4 of Red Hook's Ball Fields Will Be Lead-Free by 2018, City Confirms

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN — It will take a few years yet for NYC Parks officials to make the lead-filled Red Hook softball and soccer fields safe for human use, city and federal officials said at a community meeting Thursday — but work on the massive project is on schedule.

Of nine total ball fields in the area, fields 5 through 8 will be dealt with first. They're scheduled to re-open in the fall of 2018.

After that, another, larger softball field to the south — field No. 9 — will get a similar treatment, along with soccer field 2. They're scheduled to re-open in the spring of 2020.

A 2014 toxicity test conducted on the Red Hook fields by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that fields 5 through 9 were contaminated with lead — the result of years of metal smelting at the Columbia Smelting & Refining Works plant, formerly situated at the site. The federal agency ordered the NYC Parks Department to immediately close the fields until the lead threat was mitigated.

Map of the Red Hook ball fields. Images courtesy of the EPA and NYC Parks

Lead exposure is known to cause neurological and developmental problems, and is especially dangerous to children.

The community presentation given by Parks and EPA officials on Thursday showed that from 18 to 24 inches down, fields 5 through 8 turned up lead levels about three times higher than federal standards allow (see below). Field 9 and soccer field 2 revealed problematic levels, too.

Chart courtesy of EPA

To address the issue, the city will remove some lead-infested dirt at fields 5 through 9, then cover up the rest of the contamination with at least a foot of clean soil. Over that, the city will place a drainage layer and top it with new synthetic turf.

This approach will prevent city workers from having to truck contaminated soil through the community, officials said, and will also raise the elevation of the fields to more than 11 feet, protecting them from future flooding.

Graphic courtesy of EPA

The current design for fields 5-8 also calls for a variety of upgrades to the fields, including new lighting, bike racks, water fountains, curbs, sidewalks, fencing and trees.

Community Board 6, which covers Red Hook, voted to approve the remediation plan earlier this year.

Renderings for fields 5-8, courtesy of the Parks Department

The EPA is not requiring the city to clean up four adjacent soccer fields. Their lead levels — believed to be the product of past dirt used to build up the area, rather than the smelter operation — are generally below safety limits, according to the feds.

However, NYC Parks plans to clean them up anyway.

Soccer field No. 2 and ball field 9 will be ready to go by the spring of 2020. Work on another group of ball fields — Nos. 1 through 4, which are currently closed while a new layer of grass is grown to minimize exposure to their (lower) lead levels — should also be done by that year, along with soccer field 3.

Finally, soccer fields 1 and 6 will be wrapped up by 2022.

The entire project will cost about $105 million, a sum that has already been included the Parks Department budget.

A Parks Department spokeswoman said Friday that all contracts open for bidding are listed in the New York City Record. Companies can also register with the Mayor's Office of Contract Services to get email updates about open contracts.

Thursday's presentation was attended by only a handful of Red Hook locals — around five, according to a show of hands.

But residents still have a chance to weigh in. Further public meetings will be scheduled as work progresses on the project, officials promised Thursday. If you'd like to be notified of those gatherings, you can contact Natalie Loney — the EPA's point person for the cleanup — at (212) 637-3639 or loney.natalie@epa.gov.

For background, the EPA has set up a website providing an overview of the project. The site includes links to public presentations given by the agency (such as the one from Thursday night). The city also has a detailed website discussing the project.

All information related to the clean-up is also available in hard copy at the Red Hook Library.

Pictured at top: a rendering of the future fields 5-8. Image courtesy of the Parks Department