city limits magazine - summer 2007 - vol. 31 no. 2

8/3/2019 City Limits Magazine - Summer 2007 - Vol. 31 No. 2

1/28

This pipe

ejecTsunTreaTedsTormwaTerand sewage

inTo TheeasT river.

There

are 493oTherslike iT innew York ciTY.

deep

TrouBlNew York Cityssilent sewage cri27 billion gallons o untreate

wastewaterenough tocover the Bronx, Manhattanand Staten Island a oot deep

Thats what New York Citysawed sewage system dumpinto our waterways each

year. Under legal pressureand acing enormouscosts, the mayors PlaNYCsustainability initiativeseeks to reducebutnot eliminatethe spills.

With the citys populationexpected to grow to 9 millioby 2030, is the Bloombergadministration charting acourse or a greener, cleaneNew York? Or is it justtreading water?

SUMMER 2007 VOL. 31 NO. 02

By a l jtt m


2/28

A ppe or empn sewae overowscontaining rainwater and human waste into the East River.Photo: Jarrett Murphy


3/28

PUBLISHERS NOTE By many measures, Mayor Michael Bloombergs PlaNYC2030 initiative is an uncommon and most welcome instance o government acting in a or-

ward-thinking manner. It is rare enough when government policymakers look fve yearsdown the road, much less 23, and rarer still when the organizing principle o such an exer-cise is sustainability.

In this age o anxiety and inconvenient truths, you could almost hear throughout NewYork an audible sigh o relie ater the mayors announcement: Ahhh, were dealing with it. . . trees, green thinking, new technologies . . . But atCity Limit Ivtigat, all git horsesmust be looked in the mouth. And when we took a close look at the teeth o this piece opolicymaking, we ound a curious cavity o timidity in the mayors plan.

What authors Anna Lenzer and Jarrett Murphy ound was an administration only tenta-tively grappling with water quality and sewage issues. As youll discover, amid what seemsto be a bold broader plan, when it comes to muck, the mayors plan gets stuck.

The desire to ignore the unpleasant is one o the strongest o all human impulsesanddealing with human waste certainly qualifes as unpleasant. New York City came late to thegame o dealing with its sewage issues orthrightly; we were still dumping a hety share oour sewage directly in our waterways as late as 1986. We are still playing catch-up. Today weend up releasing some 27 billion gallons (thats right: billions) o untreated waste-flled waterinto our rivers, oceans and baysand that represents improvement. The status quo is unac-ceptable, but as a million more New Yorkers arrive in coming decades, the stakes get higher,the options grow more limited and the costs o remediation become prohibitive. Failure toget out ahead o this problem could potentially limit the citys growth, add to disease, triggerlegal action and fnes, compel punitive ederal intervention and circumscribe our recreational

options. And as some o our sidebars report, this sewage challenge looms as the costs oprotecting New Yorks drinking water swell and as taxpayers chae at the growing tab.

So, dealing with the unpleasant isnt merely a question o holding our noses. It meansprotecting our pocketbooks, our health and our general well-being. And i a larger messageo PlaNYC is i not now, when? then why the incrementalism here? Is the city reaching asar into its green tool bag as it can?

To paraphrase Kermit: It is neither cheap nor easy being green. But green is what wemust be.

Ady Brlau,Publihr

P.S. We want to hear rom you. I you have any thoughts about this issue, eel ree to write aletter to the editor at: City Limits, 120 Wall Street, 20th Fl., New York, NY, 10005.

WATERPRESSURE

Facing the challengo New Yorks endlesewage spillCHAPTERS

I. The pipe

II. Overow

III. Toxic threat

IV. A rising tide

V. Which end o the pipe?

VI. The new plan VII. A conuence

IN FOCUS

Is this the N? Th mytri f Jamaica Bay

Diving In Lif ad liur i city watr

Ducks and Cover Rw vr rrvir

A passing FAD

Th watrhd wih lit

Risky Waters

Rat rfrm raliti

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City LiMitS StAFF

Jarre MurphInvestigations Editor

Karen LoewWeb and Weekly Editor

City FUtURES StAFF

And BreslauExecutive Director/Publisher

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City FUtURES

BOARD OF DiRECtORS:

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WWW.CityLiMitS.O

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SUMMER 2007 VOL. 31 NO


4/28

the maor, seen here delivering his PlaNYC

speech in April, has set ambitious goals or

reducing trac and improving inrastructure,

but his target or controlling sewage overfows

replicates what a court order has already told

the city to do.Photo: City Hall

City Limits investigates

SUMMER 2007

waTerpressureFacing the challenge oNew Yorks endless sewage spill

I. The pipeOn a sunny day, the shallow waters spar-kle as sunlight flters through the treeslining either bank. Its not unusual to seea heron or an otter as the stream twistsunderneath Gun Hill Road, nor is it un-heard o to spot a beaver when the watergurgles through the New York BotanicalGarden, under Fordham Road and intothe Bronx Zoo, where the wildlie getsmore exotic. From the seat o a kayak orcanoe, rolling on the gentle current that

churns white over the smooth rocks, itseasy to orget that youre oating througha borough o 1.4 million people. But then

you slip under Tremont Avenue, start todrit toward the Cross Bronx Express-

way and peer into the shadows o the

yawning concrete pipe embedded in thelet bank. I its hot enough, you mightsmell the big hole beore and ater yousee it, and that would tip you o to whatthat pipe does on rainy days: spew a mix-ture o stormwater and raw sewage intothe Bronx River.

The tube near Tremont, known asoutall HP-007 is one o 494 such pipesthat empty into the citys waterways.

They lurk under the eet o sightseers who stroll the East River walkways,hug the marina that separates Shea Sta-dium rom Flushing Bay and empty intoGravesend Bay a ew blocks east o the

Verrazanos Brooklyn base. In a normal year, these combined sewer overow(CSO) pipes can dump an estimated 25billion gallons o toxin-laced stormwaterruno and 2 billion gallons o untreatedsewage containing human eces, urineand other waste into New York Citys

rivers, bays, creeks and canals. Thenough to fll the Empire State Buil98 times or sink 779 Titanicsa scient amount to wreak havoc withderwater ecosystems and violate wquality standards. In an unusually r

year, the total can swell higher: In 2some 35 billion gallons are estimto have owed down the pipes, andinto the waters around us.

The reason it happens is well knoThe citys sewage inrastructure, wcombines the water running dstreet-level storm drains with whaush down the toilet and spill downsink, does not have the capacity to the additional volume o water whrains intensely. As little as one-tentan inch o rain can cause an overPut simply, rain gives New York diarrheaand it has or decades.

When Mayor Bloomberg launchis sustainability initiative last all, th

was hope or a cure. The water aour shoreline is cleaner than it been in generations, the mayor in September 2006 as he announthe creation o the Ofce o Long-T

BY anna lenzer and jarreTT murph


5/28

ths ouall a Soundvew Park empties an estimated 771 million gallons o wastewater into the Bronx River each year. Photo: Jarrett Murp


6/28

is This The n?The mysteries of Jamaica BayFor all its attention to te sewage system ailures tat lead to CSOs,

Mayor Bloombergs sustainability plan seems to downplay a problemtat occurs even wen sewage overows dont: te release o nitrogeninto te citys waterways.

