DEP dumps pine deodorizer to cover smell from Brooklyn pipe project

BY MATTHEW LYSIAK
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Monday, December 3rd 2007, 4:00 AM


Egan-Chin for News

DEP solution for sewer smells in Bay Ridge? Socks full of air freshener in drains, residents complain.
It's the bureaucratic equivalent of trying to cover up bad body odor with Chanel No. 5.

For more than a year, residents of one Brooklyn neighborhood have been complaining about a stomach-churning smell wafting from the site of a former sewer pipe project.

The city's response? Tossing nylon socks filled with pine deodorizer into the catch basins.

That hasn't stanched the stench. In fact, locals say the scent of raw sewage is even more noticeable now.

"I think that adding the pine made the existing smell even more potent," said Aaron Green, 27, one of the Bay Ridge residents who is sick of the stink.

The stink has been hovering over a stretch of Fort Hamilton Parkway between Marine Ave. and 99th St.

The odor cropped up in the summer of 2006 after the completion of a $6.9 million project to combine the underground sewer pipes there, residents say.

As complaints mounted, the community board notified the city Department of Environmental Protection, which began dumping piney perfume onto the site.

"It seems to have improved the situation," said Community Board 10 District Manager Josephine Beckmann.

Not everyone agrees.

"The minute I walk out of my car it hits me," said Arlene Ross, who lives a few sniffs away. "Whatever they put down there didn't make it better."

DEP spokeswoman Mercedes Padilla adamantly refused to say what is causing the smell or how the agency plans to stop it.

Told of the neighborhood complaints, she said more pine socks would be put in the catch basins over the next few weeks.

Pressed further, she said the DEP would eventually install filters.

"We are aware of the odor and we are monitoring the situation closely," Padilla said.

Not close enough for John Lynch, who has lived on the block for the past year.

"I walk outside and I smell raw sewage almost every day," he said. "This stench offends everyone around here."

Fred Birkenfelv, 73, who attends the senior center at St. John's Church on the street, said he worries the odor could be unhealthy.

"The smell is worse than nauseating," the retired Texaco driver said.

"We walk by and it may just make us gag, but there are mothers pushing baby carriages. If a little one gets a whiff of that, who knows what damage it could do?"