Concrete recycling facility in Brooklyn leaves streets covered in dust, rattles homes, residents say
NEW YORK — Some residents in Brooklyn say their neighborhood is covered in dust and rattled by noise. They blame a city-owned concrete recycling plant that moved in last year.
Piles of recycled concrete stand nearly two stories high along Columbia Street in Cobble Hill. When the wind blows, neighbors say gusts of dust blanket their homes and streets.
"We were asking each other, what is this dust in the air? It was all over our streets, our cars, our garbage cans, on our stoops," said a local resident who lives across the street, but did not want to provide her name.
The facility is run by the New York City Department of Transportation and moved to the neighborhood last winter, relocated from nearby Red Hook to accommodate a new off-shore wind hub being built at the old location.
The new spot is steps away from residential buildings, restaurants and stores.
"The trucks and the work they're doing creates such vibrations that our homes shake," said Rob Petrone, who has lived in the area for more than a decade.
Angry neighbors reach out to NY lawmakers for help
Angry neighbors say they were never warned or even informed about the rock crushing plant moving in next door, so they reached out to lawmakers like Councilmember Shahana Hanif.
"We have gotten a commitment from them that they're installing an irrigation system in some time in February. That's one year after this site opened. That is unacceptable," she said.
Hanif, along with State Sen. Andrew Gounardes and others, are now calling for the plant to shut down.
"The city has tried. It has not gone far enough. And so the neighborhood rightfully is saying, 'Well, if you can't fix it, then just shut it down.' Find another place for it, move it out of here," Gounardes told CBS News New York reporter Hannah Kliger. "We should not continue to breathe in concrete dust just in the name of trying to make the city more environmentally friendly."
A sign outside the plant says rock crushing operations are paused because of cold weather and will resume in March, but residents say they want to see it relocated before that can happen.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation responded with a statement which reads:
"Concrete recycling is an important part of NYC DOT's safety and accessibility work, and this plant was relocated temporarily to accommodate the city's critical, climate-saving offshore wind operations. We are taking all the necessary steps to keep the public safe—though in response to community feedback, NYC DOT has taken new measures to decrease the size of the recycled material piles in this plant and further reduce dust and noise."
Residents say they've seen no improvement.
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