liquid (NAPL) impacts and eliminate associated potential recontamination pathways along the western bulkhead near Douglass Street.

You can download the full memorandum outlining the RTA1 Supplemental Mitigative Action Scope of Work here.

Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group Resolution Calls for Creation of a “Gowanus Protection Framework”

At its June 23, 2026 general meeting, the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group passed a resolution calling for the creation of a Gowanus Protection Framework.

The resolution, sent to the EPA, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, proposes a collaborative Gowanus Protection Framework––built on transparent safety thresholds, clear monitoring protocols, single points of contact, and advance community notice––to ensure coordinated communication from the EPA, DEC, and DEP. The resolution asks all three agencies to use the CAG’s monthly General Meetings as the shared forum for regular updates on canal and upland remediation progress, and in turn, commits the CAG to spreading the information and keeping the community fully informed.

You can download a PDF of the complete resolution here.

Missed our June 2026 General Meeting? You can find a recording here.

If you were unable to join us via Zoom for our June 23rd general meeting, you can view a complete video recording of the meeting below, or open it in a new window here.

Please click on any of the following dates for recordings of our April 28th, March 24th, February 24th, January 27th, December 2nd, and October 28th general meetings.

For recordings of our June, July and September 2025 meetings, please click here.

And for video of most of our meetings from April 2020 to April 2025, please visit our Vimeo page. Click on any of the videos to view the recording of the desired meeting.

Gowanus Canal CAG June 23, 2026 General Meeting

Minutes of the Gowanus Canal CAG Outreach Committee’s June 8, 2026 Meeting

Attendees: Jason Schwartzman (Facilitator), Emily Mitchell, Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Erica Eliason, Lisa Bowstead, Katie Bishop

CAG Resolution: At the next CAG General Meeting, it is expected that a resolution will come up for a vote, entitled, “The Gowanus Protection Framework.” The resolution includes a list of commitments that the CAG will make, many of which will fall upon the Outreach Committee to carry out. The Committee went through the list of commitments, and the consensus is that it’s do-able. The following are the commitments (in italics) and key points from the discussion:

Play a productive role in the broader community to address issues, concerns, questions or complaints about the remediation impacts, including:

Commitment A – Host annual Town Hall meetings where agencies provide high level overview and progress of all remediation activities, so that all neighbors are able to learn about the ongoing work

  • Generally viewed as doable but recognized as a logistical challenge.

Commitment B: Manage an active website and social media presence that amplify agency updates

  • The committee agreed that the CAG website might provide links to more technical, longer, and more comprehensive type information published by others.
  • The committee discussed the fact that social media needs to use “hooks” and be more engageable to reach community members who aren’t currently involved or informed about efforts to clean up the contamination in the Gowanus Canal and the surrounding land.
  • This commitment was recognized to be do-able but a heavy lift, with questions about website and social media management.

Commitment C: Manage a live list of active remediation projects, that compiles the above information provided by agencies

  • This commitment drew the most discussion, and the consensus within the Committee is that it is the heaviest lift.
  • The committee walked through the Gowanus Oversight Task Force website, which may provide a model for the design of how active remediation projects may be presented and tracked.

Commitment D: Develop and implement an outreach plan to reach community members throughout the neighborhood that may not be represented on the CAG.

  • The Committee confirmed this to be a top priority.
  • The Committee brainstormed ways to increase its outreach–street outreach to sign up people interested in information about the superfund and upland cleanup process, and piggybacking on existing communications being sent out by other groups to their audience (there are a number of regular email blasts put out by local groups that may be friendly to CAG messaging, including elected officials, local press, and other nonprofits).

Minutes of the May 4, 2026 Meeting of the Gowanus Canal CAG’s Archaeology & Historic Preservation Committee

Attendees, CAG Members: Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Moderator. Louis Kleinman, Eymund Diegel, Katia Kelly, Michael Kilian, Jason Schwartzman, Joseph Alexiou, Peter Reich.

Guests: Irene Baker, National Grid; Aaron Kaufman, Gowanus Remediation Trust.

You can watch a video recording of the meeting here. Please enter passcode fp^+^7v^ for access.

1. Get the Storyboard out to the community – It is already integrated on Arc GIS and we can share. Arts GIS is a multi-media platform that allows photos, video, text and audio and the Story Map is the Hx of the Gowanus Canal.

Getting our stuff out there

2. Shared materials with committee to send first tranche to Johnny & Emily (Arts Gowanus) for the Walkabout Tour. Many of the Gowanus Graffiti items are already on Michael’s Instragram site but Joseph and I are building out the Google docs for sharing with Arts Gowanus. Eymund has material that can be added.

3. Then we can share the other Gowanus dredged material

Minutes of the Gowanus Canal CAG Outreach Committee’s May 11, 2026 Meeting

Attendees: Jason Schwartzman (Facilitator), Emily Mitchell, Joan Salome-Rodriguez, Erica Eliason, Lisa Bowstead, Alexandra Dadourian

1. Review Outreach’s Information Dissemination

The committee reviewed the existing two-page Superfund fact sheet (last content-approved November 2017). The content remains largely accurate, but the Committee agreed that some updates are required. 

Actions: Natalie Loney/EPA will be asked to provide dates for the timeline, and once we have that, Emily will incorporate the updates. (Further Update as of 5/15 – Natalie agreed to provide the updated info, and it turned out that Andrea Parker has the original InDesign document and agreed to update the document once we hear back from Natalie).

2. Outreach Committee Priorities for 2026

The committee reviewed an existing list of Outreach Committee priorities toward understanding each and figuring out if the list remains our commitment – anything to add or drop?

Public Meetings and Town Halls: The CAG is expected to hold four in-person monthly meetings per year open to the public. Separately, a town hall — a larger, advertised event with EPA/DEC/DOH/DEP officials, as relevant, presenting to the broader community — is a distinct goal. The Thomas Greene Park outdoor event is scheduled for October 3rd and is an opportunity for outreach on the planned remediation of the park.

Creating Materials for Outreach: The Committee identified opportunities for outreach that include meetings with tenant associations in new canal-adjacent buildings, businesses within a block of the canal, community centers, schools, and warm-weather events like Carroll Park’s Flea Market, and events hosted by the Gowanus Dredgers.

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