Nitrogen as long been a part o te sludge tat emerges rom treat-ment at te citys plants. Te city used to dump te sludge at sea, butater Congress proibited tat practice in 1988, New York equippedeigt o its sewage plants to process te stuwic basically meansspinning te sludge in large centriuges to extract virtually all liquidrom te waste. Te solid tat remains can be used or fll or ertilizer,and te liquid is discarged into te nearest waterway. Tat water isree o bacteria and grit but can be loaded wit nitrogen.

Excess nitrogen knocks an underwater ecosystem o balance. Tenitrogen triggers blooms o algae, wic ten die and get decomposedby microbes tat consume dissolved oxygen in te water. Witout su-

fcient oxygen, fs cant survive. In New Yorks arcipelago, two wa-terways tat ave been severely aected by tis lack o oxygen (calledypoxia) are Long Island Sound and Jamaica Bay.

Wen fs began dying in Long Island Sound in te 1980s, te EPAand te states o New York and Connecticut launced a study tat ledin 1994 to te establisment o specifc goals or reducing te amounto nitrogen going into te water. Te new limits applied to New YorkCitys our Upper East River sewage treatment plants tat discargeinto te western end o Long Island Sound. Environmental groups andten te state o New York sued te city in 1998 or violating tose l im-its, wic led te state and city to agree in 2002 on steps or reducingnitrogen releases in bot te sound and Jamaica Bay. As te state wasreviewing tat plan, owever, te city concluded tat it would cost toomuc (it estimated te price tag at $1.3 billion) and sougt canges.

Wen te state reused to rework te deal, te city suedand lost. Inearly 2006, owever, te city and te state agreed to a new consentorder committing to specifc but less costly measures or a 58.5 percentreduction o nitrogen emissions to te sound by 2017, at an expense oabout $997 million over a decade.

But on Jamaica Bay, te 2006 consent order set looser goals. Wile itcalls or te city to upgrade te 26t Ward sewage treatment plant, teorder does not require fxes to te oter tree wastewater acilities tatdiscarge into te bay. And wile te order set limits on daily nitrogendiscarges into te bay, te limit is actually more tan te city releasesnow. Under te order, te city was compelled to produce a compre-ensive plan or ow to reduce Jamaica Bays nitrogen. Released lastOctober and currently under state review, te report recommends us-ing less eective nitrogen-removal tecnology tan is available, mainlybecause o cost: Te report estimates a $1.5 billion dierence betweenwat te city could do at te limit o tecnology, and wat it recom-mends doing instead.

Te citys bay report also expresses great interest in recontouringte bayin oter words, flling in te deep oles tat were dredgedor sipsbecause dissolved oxygen depletion is worst at te great-est depts. But flling in te bay could take a lot o time and money,and te water migt not be able to wait. Wile Jamaica Bay as been

an ecological worry or decades (fsing and swimming were bannetere as early as 1916), a recent sign o te bays troubled ealt abeen te steady disappearance o its wetlands. Its someting tat DaMundy, a lielong resident o Broad Cannel and a member o JamaicBay EcoWatcers, as witnessed in te past decade. Te water about 15 eet rom my ouse, e says. You can see wats going oin te water just by looking out your window. Te marses are disappearing at a pace o 44 acres per yearand could vanis completeby 2020.

One scientist, Alex Kolker o Tulane University, tinks tat excess ntrogen, troug te biological processes it triggers, could be one reasote marses are disintegrating. Wen nitrogen depletes te dissolve

oxygen in a water body, bacteria survive by breaking down sulate inydrogen sulfde. Wen teres too muc ydrogen sulfde in te wateKolkers researc indicates, it can ki ll te plants tat make up marse

A mix o causes is l ikely to blame or wetlands loss, wic is appeing all over te New York estuary. Besides nitrogen, sea level rises, bioraging and canges in sediments are potential culprits. In JamaicBay, tere are multiple pollution sources, including CSO outalls and olandflls located along te bays rim tat could be leacing toxins inte water. Jon F. Kennedy International Airport is a uge imperviousurace wose runo into te bay sometimes includes te cemicaused to de-ice planes and runways.

PlaNYC says tat because traditional nitrogen removal processerequire large, capital upgrades and ig operating costs DEP will eperiment wit several emerging tecnologies, but oers ew detailAdvocates or te bay tink nitrogen is a missing link in te plan. Twas a concern tat we raised or some time trougout te development o PlaNYC and ultimately it didnt really get resolved in a way twe wanted it to, says Brad Sewell, a senior attorney at te NationResources Deense Council. I mean, [Jamaica Bay] is te largest opespace in te city, and or it not to be on te citys sustainability agendand I tink its air to say its notI tink it sould be a concern.

JARRETT MURPh


SUMMER 2007

theres no ofcal explanaon or the disappearance o marshlan

rom Jamaica Bay. One suspect is nitrogen rom storm runo, sewage

overfows and wastewater plants.Photo: Jarrett Murphy


7/28

surc: DeP surc: ePA


SUMMER 20

Planning and Sustainability (OLTPS),

but we want it cleaner still, so that wecan fsh, swim, and enjoy the riversthat have always been the citys mostdistinctive eature. The mayor later an-nounced a goal o opening 90 percento New Yorks tributaries to recreation.

The citys swimmers, boaters, fshersand others who simply preer to gazeout over clean rather than contaminat-ed water had reason to be excited. Thecan-do mayor who had taken control othe schools, managed the post 9-11 fs-cal crisis and pushed crime to surpris-

ing new lows was on the march.PlaNYC was to be his battle plan. Re-

leased in April, the 158-page PlaNYCreport adopts many o the most progres-sive hallmarks o 21st-century greenthinking: imposing congestion pricing,protecting open space, improving masstransit, reducing carbon emissions. Theambitious, glossy presentation includes a

photo o two kayakers, laughing as they

bounce on the waves with the city astheir backdrop. Their smiles and raisedpaddles reects the spirit o enthusiasmand hope that underlies the mayors en-tire 2030 plana ull-spectrum attemptto place New York City and its mayor atthe oreront o the global environmentalmovement.

But when it comes to water qualityissues, PlaNYC stays pretty close toshore. It promises that over the next23 years the city will capture 75 per-cent o its wet-weather sewageonly

marginally better than the 72 percentit captures already, less ambitious than

what other big cities with similar sew-ers have done and merely in line withlegal requirements by which the city isalready bound. And it turns out the goalo making 90 percent o the citys tribu-taries open or use reers to achievingsecondary and not primary contact:

Boating, not swimming; look, but d

touch. The goals are super uzzy, Kate Zidar, program director o Eronmental Education at the Lower Side Ecology Center. 90 percent oto recreation? Well, the Clean Wateris more ambitious than that. Stateter quality standards are more detathan that. She adds: What 10 perare we abandoning?

Meanwhile, the city is cutting bon the construction o massive costly water storage tanks, whichintended to reduce the overow p

lem by storing excess water untiltreatment plants can handle it. Butcitys Department o EnvironmeProtection (DEP) is sending mixednals on whether alternative techngies have a role to play in replacingtanks. While there are hopeul signPlaNYCs examination o green stions to the sewage overows, th

pipe hYpethere are a leas 494 combned sewer overow (CSO) oualls n he c, rom Kll

Van Kull n Saen island o Eas 233rd Sree on he Huchnson Rver n he Bronx.

