(Ben Sargent)

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Changes to the Gowanus Canal, part of a major cleanup project in the notoriously polluted waterway, are resulting in loss of mussel habitat. But community intervention could increase the Atlantic ribbed mussel population, with promising implications for the Canal’s future.

An estimated more than 300,000 mussels call the Gowanus Canal home, according to the The Gowanus Dredgers Club. (Jaysa Dold)

Gary Francis had spent much of his life fishing, boating and diving in the vast blue waters of the Caribbean. 

When he came to New York City, he was mystified. The city is surrounded by water, but access to it was incredibly limited. Largely closed off and isolated, the city’s water was unwelcoming, much of it bordered by barbed wire or “no trespassing” signs.

Eventually, he found a home paddleboarding in the most unlikely of places: the Gowanus Canal. 

“Everybody loves to hate on the Gowanus Canal,” said Francis, who is now captain of the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club. “Even as abused as it is, it is still incredibly beautiful and full of life.”

One particularly important piece of life in the Canal: the Atlantic ribbed mussel, known for its ability to filter water. Francis has been crafting artificial habitats to encourage the growth of these mussels, whose previous spaces are being threatened by changes to the Canal’s structure. 

The Gowanus Canal is a notoriously polluted body of water. In the 19th century, it boomed as a commercial hub and supported large numbers of factories and chemical plants. This industrialization, coupled with an ongoing sewage overflow issue, led to its designation as a federal Superfund site in 2010. 

A Superfund site is an area that has been identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as especially contaminated and hazardous. The agency oversees the cleanup of these locations.

Before its industrialization, the Gowanus Canal was a thriving salt marsh ecosystem. Now, it has a more inhospitable reputation, known for the “black mayonnaise” tar-like sludge that sits 10 feet thick along the waterway’s bottom. 

A Combined Sewer Overflow point at the Southeast corner of the Carroll Street Bridge over the Gowanus Canal, pictured here in 2020. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

Despite massive amounts of pollution, resilient organisms such as the Atlantic ribbed mussel have learned to survive in the Canal, where a $1.6 billion cleanup effort that broke ground two years ago is underway.

The cleanup looks to dredge the Canal of its contaminated sediment layer, cap off the dredged areas to prevent recontamination and construct two new tanks to capture sewage and stormwater from overflowing into the waterway when it rains.

But structural changes from the Superfund project may put the mussel population at risk, local environmentalists say.

“I would almost argue we’ve seen less biodiversity because oddly, all those shorelines that were not safe and good for anything—those were the biodiversity hot spots,” said Jennifer Kepler, education manager of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy. “There were nooks and crannies and spaces for things to hide and sit and grow.”

Many of the Canal’s mussels lived on the wooden bulkheads that reinforced the banks before the Superfund cleanup began. But the EPA has started to replace those wooden bulkheads with stronger steel ones. 

While steel bulkheads provide the Canal with greater reinforcement, the swap destroys the mussels’ previous habitats, as the smooth surface of steel is uninhabitable compared to the porous texture of wood.

Mussels are 103 times more likely to be found on wood than on steel, according to a report published in 2021 by the Gowanus Canal Conservancy.

Francis noticed this habitat decline as he was paddling on the Canal. An ornamental plasterer by trade, he decided to use his skills to design and create artificial mussel habitats to replace those lost during the cleanup work.

In partnership with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, Francis and the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club welcome local high school students to come to the Canal, learn about its ecosystem and design mock mussel habitats out of clay, cardboard or tinfoil. Francis then takes the student-made designs and uses them as inspiration for the Canal-bound structures. 

“I’ve made many samples and tests,”said Francis, who’s been workshopping these habitats for six years. “What matters most is placement—where it is in the tidal spectrum—texture, and moisture.”

Francis started installing test models in 2019 and has since been experimenting with a variety of materials and installation methods. The final habitat modules are mostly made of concrete, which offers ideal texture and longevity. The habitats sit on steel shelves hung from the bulkheads. 

Cement artificial habitats sit on steel shelves that hang from the Canal’s new bulkheads. (Photos by Gary Francis)

The Gowanus Dredgers Club estimates the Canal’s current mussel population to be 362,700. If Francis’ project is successful, it could have positive implications for the ecological health of the Canal. A strong mussel population has a number of benefits.

Mussels are powerful freshwater filters that convert raw materials—such as the sewage that overflows into the Canal—into fertilizer, according to Denise Mayer, curator of malacology at the New York State Museum. They also increase biodiversity, reinforce shorelines and are a keystone species of salt marsh environments. 

