Experts Want $100K Pollution Study Before BQE Project: Report

COBBLE HILL, BROOKLYN — A group of scientists are trying to raise $100,000 to study dangerous pollutants that they fear Brooklynites might be exposed to during an impending reconstruction of part of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

Laurie Garret, a former senior fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle that the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, which sits on top of the three-level portion of the highway, has likely been shielding neighbors from the worst of emissions from the highway.

The city's Department of Transportation originally proposed closing the promenade during the the multi-year reconstruction project to replace it with a six-lane temporary highway.

“We know that the promenade is buffering noise," Garrett told the Eagle. "We also are quite confident that it buffers the pollution as well."

Garrett has proposed a study of the 1.5-mile section of the highway by Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health and its Earth Institute, but hasn't yet been able to raise the $100,000 needed to do so. She is now urging the city to help fund the project before they go ahead with the reconstruction.

It's possible that the original plan to close the promenade that Garrett fears, though, won't be the one the city goes with.

Plans for the BQE project, which will rehab a deteriorating portion of the highway through Cobble Hill and Dumbo, have been in a state of limbo after residents pushed back against DOT's original ideas and Mayor Bill de Blasio commissioned a panel to study the project.

That panel hasn't released their recommendations yet — its chair, Carlo Scissura, told Patch that will likely come in late October — but they have already pretty strongly shot down the controversial original idea.

"We’ve come out clearly that we weren’t keen on the highway at the promenade...we were pretty clear on that," Scissura said.

He added that the panel's recommendations won't include specific comparisons of the many ideas that have been proposed for the BQE project, but will simply lay out guidelines for what a final plan should or shouldn't include.

Since the DOT came out with its own proposal, city officials, architects and local organizations have all taken a stab at finding alternatives for the renovations.

Bjark Ingels Group suggested turning all three levels of the highway into parkland, city Comptroller Scott Stringer recommended a similar idea and an alternative was submitted by Brooklyn Heights Association-commissioned architect Mark Wouters.

The Brooklyn Heights Association told the Eagle that they support Garrett's idea to do a pollution study

“It’s not hard to imagine that toxic pollution from the BQE spills into Brooklyn Heights and into all of the highway’s neighboring homes and streets — the city needs to take advantage of this opportunity to understand what we’re all dealing with and take steps to mitigate any ill effects," BHA Executive Director Lara Birnback said.