A new concrete facility at Greenpoint is stirring controversy as residents, outraged by what they say is pure air and water pollution, urge regulators to crack down.
Operations at the DKN Ready Mix facility at 270 Green Street began last fall, when crews began mixing sand, stones and powdered cement in huge trucks to create ready-mix concrete. Residents – who had first expressed their thoughts about the plant when construction broke ground in 2022 – have temporarily become frustrated.
Jens Rasmussen and Maria Aparo live right next to the factory and their windows look directly onto it. Their first challenge once the installation began was noise, they said. Trucks and appliances generate a constant and low, yet unbearably noisy, activity noise.
“Sometimes we record decibel degrees above 100,” Rasmussen said. “You walk out the front door and it’s like you have to walk away right away. “
The United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration allows personnel to be exposed to noise of up to 85 decibels for 8 hours a day. Without hearing protection, being exposed to this type of noise for more than 8 hours can lead to permanent hearing damage. one hundred decibels, the exposure is only for 15 minutes.
With the noise came vibrations. The factory’s paints shake Rasmussen and Aparo’s construction so much that they brought their two-year-old son to tears, they said, and caused the brick walls on the outside of their construction to crack.
City records show the Ministry of Buildings has issued two violations similar to cracked walls in its structure since May. During the Brooklyn Paper’s recent visit to its Green Street home, staff at the structure were repairing the damage.
But his biggest pressing fear is the gray cement dust that covers the structure’s fence around DKN’s facilities, parts of the street around it, and nearby buildings. When summer rolled around and Rasmussen and Aparo opened their windows to keep the apartment cool, it leaked. in their living spaces.
Aparo said he wakes up with a sore throat and congestion, and that the couple’s two-year-old son suffers from the same symptoms after rarely being in poor physical condition for the first two years of his life. They are concerned that prolonged exposure to dust could lead to fitness disorders in the future.
“We can’t use our roof anymore, my car is covered, everything is covered with film,” he said. “Because it’s an old brick building, everything comes into play. What happens is we have this layer of cement dust covering our entire life, which is worrying about what we breathe. ”
Local nonprofit North Brooklyn Neighbors agreed to install an air quality monitor to measure the level of airborne debris next to the DKN facility. Many New Yorkers were familiar with particulate matter last summer, when smoke from the Canadian wildfires filled the city, turning the sky orange and causing air quality to plummet.
Levels near the plant have not reached the levels seen during the wildfires, but they are consistently above what regulators say and healthily. On the afternoon of July 29, the AQI was 91, just within the “moderate” range.
Air quality exceeds 100, according to the data, which is considered “unsuitable for sensitive groups,” including children, the elderly, pregnant people and people with physical conditions such as asthma. At several events in July, that number temporarily exceeded 150, meaning “physically incapacitated. ” At least twice since the monitor was installed, it has briefly measured “very inadequate” amounts of airborne debris.
Lael Goodman, director of environmental systems for North Brooklyn Neighbors, said that while air quality is sometimes thought of as a short-term exposure, it can become problematic if citizens breathe it in 24/7. days per week.
“The other people who paint there, the other people who live there, will stay there for a year, stay there for the long term,” he said. “So it’s definitely concerning. “
Long-term and short-term exposure to cement dust can lead to a multitude of health problems, ranging from inflammation of the eyes and breathing to lung diseases such as silicosis. Rasmussen and Aparo installed a giant fan in one of their windows to remove dust and dirt from their apartments, and Gates, who owns a huge screen printing studio in the building, was forced to keep the garage door open to keep the vent closed to keep dust out.
Green Street residents said they were aware they lived in a commercial area. Its construction and DKN Ready Mix factory are zoned M3-1 for “heavy commercial” use and are surrounded by metalworkers, automotive corporations and more.
“When I moved here, the incinerator was still there,” he said. “On the other side of the street the transfer. The industry is not new. I spent more than two decades living peacefully with business neighbors. This is nothing new.
Diane Macke and Tommy Philippou, owners of DKN Ready Mix, said they didn’t realize there were residential neighbors so close to the facility when they chose it. Having operated in the past in Long Island City and Maspeth, across Newtown Creek, they are used to operating in strictly commercial areas.