Some produce almos nohn; ohers are esmaed o release more han a bllon

allons o CSO waer each ear. these are he op fve:

FLUSHING BAYat Corona Ave., Queens

cso ciTiesNew york C has ederal perms omore combned sewer overow oua

han an oher jursdcon n he Un

Saes. Here are he oher op ces b

her number o CSO release ppes:

1,344

1,434

1,433

1,140

937

BOWERY BAYat 81st St., Queens

HARLEM RIVERat W. 192 St., Bronx

PAERDEGAT BASINat Flatland Ave., Brooklyn

GRAVESEND BAYat 17th Ave., Brooklyn

ANNUAL OUTPUT (MILLIONS OF GALLONS) 0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Seattle,

WA

Milwaukee,

WI

Louisville,

KY

Cleveland,

OH

Indianapolis,

IN

Wheeling,

WV

Cincinnati,

OH

Chicago,

IL

Pittsburgh,

PA


8/28

dirTY waTerWhat a CSO discharge can deliverNitrogeN: Contained in ertilizer tat gets picked up wit storm runo and in uman urinand eces, nitrogen triggers underwater biological processes tat can starve waterways o t

dissolved oxygen tat supports aquatic lie. Many New York City waterways do not meet statstandards or dissolved oxygen.

Coliform: Coliorms are bacteria ound in animal waste. Most arent inectious, but i teare detected in water tey migt indicate te presence o dangerous patogens. One coliormowever, is igly toxic: E. coliO157:h7, a strain o te bacteria tat can lead to severe and eveatal inections.

floatables: CSOs can transport te litter tat people toss on te street to te citys wateways and, sometimes, beaces. DEP surveys indicate tat about 40 percent o oatables arplastic, wit te rest divided between paper and polystyrene. Besides being unsigtly, oatablecan kill animals tat mistake te buoyant tras or ood.

PolyChloriNated biPheNyls (PCbs): According to te EPA, PCBs are probable umacarcinogens and can also cause non-cancer ealt eects, suc as reduced ability to fgt inec

tions, low birt weigts, and learning problems.metals aNd more: Mercury can impair brain development in etuses and inants. CSO tesing also reveals ig readings or armul substances like silver, cadmium, lead, pesticides anindustrial byproducts like dioxins and urans.


SUMMER 2007

passages are so limited and vague thatthe citys water advocacy community is

worried New York might never reachthe mayors goal. A city ofcial who hascareully reviewed PlaNYC and gener-

ally supports it calls the meaningless-ness o the water quality goal City Hallsdirty little secret.

For most New Yorkers, CSOs arethemselves a secret, lingering underootor down the streeta silent crisis thatdoes more than prevent New Yorkersrom doing the backstroke in BoweryBay. The CSO problem, encompass-ing thousands o miles o pipes burieddeep beneath one o the most built en-

vironments in the world, could proveenormously costly to fx: The citys plan,

which some critics dub inadequate, willrun $2.2 billion. But the city could alsopay dearly or ailing to tackle the prob-lem, risking ederal and state penaltiesand ecological damage that could aecthuman health and city businesses.

Those stakes will only increase asthe citys population swells by an ex-pected 1 million by 2030, meaning more

toilet ushes and shower suds at a timewhen climate change could be wreakinghavoc on the citys systems or bringing

water in and out. PlaNYC is a chance orthe city to fx the problem that has been

buried under its streets or more than acentury beore it gets worse, and whileNew York can still aord the cure.

II. OverowThe citys annual wastewater over-

ow is enough to provide each New Yorker with more than 3,200 gallonso the stu. But theres no way to see

your share o what ends up in the riv-ers, or even in the treatment plants.

The essence o modern bathroomconvenience is the ability to, with aquick ush, put the matter out o sightand mind. This is not new. The abilityto drain sewage has long been one omost important hallmarks o advancedcivilization: Roman aqueducts makeor nice postcards, but Romes sewers

were arguably as important in keepingthe empire above water.

Beore the convenience o the there was a time when New York Ceces must have been on everybominds. In the pre-sewer days o 1its estimated that 100 tons o the br

stu were thrown into Manhattstreets or soil every day. Some o thcrement was trucked out to the rivbe orgotten in the tide, but the restdisposed o rather close to the citysited supply o resh water. That praled to successive and deadly outbro cholera, a gruesome bacterial ill

whose combination o watery diarand vomiting can kill a person in hoDespite these regular horrors, it decades or the citys leadership tocure a sae supply o resh water tocity and a reliable system or gettinsolid waste out o sight and mind1857, however, toilets were abunenough or New Yorker Joseph etty to start marketing the worlds bathroom tissue.

As the frst o New Yorks wastelection tunnels were constructed 1850 to 1855, however, the city lite

E. col O157:H7 is a ecal bacteria that is

potentially atal to humans.Photo: National

Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases


9/28

diving inLife and leisure in city watersWen SeinfeldsKramer swam in te East River, e acquired a stink twouldnt leave. Comedian George Carlin joked about building up is im

mune system by diving into te raw sewage tat flled te hudsoOne gangster movie ater anoter as portrayed New York harbor alittle more tan a dumping ground or bodies. Altoug popular cultuas primed us to tink about New York City waters as dirty, tat asnstopped people rom using tem in ealty ways.

Captain Joe Sastay, or example, as been leading fsing expeditionon te East River or more tan seventeen years. Described as a lunatpropet at te website Trillist.com, tis consummate angler is makina crazy predictiontat a new golden age o East River fsing, reminicent o te early 1800s, is aead. I istory repeats itsel, Sastay sayand clearly e tinks tat it could, tere were once robust boat liverieYou could rent a boat, go out fsing and buy bait.

One o te most common questions Sastay gets about te East Rive

is, Are tere really fs in tere? According to im, customers are usuasurprised by ow ealty te fs look. Altoug e as eaten plenty o catces over te years, e now releases most o tem. Te New York StaDepartment o healt says women o cildbearing age and kids under 1sould eat noting rom te East River. Oter anglers can consume up six blue crabs a week but no more tan one meal a mont o East Rivbluefs, needlefs or smelt. No one is supposed to eat any eel or sarom te waterway. Tese warnings avent stopped Sastays customerom indulging and te activity as become so popular trougout NeYork City in recent years tat Sastay tinks tere may be a danger ooverfsing. Its getting arder to reel tem in, but te captain claims know secret spots to make sure tat everybody comes ome appy.

Trade in your rods or paddles i youre going on a trip wit Micahunter. he grew up in nortern Micigan, were is parents were boatin

outftters. So even toug not a native o te city, e was well qualifeto lead te Bronx River Alliances canoeing program wen e moved tNew York. Te organization as been running trips since 1999, but e aonly been in carge o te program since last April. Te eort is expaning, hunter says, peraps because o te success o recent cleanup eortat ave led to te return o a now amous Bronx beaver named Jos(ater Congressman Jose Serrano, a supporter o te cleanup eort).

Fising and boating are usually considered secondary contact wiNew York City waters. Primary contact, o course, is swimming. I swievery day o te year, says Louis Scarcella, president o te Coney IslanPolar Bear Club. he claimed tat 70 members took a dip in te oceaduring tis Aprils Noreaster. Neiter rain nor wind nor sewage will keea polar bear away rom te water. In act, at te time o our interviewNew York ad just been it by a severe storm ollowed by days o stead

downpours, wic usually contaminate te waters; ater all, teres combined sewage overow outlet on Coney Island tat empties veclose to te area were Scarcella swims. he was expecting te worst is swim ater te storm, but ound te water relatively clean tat day.