“Salt marshes are one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet,” said Mayer. “They’re hugely impactful for combating things like climate change.”

Francis started installing his replacement habitats in March of this year. He has yet to see mussels set up shop—but biofilm, barnacles, worms and other signs of life have begun to accumulate in the structures. 

He said mussels will take “a bit longer,” but he’s optimistic. The mussels spawn in late summer, and he believes this spawn will lead to mussel recruitment onto the habitats in the near future.

Kepler finds the mollusks a reason to feel hopeful. 

“A lot of people think the Gowanus Canal is this broken place that’s the end of times,” she said. “Nature figures out how to heal and find its balance. If we could just help it along I think it would find its balance quite well.”

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org. Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

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By MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has called New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job.” Mamdani has called Trump’s administration “authoritarian” and described himself as “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”

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So their first-ever meeting, scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m. EST at the White House, could be a curious and combustible affair.

Despite months of casting each other as prime adversaries, the Republican president and new Democratic star have also indicated an openness to finding areas of agreement that help the city they’ve both called home.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist who takes office in January, said he sought the meeting with Trump to talk about ways to make New York City more affordable. Trump has said he may want to help him out — although he has also falsely labeled Mamdani as a “communist” and threatened to yank federal funds from his hometown.

But for both men, the meeting offers opportunities beyond any areas of potential bipartisan agreement.

The two men are convenient political foils for each other, and taking the other one on can galvanize their supporters.

Trump loomed large over the mayoral race this year, and on the eve of the election, endorsed independent candidate and former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, predicting the city has “ZERO chance of success, or even survival” if Mamdani won. He also questioned the citizenship of Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen after graduating from college, and said he’d have him arrested if he followed through on threats not to cooperate with immigration agents in the city.

Mamdani beat back a challenge from Cuomo, painting him as a “puppet” for the president, and said he would be “a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver.” He declared during one primary debate, “I am Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in.”

The president, who has long used political opponents to fire up his backers, predicted Mamdani “will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party.” As Mamdani upended the Democratic establishment by defeating Cuomo and his far-left progressive policies provoked infighting, Trump repeatedly has cast Mamdani as the face of Democratic Party.

For Mamdani, a sit-down with the president of the United States offers the state lawmaker who until recently was relatively unknown the chance to go head-to-head with the most powerful person in the world.

The meeting gives Trump a high-profile chance to talk about affordability at a time when he’s under increasing political pressure to show he’s addressing voter concerns about the cost of living.

But that’s if the meeting doesn’t turn rocky.

A chance for some Oval Office drama

It was not immediately clear whether cameras will be allowed into the meeting. Trump’s daily schedule said it will be private, but the president often invites in a small “pool” of reporters at the last minute.

The president has had some dramatic public Oval Office faceoffs this year, including an infamously heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in March. In May, Trump dimmed the lights while meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and played a four-minute video making widely rejected claims that South Africa is violently persecuting the country’s white Afrikaner minority farmers.

A senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions said Trump had not put a lot of thought into planning the meeting with the incoming mayor — but said Trump’s threats to block federal dollars from flowing to New York remained on the table.

Mamdani said Thursday that he was not concerned about the president potentially trying to use the meeting to publicly embarrass him and said he saw it as a chance to make his case, even while acknowledging “many disagreements with the president.”

If the president does use the meeting as a public confrontation, Mamdani may be uniquely ready for it.

He, like Trump, was a relative political outsider who rose to victory with a populist message that promised a break from the establishment, known for his savvy navigation of the spotlight and a distinctive use of social media.

Mamdani, who lives in Queens — where Trump was raised — also has shown a cutthroat streak. During his campaign, he appeared to borrow from Trump’s playbook when he noted during a televised debate with Cuomo that one of the women who had accused the former governor of sexual harassment was in the audience. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing.

The moment evoked Trump’s tactics before a debate with Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, when he appeared with accusers of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who denied the accusations against him.

Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington and Anthony Izaguirre in New York contributed to this report.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration says its plan to dismantle the Education Department offers a fix for the nation’s lagging academics — a solution that could free schools from the strictures of federal influence.

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Yet to some school and state officials, the plan appears to add more bureaucracy, with no clear benefit for students who struggle with math or reading.

Instead of being housed in a single agency, much of the Education Department’s work now will be spread across four other federal departments. For President Donald Trump, it’s a step toward fully closing the department and giving states more power over schooling. Yet many states say it will complicate their role as intermediaries between local schools and the federal government.

