The Environmental Protection Agency passed its initial September 16th deadline to Superfund the Gowanus Canal without listing the site, but an agency spokesperson told the Star a decision is expected by the end of the year.

The spokesperson, Elizabeth Totman, said the EPA is still preparing its official report in response to an unusually high number of public comments on the proposed listing of the polluted industrial waterway.

The report must be finished before a decision to publish the site on the National Priorities List (also known as the Superfund Program) can be made. Totman said most Superfund proposals draw five to 15 comments during the public comment period.

However, the EPA received over 800 comments on the Gowanus Canal, Totman said, after extending the public comment period an extra month in response to strong interest in the project. The canal was proposed for Superfund status in April.

Under the EPA plan, the federal government would tax polluters to pay for a cleanup that this paper reported would cost $300 to $400 million. Critics of the plan include the Bloomberg Administration, which has proposed an alternative cleanup plan.

The EPA typically places a nominated site on the Superfund list twice a year, in March and September.

Walter Mugdan, the EPA official in charge of the canal project, had suggested earlier this year that the agency would make a decision by the mid-September deadline, or else have to wait until March of next year.

But that deadline appears not to have been written in stone.

“We can make a final decision at any time,” said Totman, although the EPA generally does so in mid-September or March. “We anticipate a final decision on the Gowanus Canal will be made before the end of the calendar.”

Totman said the overwhelming public response made the September deadline unattainable. She said the EPA sometimes places sites on the Superfund list off schedule, though not often.

“It has happened in the past,” Totman said, “but not typically.”