One day in early May, owever, Scarcella wasnt so lucky, and ad tcall DEP wit te results o is own water test: Wen Scarcella emergerom te waves, e was covered in oil.

ADAM KLASFEL


SUMMER 20

laid the groundwork or its current sewage problem. Engi-neers designed the citys system to handle rainwater andsewage water in a single pipe. New York is not alone inhaving that design. In New York Harbor, the citys com-bined sewage outall pipes are joined by 26 in Yonkers andmore than 250 up and down the Jersey metro coast. Na-tionwide, some 772 cities, counties and other jurisdictions

housing 40 million people in 32 states dump an estimated850 billion gallons o storm and sewage water each year.

And where there are combined sewers, there are com-bined sewer overows. A Canadian environmental grouphas estimated that over 24 billion gallons o CSO waterends up in the Great Lakes each year. The group claimsthats more than 100 Olympic swimming pools ull o rawsewage a day. Thats a staggering image. Whats stunningis that New York City releases even more.

The aws in a combined sewer system are not alwaysapparent: On many days, 1.4 billion gallons o wastewaterow through the citys 6,000 miles o pipe, through 93

pumping stations linked by computer to DEP monitor-ing stations, and into one o 14 sewage treatment plantswithout incident. At the plant, the water gets treated andows out cleanly into local waterways.

But wastewater treatment plants are only designed tohandle a certain volume o water; their maximum wet

weather capacity ranges rom about 80 million gallonsa day at the Oakwood Beach plant on Staten Island to620 million gallons a day at the Newtown Creek plant innorthwest Brooklyn. And when it rains in New York City,the surace o concrete and asphalt that covers most othe area but absorbs no water means the sewer systemhas to handle virtually all o the rain. Almost everything

that hits the ground in some placesbecause o the im-pervious actor90 percent will end up in the sewer sys-tem, says William McMillin, a hydraulic engineer at thefrm CH2M HILL.

When too much water comes rushing down the drains,it encounters devices in the sewer mains called regula-tors, which prevent the stormwater rom ooding thesewage treatment plants. I the water level in the tunnelsgets high enough, the regulators divert water to CSO out-all pipes leading to the nearest river, bay, creek or canal.The only human actors are operators at the wastewatertreatment plants who control things there, says McMil-lin. Otherwise, the system runs passively.

Combined sewer overows occur around 70 times a year, according to Riverkeeper, an advocacy group orNew Yorks waters. The overwhelming majority take placeduring wet weather, with the rate o ow being more im-portant than the total volume: a brie but urious rainstormcan cause more problems than a steady, soaking rain.

Sometimes, sewage overows occur even whenthe skies are clear. Take the August 2003 blackout.

When the citys sewage plants lost power, their ability to


10/28


10 SUMMER 2007

process wastewater was hindered andthey began diverting some o theirintake into the waterways. In the lessthan 24 hours it took or power to re-turn, some 490 million gallons had beenreleased. A court later determined thatone o the citys plants had ailed to

properly operate a backup generator,leading to a ederal criminal convictionor violating the Clean Water Act. Thecitys sentence was three years pro-bation, oversight by a ederal monitor

with broad powers to investigate the

citys water and sewer systems and arequirement to impose new saety pro-grams. While the blackout was a top na-tional story, massive overows can ac-company less heralded events: Duringeight days o storms in October 2005,some 7.5 billion gallons o combinedsewage bypassed treatment plants andentered the citys waterways.

Climate change could exacerbate thecrisis. With wastewater treatment plantsand their CSO outall pipes located closeto sea level, city ofcials and climatolo-

gists are worried that rising seas andbigger storm surges might submergeand backup key components o the sys-tem. Adding to the risk and the uncer-tainty are predictions o more sporadicrain events in the uture. Were not surei we should be planning or droughts orthe deluge, says DEP Deputy Commis-sioner Angela Licata.

III. Toxic threatIn the 1970s, ederal authorities man-dated that new sewers be laid sepa-rately, but because its system datesback more than 100 years, almost allo Manhattans sewer pipes combinestormwater and sewer waste. Overall,around 70 percent o New Yorks sys-tem consists o combined pipestheimpact o which can be seen in the wa-ter at the end o the line.

It would be bad enough i sewer oows poured only human waste intoBronx River, Long Island Sound, Jaca Bay and other city waterways.the sanitary sewer system that gatrom toilets, sinks and bathtubs is

verse mixture o unpleasantness: A

with the bacteria in eces and urincontains undigested pharmaceutiblood, sanitary napkins, toxic beproducts, dyes, cooking oil and doms. Storm drains, meanwhile, sc

up not just rainwater but also nitro

loaded ertilizer, animal waste, hmetals rom actories, chemicals dry-cleaning establishments and potato chip bags and candy wrapthat litterbugs toss in the street.

Even i this mess were merelysightly, it would be a problem. As however, that brew o bacteria, chcals and materials can damage the c

waterways in a host o manners. Care one o the reasons New York Srestricts fshing o New York City:toxins in the wastewater contami

aquatic animals, and can sicken pe who eat the creatures. Organic mrial, like nitrogen, triggers biologprocesses that deplete the water odissolved oxygen that supports fsh

And sewage overows dump sedimon the oors o waterways, whichobstruct navigation and necesscostly dredging.

Polluted water has the potentiacause hepatitis, dysentery, giacryptosporidosis,e. cli, leptospircoxsackievirus, typhoid ever and cera. The U.S. Environmental Protion Agency has estimated that sewoverows o various kinds into swming waters sicken up to 5,500 peannually, but advocates put the number o people hit with some kin

waterborne illnesseso which Care one causein the millions. mating the health toll rom New Yo

ducks andcoverRow over reservoirsJust nort o te Bronx border, New YorkCitys drinking water supply bides its timein te hillview Reservoir. having traveledrom te ar reaces o te Catskills andDelaware waterseds troug a succes-sion o aqueducts and reservoirs, te wa-ter waits in te 929 million gallon poolbeore it moves into te tree water tun-nels tat service every main in te fve bor-ougs. Te at expanse o water and itsbuer zone o trees are a tranquil spot justyards rom te New York State Truway,te oblong track at Yonkers Raceway and

te suburban layout o soutern Yonkers.It is also te subject o a 14-year disputetat now pits New York City against teEnvironmental Protection Agency in ed-eral courtwit environmental advocatescoosing sides.

New York Citys drinking water drainsrom a watersed tat is rougly te sizeo te state o Delaware, encompass-ing eigt Empire State counties and parto te state o Connecticut. East o tehudson is te older and smaller Crotonsystem. Water rom te ar larger Catskillsand Delaware waterseds starts west o

te hudson, travels troug aqueducts tote Kensico Reservoir in Valalla and tenows down to te hillview. Normally, teCatskills/Delaware system serves about 90percent o city water needs. But becauseo work on te Croton system, rom 2006to te present, virtually every drop o tapwater consumed in te city (except or terougly one percent provided by a systemo wells in Queens) as passed trougte hillview.

Tere are two ways to make watersae or drinking: disinection (wic addscemicals or ultraviolet ligt to te water to

kill patogens) and fltration, in wic tewater passes troug a plant tat screensout te bad stu. Wile New York addsclorine to disinect Catskills/Delawarewater, te U.S. Environmental ProtectionAgency does not require te city to flter itbecause te water source is so clean. NewYorks lack o fltering is rare: New York City

Were not sure if we should be planning for droughts or th

deluge, says DEP Deputy Commissioner Angela Licata.


