You’ll really need that water filter now. — Photo by Jeremy Sapienza

It’s boom time for the natural gas industry in the Northeast and recent drilling proposals in the Catskill Mountains could pose a serious threat to our top-rated drinking water supply — that’s the entire city, not just Bushwick.

Rising natural gas prices have put deep, hard-to-get-to gas reserves in the Appalachian Basin back on the drilling radar and energy companies are targeting the Marcellus Shale, a large, underground rock formation full of untapped gas deposits which extends from the Catskills to West Virginia.

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The water test strip begins reacting. — photo by Diego Cupolo

My tap water has never been pristine, but lately it’s been making my morning showers smell like a public swimming pool in the summertime. It doesn’t end in the tub, my kitchen sink also reeks like a rainbow of contaminants when I wash the dishes.

After mulling over the possible health effects of my tainted tap water I made a trip to The Home Depot on DeKalb and Nostrand to pick up a water testing kit. For only $10, I bought a Pro-Lab Water Quality kit that analyzed pH levels, alkalinity, chlorine, total hardness, iron, copper, nitrates and nitrites — but not lead, which is a separate test that involves sending a water sample to a lab and dishing out $30 for the results.

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Asthma hospitalization rates for children ages 0-14. Bushwick proper in red, EW Industrial (Morgan) Area just to the north.

Elena Gaudino, 23, moved to Bushwick early last summer for its modest cost of living and proximity to Manhattan. Though excited to be living in the city, Elena’s celebration was cut short as her health started slipping and she began developing symptoms of asthma –- the respiratory condition where airways occasionally constrict and become inflamed.

“Every time I get sick now it’s a lot more concentrated in my respiratory system,” she said. “I didn’t used to be this way, but there are times when I feel my throat start closing and I don’t even see it coming.”

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If you have a set of eyes, you see the trucks. On the stretch of Bogart Street, between Flushing Avenue and the “main street” of Bogart (Ad Hoc, Archive, Brooklyn’s Natural), there is a two-block facility, which includes a small parking lot. It’s the Boar’s Head Provision Company. 24 Rock Street is the address. And the street itself is rumored to be owned by Boar’s Head. How they got the city to sell them a street is, well, a statement to the money and power we’re talking about here.

They’ve owned the two square blocks since the late 1940’s, been around since 1905. They’re older than the FBI. A national institution. Provides jobs, caters (ha ha) to NYC’s huge food consumption, and stimulates the economy. So what’s my beef (ha ha ha)?

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Newtown Creek

People living close to Morgan and Johnson Avenues are familiar with a rotting marsh smell. Carried by the breeze and powered by the summer heat, the foul stench coming from the English Kills area is just another fact of life for residents near the Bushwick-East Williamsburg line.

Citing the toxic site as one of the most polluted water bodies in the country, Representatives Anthony Weiner and Nydia Velazquez have been pushing the Environmental Protection Agency to retest Newtown Creek and its connecting tributaries — English Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and Dutch Kills. On Monday, the agency agreed to conduct preliminary tests that could qualify the industrial waterway for the Superfund Program, a designation that would accelerate the cleanup effort of the long polluted estuary, the New York Times reported.

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