(Picture of the Gowanus Canal Sponge Park)

 

(Picture of the Gowanus Canal)

 

On November 28th, my Group took the subway train to Brooklyn, to visit the Gowanus Canal Conservancy. On our trip, we go a tour of the Gowanus Canal site. When we first got there Our guide Michael Wasserman showed us a diagram of the Gowanus Canal area, he explained to us the two main reasons why the canal is so dirty. The first reason is that there are bad pipes all around this area. Every time it rains the pipes overflow with water and the raw sewage is mixed with the rain water. The second reason was that factories that used coal used to dump their byproducts into the river and pollute it. The Gowanus Canal Conservancy is not currently doing anything to get rid of this but the Government has made the main contributing companies pay for the removal of this toxic waste. During our tour, Michael showed us what they were doing to clean the canal and to reduce the amount of raw sewage that goes into the canal. In order to reduce the amount of raw sewage that goes into the canal the Gowanus Canal Conservancy team is planting plants. These plants help reduce the amount of water flow that ends up in the pipes. This is because every time it rains the water goes to the plants instead of going into the pipes. The Gowanus Canal Conservancy has put a special planter in the streets so that when the water flows down into the streets it flows into the plants.