11/28


SUMMER 2007

sewage overow is difcult becausepeople who travel abroad or engagein risky sex have opportunities tobe exposed to the same diseases aspeople whove had contact with bad

water here. But environmental groups worry that the danger rom CSOs

will grow as superbugs like SARSemerge, exit peoples bodies and endup in the sewage.

Overows are already aecting liein the city. Because rain can causeboth storm runo and combined sew-age overows, city beaches employa warning system linked to precipita-tion. When rainall intensities exceedlimits set each season, the Departmento Health and Mental Hygiene warnsswimmers not to dive in. Because o

where CSOs are located and how waterows, the thresholds vary by beach: A wet-weather warning kicks in at Mid-land Beach in Staten Island wheneverthere is more than an inch and a halo rain within six hours, but at privatebeaches in the Bronx, the trigger is amere 0.2 inches in two hours.

In 2006, New York City beaches is-sued 265 Wet Weather Advisories52 percent more than in 2005. But whilebeach users are alerted to the risks osewage outalls, other New Yorkers

like boaters, or exampleget little warning other than the rectangulargreen signs that state law requires ateach o the citys hundreds o outalls.

Among other policies to reduce the im-pact o CSOs, advocates are pressingor a better warning system.

O course, sewage pipes arent theonly source o contamination or New

Yorks rivers and bays. When it rains,runo can ow directly o land into the

water, bypassing the sewer system alto-gether. And the air itsel can deposit ma-terials that have been emitted by actorysmokestacks or car tailpipes, like mercu-ry and particulate matter. Despite thesechallenges, and thanks to a concertedeort by citizen groups andeventu-allythe government, the health oNew York Harbor has improved greatlyover the past 30 years, with a signifcantreduction in bacteria and an overall

uses about 80 percent o te unfltered drink-ing water consumed in te United States. TeEPA recently announced a 10-year deal to al-low New York to continue using unfltered wa-ter rom te Catskills/Delaware system (seeAPassing FAD, p.12).

But wile te EPA is satisfed wit te qual-ity o te water tat enters te hillview, it isnot confdent in te water tat ows out. Teagency believes tat clean water rom tecitys watersed can get contaminated as itsits in Yonkers. In early 2006, te EPA issueda set o rules or protecting drinking water inunfltered, uncovered reservoirs like hillviewrom cryptosporidiuma parasite tat comesrom uman and animal waste, causes severediarrea and as no known cure, making itdangerous or cildren, te elderly and peoplewit immune problems caused by hIV/AIDS orcemoterapy. In 1993, a crypto outbreak in

Milwaukee sickened 400,000 people, leadingCongress to call or stricter measures to elimi-nate te parasitewic resists standardclorine disinectionrom drinking water.Te EPA believes tat since small animals andbirds can get close to uncovered reservoirs likehillview and inect te water wit teir waste,suc reservoirs are at risk or crypto. Te newrules say tose reservoirs must eiter be cov-ered or ave teir water fltered beore it getsinto peoples omes.

Days ater te EPA issued tose rules, NewYork City and Portland, Ore. sued te agency.Te eart o New Yorks case is tat te newederal regulations vastly overestimated terisk o cryptosporidium and understatedte costs o compliance. In particular, tecitys suit claims, EPA greatly overestimatedte number o people wo will become ill ordie rom cryptosporidiosis, tus overstatingte treat o cryptosporidium to te publicealt. Te citywic tracks emergencyroom visits, lab reports and even drug storesales o anti-diarrea medication in order todetect outbreaks o cryptosays it recordedonly one deat rom te disease rom 1998 to2003. Te city and te eds cant even agree

on ow many people died in tat 93 Milwau-kee outbreak: Wile EPA reports 100 deatsNew York puts te number closer to 50.

Data suggests tat te risk rom crypto isairly sligt. In 1999 and 2000, te two mostrecent years covered by ederal disease sta-tistics, only fve confrmed cases o drinkingwater-related cryptosporidium were report-ed nationwide.

Te city says it would be impossible to fltete water at hillview. Te Department o Environmental Protection (DEP) is already building te worlds largest ultraviolet disinectioplant to treat or crypto beginning in 2012, btat $1.1 billion project is located upstream

Mount Pleasant and Greenburg. And, te cisays, since teres no room or a fltration acity sout o hillview, te new EPA rules meate city would ave no coice but to cover treservoir at a cost o as muc as $800 millio

A cover would apparently ave beeceaper 14 years ago, wen te EPA frbegan pusing te city to cover te reservoand te Dinkins administration budgete$177 million or a cover to be installed as ealy as 1997. Te case or a cover grew strongwen hillviews water tested positive or cliorm, a bacteria tat indicates te presenco animal waste. Te city and state pinned t

ecal fndings on birds making pit-stops ote water.

In 1996, DEP and te state Department ohealt signed an administrative order callinor a cover, and te city paid an engineerinfrm $4.6 million to design one. Amendetwice, te administrative order set a deadlino December 21, 2005 or a coverwiccame and went. In recent public reports, DEsays it is talking wit te state about an extension. But in te suit against te EPA, DEP arguing tat it doesnt need to cover hillvieat all. Were in act planning and doing tengineering to cover it but we would like nto ave to cover it, says DEP Deputy Commisioner Angela Licata.

Wats interesting is tat some enviromentalistswo oten call on te EPA to gtouger on New Yorkare siding wit te cion tis one.

For advocates and te city, te question weter to spend millions on a cover or hiview or use te money to und oter steps tprevent inection upstream. I avent seeany compelling water quality data tat suggests to me tat ar less expensive, less intrsive strategiesincluding steps to preve

geese and oter wildlie rom deecating hillviewarent as eective as wat EPA abeen proposing, says James Tripp, genercounsel at te Environmental Deense Funwo also serves as cairman o te citys Wter Board. I just tink tere are ar better useo DEPs capital.

JARRETT MURPh


12/28


12 SUMMER 2007

increase in the amount o dissolved gen on which fsh depend.

But in that context, the impactodays sewage overows and tomrows potential ones looms ever lar

According to DEPs 2005 Harbor WQuality Report, CSOs are now the g

est source o bacteria to the harbor.report also ound that in the Upper River, while the 2005 average reador dissolved oxygen were better in 2004, they were also more pronextremes: More instances o extremlow oxygen levels were recorded ov

wider regional area in 2005 than inprevious 10 years.

Water advocates argue that those fgures understate the sewoverow problem. The advocacy g

Riverkeeper, or one, claims thatDEP samples water quality ar lessquently than the minimum requirelaw and locates its sampling statin the middle o the Hudsons strerelatively ar rom the mouth o theput pipe. Thats despite some evidethat plumes o pollutants hug closthe outalls.

