On 11/28/16 My group visited the Gowanus Canal Conservancy. This organization helps all of the historical contaminations and are focusing on things near the Gowanus Canal. This canal is in 543 Union Street, #1E, Brooklyn, NY 11215. We met with Michael Wasserman who is the volunteer coordinator. He walked us through all of the places where the Gowanus Canal Conservancy had planted things. We also visited rest areas that were build near the canal. We were walked to multiple places that had trees planted and little islands of plants and trees.

During this fieldwork I learned about how the Conservancy is using dump trucks to plant plants and trees to make the air a little bit more clean. These dump trucks are painted light blue and filled with gravel, soil, and mulch. There are about 6 of these around the Gowanus Canal and the Conservancy is hoping to plant more around the area. As we were toured through the streets in Brooklyn, I noticed that the neighborhood was quiet except for trucks driving over the bridge that goes over the canal, construction, and quiet chatter amongst people. it was a beautiful, crisp day so the tour was very enjoyable.

I think that the worst part about the tour was hearing about how much ‘historical waste’ was dumped into this canal because companies were cheap, and still are. Some parts of canal were full of piles of garbage. It looked like if you were jump into 25 feet of disgusting, contaminated, dirty, smelly, rotten, poisoned, poop. It was awful looking at it. This visit made me realize how much garbage and poison can land in one place in such a small amount of time in a small amount of land compared to the whole world. If you visit the Gowanus Canal and think that this canal is super disgusting, imagine what is in our oceans, seas, rivers, and any other bodies of water that exist on this earth. This inspired me to learn more about how oysters clean water. It made me think about how much contaminated water millions of people drink EVERY SINGLE DAY.