The Gowanus Canal, a smelly polluted waterway in Brooklyn that's a designated superfund site, is soon to be substantially cleaner, according to city officials.

Since 2009, the city has been upgrading a pumping station that is expected to remove 30 million gallons of waste water a day to the Red Hook waste water treatment plant — a 10 million gallon improvement, according to city officials.  At the same time, a flushing tunnel is expected to move millions of gallons of clean oxygenated water from Buttermilk Channel — a small narrow waterway between Brooklyn and Governor's Island — into the canal. The city says both projects will be completed by the end of the year and will reduce storm water and sewage overflow by as much as 45 percent. 

But local residents say that's not good enough considering the severity of the pollution and frequency of flooding. They say the federal Environmental Protection Agency wants retention tanks to be installed as another way to reduce polluted water but the city has resisted.

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland said the tanks are unnecessary and would cause the loss of a neighborhood swimming pool.