The scale o New Yorks sewproblem can be hard to grasp.other large municipalitiesespec

those without combined sewer temsoer some perspective. WLos Angeles with its separate sewsystem experienced a 2 million gaspill in early 2006, it was declared largest sewage spill in Los AngCounty in a decade. At New York Cannual overow rate, 2 million gallo

what gets spilled in about 39 minuteIt helps to see the problem up cl

which is what two scientists romlumbias Lamont-Doherty Earth Ob

vatory were doing one dazzling daMay, when they climbed aboard aoot motor crat piloted by Riverkers John Lipscomb and shoved o an East Side marina with a truckloaequipment aboard. Greg OMullanEli Dueker were there to gather sples o water rom Newtown Creeknotoriously dirty ribbon o water separates Brooklyn rom Queens at

a passing FadThe watershed wish listDEP as more tan sewers on its mind. Tisspring, ederal regulators anded New York

City a multibillion-dollar git: a decision allow-ing te city to keep using unfltered drinkingwater rom its Catskill/Delaware watersedand avoidat least or nowbuilding afltration plant tat would cost around $8billion. EPAs fltration avoidance determina-tion, or FAD, wic is usually tendered oronly fve years, instead oers New York City10 years o flter-ree pumping. Te city ailedit as a victory and a vindication o teir eortsto protect te citys drinking supply.

But in its fne print, te FAD actually re-quires New York City to settle some vexing

issues beore 2012 in order to maintain itsexemption rom fltration, and tose require-ments are just some o te callenges acingte citys mammot watersed:

turbidity: Te Catskill Mountains, romwic about 40 percent o te citys waterows, ave a geology ric in silts and clays,wic wen captured in runo rom rain getsuspended in te water o New York Citysreservoirs and turn te water cloudy or tur-bid. Wile turbidity is not itsel dangerous, itcan amper eorts to disinect water o otercontaminants. To reduce turbidity in te Ken-sico Reservoir, were Catskills water stops

beore owing toward te metropolis, tecity in 2005 began adding signifcant doseso alum, a cemical tat attaces to te sedi-ments and elps sink tem to te bottom ote reservoir, so tey do not enter te pipetat leads to customers taps.

Te problem is tat alum migt ave aneect on aquatic lie, especially te tiny ben-tic creatures tat live in te bottom reaceso reservoirs and are te oundation o tefs ood cain. Wen te citys Departmento Environmental Protection (DEP) applied tote state in te mid-1990s or approval to add

alum to te Croton system, te request wasdenied. But te state Department o healt(DOh) allowed te city to use alum in teCatskills/Delaware system on more tan 300days in 2005 and 2006.

Adding alum results in te settling oalum sludge . . . wic as prompted testate to require dredging, say te EPAwic cited te Catskills system or excessive

turbidity as recently as May 2006in te re-cent FAD. EPA and [DOh] do not believe tatDEP sould rely extensively or exclusively ontis alum treatment practice to control tur-bidity. Te EPA goes on to say tat signif-cant improvement in New Yorks turbidity

control is required in order to maintain fl-tration avoidance or te long term. Te cityis surveying te Kensico in order to dredge it,and as ound tat in one area te sedimentis as deep as 6 eet. Dredging, owever, otenraises oter environmental concerns.

Meanwile, te city aces a new capter ina long court fgt over te way te city trans-ports water into te Esopus Creek, a con-nector between te Scoarie and AsokanReservoirs in te Catskills/Delaware system.In te late 1990s a lawsuit by advocates andfsermen claimed tat water coming out oa city tunnel and into Esopus Creek was tur-

bid, ruining fsing. Te case began in ederalcourt, were a judge in 2003 ordered te cityto pay a $5.5 million penalty or violating teClean Water Act by ailing to get a permit oruse o te creek, a fnding tat te city ap-pealed witout success to te U.S. SupremeCourt. Now te legal battle as moved tostate court wit a dispute over weter tepermit te city fnally obtained requires su-fcient steps to prevent turbidity.

Watershed laNd: Te most crucial parto New York Citys fltration avoidance is tecitys massive eort to protect land around

te watersed, eiter by buying propertiesoutrigt or paying landowners to adoptpractices intended to limit armul runo.Since 1996, te city as more tan tripledits land oldings in te Catskills/Delawarewatersed, increasing its sare o te landrom 3 percent to rougly 11 percent. Butte city ad to make oers to buy more tan380,000 acres to secure te 77,000 acres itpurcased. Under te new FAD, te city isrequired to solicit 50,000 acres annually andspend $264 million on land purcases overte next 10 years.

One callenge acing te city is te competi-

tion or ig-priority watersed landstoseclosest to te water and most vulnerable todevelopment. A proposal to build a major re-sort, called Belleayre, in te Catskills alreadyas developers and opponents in talks aimedat reducing te impact o te project.

iNfrastruCture: Wile te FAD allowsNew York City to save te billions tat a new


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SUMMER 2007

western end o Long Islandand theEast River. Their goal was to measureand, later on, model what was happen-ing beneath the waters surace, whereindustrial runo and sewage overowsmix into the system o plants, microbesand other aquatic lie that make the wa-

ter home.As the boat slipped into the creek, a

pump sucked water into an instrumentthat detected salinity, temperature, pHand, most importantly, dissolved oxy-gen content. When pollutants like nitro-gen are washed into a waterbody, theytrigger blooms o algae that produceoxygen through photosynthesis. As thealgae die, however, the decompositionprocess depletes oxygen in the water

which is bad news or fsh.

As OMullan and Dueker dippedsampling jars into the drink, a GPSdevice mapped exactly where eachsample was takenan important con-sideration, since the levels o dissolvedoxygen uctuated wildly in just a ew

yards. Close to the mouth o the creek,the levels shot to over 150 percent, indi-cating that the water was saturated withoxygenpossibly because a bloom oalgae was taking place, generating asurplus o O2.

Since low dissolved oxygen is a threat

to fsh, the high oxygen levels were agood thing. But OMullan warned thatepisodes o very high oxygen are otenollowed by extremely low readings,because all the algae that are createdby the surge eventually die, triggeringa massive decomposition that sucksoxygen out o the water. Indeed, asthe creek turned under Metropolitan

Avenue, the oxygen levels dropped to37 percent. Thats a very stressul en-

vironment, OMullan observed as heread o the numbers. Thats almostfsh-kill level. Duekers seen that kindo variation in his own studies o micro-bial lie in the Gowanus Canal; in threeor our hours, he says, the number obacteria can change dramatically. Thatsort o volatilityand the act that eventhe occasional high or low reading canhave devastating impacts on aquaticliemakes testing difcult. Thats

fltration plant would cost, it also calls orte city to complete a lengty list o capitalprojects trougout te sprawling water-sed system. DEPwose massive capitalprogram is already leading to substantialwater rate increases or city residentswillbe required to complete sewer projects in16 towns and upgrade 20 wastewater treat-ment plants under te FAD. Several streammanagement projects, te dredging o teScoarie Reservoir and te construction oan ultraviolet disinection plant (now sced-

uled to open tree years late, in 2012) arealso on te $1.4 billion to-do list.But DEPs capital projects, wic total

$19.5 billion over te next 10 years, dont endwit te FAD. Besides continuing work on Wa-ter Tunnel No. 3 (due in 2020) and completingte Croton fltration plant (now about $1billion over budget), DEP must contemplatewat to do about te Delaware Aqueduct, te85-mile pipe rom te Castkills to te Kensicotat is leaking up to 36 million gallons owater a day; studies and preparations alonewill run $668 million. And wile DEP as com-pleted emergency repairs to te Gilboa Dam

in te Catskills, more work is sceduled tereand on oter dams, roads and bridges total-ing $827 million.