The plan increases bureaucracy fivefold, Washington state’s education chief said, “undoubtedly creating confusion and duplicity” for educators and families. His counterpart in California said the plan is “clearly less efficient” and invites disruption. Maryland’s superintendent raised concerns about “the challenges of coordinating efforts with multiple federal agencies.”

“States were not engaged in this process, and this is not what we have asked for — or what our students need,” said Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s state superintendent. Underly urged the Trump administration to give states greater flexibility and cut down on standardized testing requirements.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said schools will continue receiving federal money without disruption. Ultimately, schools will have more money and flexibility to serve students without the existence of the Education Department, she said.

Yet the department is not gone — only Congress has the power to abolish it. In the meantime, McMahon’s plan leaves the agency in a version of federal limbo. The Labor Department will take over most funding and support for the country’s schools, but the Education Department will retain some duties, including policy guidance and broad supervision of Labor’s education work.

Similar deals will offload programs to the Department of Health and Human Services, the State Department and the Interior Department. The agreements were signed days before the government shutdown and announced Tuesday.

Inking agreements to share work with other departments isn’t new: The Education Department already had dozens of such agreements before Trump took office. And local school officials routinely work with other agencies, including the U.S. Agriculture Department, which oversees school meals. What’s different this time is the scale of the programs offloaded — the majority of the Education Department’s funding for schools, for instance.

Yet Virginia schools chief Emily Anne Gullickson, for one, said schools are accustomed to working with multiple federal agencies, and she welcomed the administration’s efforts to give states more control.

Where some see risk of upheaval, others see a win over bureaucracy

Response to the plan has mostly been drawn along political lines, with Democrats saying the shakeup will hurt America’s most vulnerable students. Republicans in Congress called it a victory over bureaucracy.

Yet some conservatives pushed back against the dismantling. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican, said on social media that moving programs to agencies without policy expertise could hurt young people. And Margaret Spellings, a former education secretary to Republican President George W. Bush, called it a distraction to a national education crisis.

“Moving programs from one department to another does not actually eliminate the federal bureaucracy, and it may make the system harder for students, teachers and families to navigate and get the support they need,” Spellings said in a statement.

There’s little debate about the need for change in America’s schooling. Its math and reading scores have plummeted in the wake of COVID-19. Before that, reading scores had been stagnant for decades, and math scores weren’t much better.

McMahon said that’s evidence the Education Department has failed and isn’t needed. At a White House briefing Thursday, she called her plan a “hard reset” that does not halt federal support but ends “federal micromanagement.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon speaks as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt listens during a press briefing at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers union and one of McMahon’s sharpest opponents, questioned the logic in her plan.

“Why would you put a new infrastructure together, a new bureaucracy that nobody knows anything about, and take the old bureaucracy and destroy it, instead of making the old bureaucracy more efficient?” Weingarten said at a Wednesday event.

Schools fear the impact of lost expertise on education laws

The full impact of the shakeup may not be clear for months, but already it’s stoking anxiety among states and school districts that have come to rely on the Education Department for its policy expertise. One of the agency’s roles is to serve as a hotline for questions about complicated funding formulas, special education laws and more.

The department has not said whether officials who serve that role will keep their jobs in the transition. Without that help, schools would have few options to clarify what can and can’t be paid for with federal money, said David Law, superintendent of Minnetonka Public Schools in Minnesota.

“What could happen is services are not provided because you don’t have an answer,” said Law, who is also president of AASA, a national association of school superintendents.

Some question whether other federal departments have the capacity to take on an influx of new work. The Labor Department will take over Title I, an $18 billion grant program that serves 26 million students in low-income areas. It’s going to a Labor office that now handles grants serving only 130,000 people a year, said Angela Hanks, who led the Labor office under former President Joe Biden.

At best, Hanks said, it will “unleash chaos on school districts, and ultimately, on our kids.”

In Salem, Massachusetts, the 4,000-student school system receives about $6 million in federal funding that helps support services for students who are low-income, homeless or still mastering English, Superintendent Stephen Zrike said. He fears moving those programs to the Labor Department could bring new “rules of engagement.”

“We don’t know what other stipulations will be attached to the funding,” he said. “The level of uncertainty is enormous.”

Other critics have noted the Education Department was created to consolidate education programs that were spread across multiple agencies.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., the ranking member on the House Education and Workforce Committee, urged McMahon to rethink her plan. He cited the 1979 law establishing the department, which said dispersion had resulted in “fragmented, duplicative, and often inconsistent Federal policies relating to education.”

AP education writers Moriah Balingit in Washington, Bianca Vázquez Toness in Boston and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.