For years, airlines at John F. Kennedy International Airport have sprayed barrels of deicing chemicals on their planes every winter. And for years those chemicals have run untreated straight into Jamaica Bay.
That will soon begin to change. By month's end, new state regulations will require frequent measuring and testing of the runoff by the airport's owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
The testing marks a major victory for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit that has long been fighting to clean up Jamaica Bay. The NRDC had sued the state's Department of Environmental Conservation to update its permit guidelines for what chemicals the airport needs to monitor.
"Those regulations were written decades ago,'' says Lawrence Levine, staff attorney for the NRDC. "Deicing chemicals weren't even around.''
He notes that, as a result, the deicing fluids used today have never been on the list of toxins to monitor in airport drainage.
The Port Authority will have to hire an environmental consultant and fund vast fieldwork in the area to test for levels of glycol, the primary toxic deicing chemical.
"It's a very big undertaking,'' says Ed Knoesel, manager of environmental services for the aviation department of the Port Authority. "It's also a cost that we didn't have to incur earlier.''
The Port Authority would have liked the airlines to share the bill, which will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The bistate agency deices the taxiways and runways, but the airlines use the bulk of the toxic deicing chemicals--about 80%--on planes. However, the airlines are not listed on the DEC's permit, since they are only leaseholders at the airport, leaving the Port Authority responsible for picking up the cost of the cleanup.
Last year, the Port Authority completed a $13 million deicing hangar at JFK, which cuts chemical use by 90% by treating a plane with radiant heat. But the process can handle only one plane at a time and won't replace the spraying of chemicals--especially in the midst of winter storms.
--hilary potkewitz
Brooklyn area is the place to be
in recent years, a wave of rising property values has swept across brownstone Brooklyn, pushing rents in Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope and even lesser-known areas like Windsor Terrace to Manhattan-like levels. The wave now appears to be reaching Kensington, the previously unsung neighborhood abutting the southwest corner of Prospect Park.
"Any property I put on the market is getting 50, 60 offers,'' says Jason Maier, director of sales in Kensington for Massey Knakal Realty Services. "There's a dramatic change going on.''
Brad Lander, director of the Brooklyn-based Pratt Center for Community Development, calls Kensington the rare neighborhood where the two major trends pushing up city property values--gentrification and immigration--are at work simultaneously. He notes that Russians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and South Asians are competing for housing in the southern half of Kensington, while yuppies are ratcheting up prices in the northern half.
"A price escalation is good for folks who own,'' notes Mr. Lander, "and nobody else.''
Even dilapidated buildings are being snapped up by developers. Last fall, for example, Mr. Maier was asked to find a buyer for a prewar apartment building on Beverley Road. Its eight three-bedroom railroad apartments were run-down, so he didn't have high hopes when he tacked up a sign out front.
He got 297 calls and 77 firm offers. The winning bid was $775,000.
Express buses reach lower Manhattan from Ocean Parkway in 15 minutes, and the F train gets there in 25.
"Kensington is the last hope for people who are looking to live in close proximity to Manhattan and still get low rents,'' Mr. Maier points out.
Some folks might dispute his definition of "low.'' One-bedrooms that went for $1,100 a month several years ago now fetch $1,500, and newly constructed ones command $1,700.
--erik engquist
CAPTION(S):
TOXIC? The Port Authority will hire a consultant to test for glycol in airport drainage.
Copyright 2007 Crain Communications Inc.