Looming beind tose callenges to teintegrity o New York Citys water delivery sys-tem is te prospect o climate cange, wiccould bring iger temperatures tat evapo-rate reservoirs aster, erratic rainstorms tatwas more runo into te system and sea

level canges tat pus salt water urter ute hudson River.

oversight: Te EPA was to transer ovesigt duties or New York Citys watersed DOh on May 15 but as delayed te move ounspecifed reasons. Wile environmental avocates ave expressed doubts tat te DOas te sta to andle te task, and DOh isists it does, ofcials in Delaware County ava dierent gripe: Tey want te EPA to ano autority to Albany so te county can ustate laws to callenge te FAD, wic coun

ofcials want to restrict to fve years. A counresolution passed in April says te citys uso te lands it as purcased as diminisetourism and economic development in twatersed, and te county is oping to blocuture purcases.

EPA migt still tinker wit te fnal orm te FAD, as public comments were being acepted into June. Environmental advocates geerally see te FAD as a good ting: Te treat aving to spend billions to flter its water, tesay, orces te city to protect te watersed ceaper waysor te time being.

Muc depends, owever, on wat appen

between now and 2012. As te drat is wrten, its a 10-year land acquisition commiment, but pretty muc everyting else is, Weassess it in fve years and ten commit to aoter fve-year program, says RiverkeeperLeila Goldmark. Its leaving a big door opeor tem to ditc programs in fve years.

JARRETT MURPh

Bloomber and hen-DEP head Ward tour Tunnel No. 3 in 2003.Photo: City Hall


14/28

wasTe To TheBoTTomHow much is the

27 billion gallons ofuntreated wastewaterNew York Citydischarges each year?It is . . .

Sucient to sink the Titanic

on 779 nights to remember.


1 SUMMER 2007

the key reason why the average isntany good [as an indicator], says Lip-scomb. Extremes kill everything.

As the boat makes one more stop inthe creek, at a point where the EmpireState Building is ramed by the hugetanks o the citys biggest sewage treat-

ment plant, OMullan is careul to puton gloves beore he dips in a bottle toget a sample. Usually the gloves areto protect a sample rom me, he says.Here, theyre to protect me rom thesample. There are a lot o sources orthe pollution in Newtown Creek, butthe citys sewage system is a leadingone, says Lipscomb. The headwater oNewtown Creek, he says, is a CSO.

Some waterways are aected by

CSOs more than others. NewtownCreek is hit hard in part because it getsvery little circulation rom the East Riv-er, trapping toxins in its channel. Thehistorically polluted Gowanus Canalsuers rom the same problem, so DEPis currently experimenting with a me-chanical pumping system to do or thecanal what nature cant. And all sewageoutalls arent equal: Some dischargealmost nothing, while others spew outmore than a billion gallons a year. Di-erences in individual pipes reect the

plants that eed them. The citys 14 sew-age plants serve various populations(90,000 use the Rockaway plant, whilemore than a million people ush intothe Newtown Creek acility) and draindierent-sized areas (Red Hook han-dles 3,200 acres to the Jamaica plants25,000). The number o industrial us-ers, who can contribute heavy chemi-cals to the waste stream, varies quite abit too: DEP identifed 155 signifcantindustrial users in the North Riversewershed or the West Side o Man-hattan, but only one or the OakwoodBeach plant in Staten Island.

The scientists at Columbias Lamont-Doherty acility join a long line o ex-perts whove been trying to get a han-dle on the role that CSOs play in thehealth o city waterways. Water testingby the joint New York/New Jersey Har-bor Contamination Assessment and Re-

duction Project ound in 2003 that mcury output at several city CSOs hundreds or even thousands o tihigher than water quality standardlow. PCB levels were even worse,readings or those and other polluttended to be higher by orders o ma

tude at CSOs than at other spots inharbor.

O the thirty-odd New York Cityterways that are on the states leng

watch list o impaired waterbodieleast 20 are listed as having CSO plems. Working or DEP, the consultHydroQual ound that almost all w

ways that receive pollution rom C violated state standards or dissooxygen and, in most cases, also orels o coliorm, a bacteria ound in

mal waste. Alan Gentile, New York Issues Coordinator or the Metrotan Waterront Alliance, an umbgroup or a burgeoning network ocal waterront organizations, has caCSOs the single largest cause o

York Citys surace water quality dedation. Indeed, one study o the Hson-Raritan estuary blamed CSOs89 percent o the ecal bacteria ounthe water.

IV. A rising tideIts air to say that New York has not always been at the oreronclean water eorts. In 1992, it waslast municipality in the United Statecease ocean dumping, and did so unthreat o massive ederal fnes. Itsen two court orders to get the city tdress its nitrogen problem ( Ith n?, p.6) and separate regulaactions to orce New York to flter so its drinking water and consider ering an exposed reservoir ( Dad Cvr, p.10).

The problem o reducing combsewage overows has also been subject o legal action over the pastdecades, but concerns about CSOs back urther. In the 1950s, CSOs wdubbed marginal pollution but renized as a major problem, so the citygan planning 25 retention basins to

Enough to ill the Empire

State Building some 98

times. The volume o gaso-

line the United States

consumes in 70 days. Equal to

47 hours worth o Hudson

River fow. What it would

take to ll 27 Central Park

Reservoirs. The

amount o total sewage

New York City generates in

21 days. Seventeen billion low-

low toilet flushes. More

water than you would use i you

lived or 739,726 years.


15/28


SUMMER 2007

sewage overow during rainstormsuntil treatment plants could handle theow. While major investment in suchtanks was planned, only one was evercompletedthe Spring Creek acility in

Jamaica Bayin part because ederal water regulations orced DEP to turn

its attention and dollars elsewhere.By 1992, New York Citys sewage

overows were in violation o statepollution permits covering wastewaterplants, so the city and state agreed toan administrative order that includeda timetable or building acilities to re-duce the spills and required the city tocapture 70 percent o its wet weatherow. Two years later, the EPA estab-lished a national sewage overow pol-icy that imposed its own schedule or

New York City to meet.Over time and under legal pressure,New York City has made real progress

on CSOs, increasing the share o wet-

weather sewage it treats rom less than30 percent in 1989 (when the city wasdumping about 200 million gallons aday into the Hudson alone) to morethan 72 percent today. DEP has also

worked to reduce the toxicity o stormwater runo with a program that edu-cates businesses about how to reducetheir pollution. A separate DEP initia-tive, mandated by the EPA, requirescertain industries (like metal fnishersand pharmaceutical companies) to treattheir wastewater beore it goes to citysewers and has dramatically reducedpollution rom those businesses.

But the city did not meet the mile-stones set out in the 1992 consentorder, so state regulators upped thepressure and in 2004 the city and stateagreed to another consent order thatfned the city $2 million and requiresthe completion o some 30 abatement

projects, rom o-line retention tanksto vortex concentrators, costing morethan $2.2 billion.

Since then, the perormance underthe order to date has been excellent,says Joseph DiMura, director o thestate Department o Environmental

Conservations Bureau o Water Com-pliance. DiMura says the city has met110 o 215 milestones in the order,

which also called on the city to prepareindividual plans or each o the waternetworks within its borders. The drats

were fled in June. The fnal plans arentexpected or 10 years.

Advocates are concerned about whathappens in the interim. Many saw the2004 deal as deeply awed, since itdoesnt require the city to meet ederal

water quality standardsthe 1994 EPApolicy, or example, called or 85 percentwet-weather capture, but the consent or-

der only mandates 75.5 percent. And the

order also allowed the city to delay itscompliance with any standards as longas it keeps working on the abatementprojects. At the time, CouncilmemberDavid Yassky called the deal a setbackor a cleaner environment.