“If I had known, we would have tried to locate larger assets,” Philippou said. “But. . . between the assets and the costs in an M3 area, we simply couldn’t locate [one]. We can’t here to kill anyone.
He said DKN Ready Mix is in “constant renewal” and has sprinklers, misting systems and filters to reduce dust. After starting to get court cases from neighbors, they will install more misting systems, he explained, and hope to build a corrugated metal upper plant. The perimeter wall to help involves dust and noise. They also plan to install catchment covers to prevent any runoff from the site from entering sewer systems.
But the city’s Department of Environmental Protection has already cited the facility for failing to involve its three times since May, records show, with hearings at the Office of Trials and Administrative Hearings scheduled for August and September. When the branch last visited in July, there were “no unreasonable levels” and no violations were found, a DEP spokesperson told the Brooklyn Paper.
The branch also cited the company twice previously, at two other locations, for discharging contaminated water, pouring it into a sewer leading to Newtown Creek.
On a recent visit, according to Greenpointers, inspectors from the state Department of Environmental Protection discovered excess dust despite mandatory filtration and suppression systems, and the branch issued a warning to homeowners and promised to return to see if the challenge was resolved. . CED had already caught the company illegally discharging stormwater into Newtown Creek, Greenpointers reported, for which it imposed a hefty fine.
“If they operate within the regulations that they have to follow, I think they would be very welcoming neighbors,” Aparo said. “The most important thing is that they are polluting our runoff, they are polluting our air and they are increasing the chances of everyone having respiratory problems, asthma and everything else. Applying this within the framework of the regulatory standards would make them true neighbors with whom we could just exist.
In May, after neighbors filed complaints, Ministry of Construction inspectors discovered that the facility was operating under the certificate of occupancy. The existing certificate is for the garage and sale of used cars, metals and parts, according to DOB records, not the cement lot.
Facility owners will need to update the certificate or bar ownership, according to DOB representative David Magiotto. If the violation is proven at an OATH hearing on August 8, DKN Ready Mix could be fined up to $6,250.
Maggiotto said the company updated the certificate before moving in and starting operations, and that in response to its failure, the ministry would verify previously issued entry permits for the site.
Philippou stated that “efforts to complete the project have been phased out to allow for the least possible disruption from a structural perspective” and are not yet complete. The certificate of occupancy will be issued at the end of the process, she stated.
Macke and Philippou said DKN Ready Mix is a small-circle family business (run by them and their two sons) and they don’t have the cash or connections that larger operations could.
“It’s a developing pain, because everything is moving very slowly, not as fast as we’d like,” Macke said. “But in the meantime, we’re doing what we can . . . [what] we can put in place without the need for approvals or entry permits to control dust and clutter on the street.
But their residential neighbors are tired of waiting and worry about how long it will take for a genuine replacement to take effect, if it ever happens. But leaving is a viable option for most.
Gates has 4,000 square feet of studio area and plenty of screen printing equipment for his business, he said. Finding an option and moving all of his fabrics there would be nearly impossible, he said.
Aparo and Rasmussen feel the same way. Her loft serves as the home and headquarters of her nonprofit, the Bechdel Project. Since Rasmussen has lived there for almost 30 years, the rent is still manageable thanks to the Loft Law, but this is not the case in the city. Leaving the loft would mean leaving New York entirely, they said.
Rasmussen believes this is emblematic of a larger challenge affecting formerly commercial communities like Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Although he, Aparo and their speedy neighbors are feeling the brunt of the effects of the concrete installation, polluted air is also seeping into the entirely residential parts of the community on McGuinness Boulevard, just a block away.
“We are in a scenario where the town has grown, but not the ions towards the other people who live here,” Aparo said. “They’ve allowed for the structure of new properties, the structure of new restaurants and businesses. . . and they have allowed families to settle here. But there is no safety net that makes it viable. It’s a genuine challenge that we’re just discovering now that a bad actor has moved into the neighborhood.
Kirstyn, a New Jersey local and passionate about it, is a virtual editor at Brooklyn Paper and a journalist covering North Brooklyn from Greenpoint to Gowanus.