In a rare defeat for Mayor Bloomberg and his powerful pals in Big Development, the Environmental Protection Agency has seen obvious sense and designated the long-putrid Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site. They thus rejected Bloomberg’s hastily and cynically constructed plan to clean up the canal, which was nothing but a chimera designed to preserve the ravenous and selfish interests of the Troll, er, Toll Brothers, who planned to building a series of towers alongside the poisoned canal. How interesting and strange, in today’s New York, for the interests of the greater community to be put ahead of a single wealthy developer. And how typical that such a decision has to come from outside the City. Little Boy Bloomberg, who thinks Wall Streeters deserve bigger raises and that rich people are the salt of the earth and the heart of this town, would never have for a second listened to the arguments of a community that thought the general welfare trumped private ambitions.

“After conducting our own evaluations and consulting extensively with the many people who have expressed interest in the future of the Gowanus Canal and the surrounding area, we have determined that a Superfund designation is the best path to a cleanup of this heavily contaminated and long-neglected urban waterway,” Judith Enck, the agency’s regional administrator, said in a statement.