E ven as regulatory attention toCSOs has intensifed, the city hasbacked away rom the heart o its capi-tal program to reduce the overows.

The 1992 consent order called or theconstruction o eight undergroundstorage tanks to hold wet-weather wa-ter until treatment plants could handleit. The 2004 order decreased that tosix tanks. Four tanks (at Flushing Bay,Paerdegat Basin, Alley Creek and New-town Creek) now remain on the draw-ing board; projects on the HutchinsonRiver and Westchester Creek havebeen scuttled.

Even those projects that the city dstill intend to complete are unlikelcome on lineand start prevenoverowsor a good long time, i

vious projects are any indication.Flushing detention tank, or exampl

years behind schedule: The Consen

der schedule notes a construction cpletion date o August 2001, but Dsaid that the tank was going throfnal testing only last month. City cials were talking about the Paerdproject as ar back as 1989; its currescheduled or completion in 2011.

Meanwhile, other cities can alrepoint to large brick-and-mortar eto prevent sewage overows. Chic

while simultaneously implementingmost substantial green inrastruc

network in the country, has also bworking or 30 years on a $3 billion dtunnel system that, when complete2014, will consist o 109 miles o unground chambers capable o retai18 billion gallons.

But its no mystery why DEP wrather build ewer retention tanks.one thing, they can engender sti cmunity opposition. Who wants to near a massive holding tank or hu

waste? An even more daunting actthe cost. The Paerdegat and Flush

acilities (with 50 million gallons anmillion gallons capacity, respectiveach have a price tag o approxima$300 million. DEP Deputy Comsioner Steven Lawitts, who overseethe agencys capital projects, has the City Council that by 2005, Dhad concluded that the enormous o these detention tanks ar outweigthe localized water quality imprment aorded by the tanks. tanksthough hugewould notable to capture the runo rom all Cpipes in their respective areas, resting their beneft to their immed

waters. In nearby open waters, Lawsaid, the [tanks] water quality imis not signifcant.

The cost argument against big tahas been brewing or years. Chrpher Ward, a DEP commissioner

April 2002 to November 2004 who

. . . its no mystery why DEP would rather build fewer

retention tanks. For one thing, they usually engender stiff

community opposition. Who wants to live near a massive

holding tank for human waste?


16/28

riskY waTersRate reform realitiesCustomers migt eel dierently wen teyget teir next bills, but Fitc Ratings was

pleased wen contemplating te 11.5 per-cent rise in water rates approved by te NewYork City Water Board in May. Annual rateikes are likely, Fitc said in its report topotential investors in New York City waterbonds, but rates sould remain competitivewit oter urban systems, and aordable orte broad customer base wit its above-av-erage income caracteristics.

Indeed, annual ikes are likelyte WaterBoard is predicting tat tis years increasewill be ollowed by boosts o 11.5 percent in2008, 11.4 percent in 2009 and 11.3 percent

in 2010, or a 54 percent increase over tenext our years to cover te swelling costso reducing CSOs, protecting te watersedand reducing nitrogen releases in te water-ways. Tose steep ikes ave set o a call orcange in te way te city carges or water.But any cangeslike te leading proposal,rom Comptroller William Tompsonwillave to contend wit te rules and wims ote bond market.

Te case or cange is simple: Wile teWater Board argues tat as a percentage ote citys median income, New Yorks watercarges are among te lowest o 24 large

cities it surveyed, te vast income disparitiesin te city mean water is dearer to some cityresidents tan oters. Researc by te Univer-sity Neigborood housing Program (UNhP)sows tat wen Bronx neigboroods arecompared to oter large cities, residents oMott haven and Morrisania are paying agreater sare o teir income or water tante average resident o any major U.S. city. Teaverage New York customer, wo now pays$677, will pay $966 a year in 2011. A ew un-dred bucks a year or water migt seem likea puny sare o take-ome pay, but coupledwit ig uel prices, rising tax assessments

and creeping interest rates, soaring watercarges tigten te squeeze on omeownerswo are barely making it. Tis is te tingtat could pus olks rigt o te edge, saysJim Buckley, UNhPs executive director.

Not tat Buckley blames te rate makersor approving tis years increase. Te sys-tem, as its set up, teres no option or teWater Board, e says.

Te system dates to 1984, wen te statelegislature created te New York City WaterFinance Autority to sell bonds to pay or im-provements to te water and sewage system.Te Water Board, an entity separate rom teWater Finance Autority, was carged wit

setting water rates. Te citys Department oEnvironmental Protection (DEP), meanwile,continued to operate te water and sewersystem, so te Water Board agreed in 1985to pay te city or use o DEPs pipes, plantsand reservoirs. For a number o years, tatrent was pegged to te outstanding citybonds or water and sewer work. But astat general obligation debt dwindled overte years, te rent to te city became basedinstead on te size o te Water FinanceAutoritys own debt burden.

Tat means water ratepayers arent justpaying o water bonds and unding te

operation o DEPs water and sewer sys-temteyre paying into te citys generalund under a 22-year-old agreement tatwas signed beore new ederal water rulesorced DEP capital spending up to $19.5 bil-lion over te next 10 years. Ironically, NewYorkers are paying a iger water rate nowbecause teyre using less water tan in tepast: Since people are wasing and usingless, te cost per us as to go up to coverrising capital costs.

Te water money going into te citys gen-eral und totals $77 million tis year, and willrise to $175 million in 2011, according to tecomptrollers ofce. Wit te city boasting amulti-billion dollar surplus and ratepayersacing our years o double digit water rateikes, tat rental payment came under scru-tiny tis spring. Its not sustainable, not away to raise revenues or te general und,says City Councilmember James Gennaro,cairman o te Environmental ProtectionCommittee, wo adds tat te citys pro-gressive tax system is wat ougt to be usedto raise money or te regular budget, notregressive water payments blind to wat wemake or a living and everyting else.

In April, Gennaro and Councilmember Da-vid Weprin suggested eliminating te rentalpayment. But te fnances o te New YorkCity water system arent only o interest toratepayers and councilmembers. Bond buyersand rating agencies also pay close attention.As te city began marketing a new set o wa-ter bonds wort $400,000,000 in late May,Fitc Ratings gave tose bonds an AA rating,


1 SUMMER 2007

heads the citys General ContracAssociation, says that during his timcommissioner it became clear that need to break out o the pipe andment solutions or CSOs as a long-tplanning alternative. He said DEP lysts ound that the greater strides

made toward controlling overowsmore expensive additional imprment became. Spending $320 miand not moving perceptibly orwseems to me misguided, Ward sHow much more should you spenget the last 5, 6, 7 percent o water qity beneft? he asks. Every dollar

you spend is not the same.Environmental watchdogs w

agreeto a point. Theyve long bskeptical that big capital projects w

the best way to mitigate the stormter problem, arguing that there more cost-eective methods to consewage overows. But while envmental advocates might be plethat the city is moving away rom ttional, capital-intensive solutions toCSO problem, they arent necessthrilled with the alternatives DEPproposed. The agencys new projmight be smaller and cheaper, bu

vocates still think the city is approing the sewage overow problem

the wrong end o the pipe. The list o overow abatement

ects now underway include instanets and booms to capture materiait spills out o sewage overow piincreasing the capacity o the citys est plant at Newtown Creek andcreation o more holding capacity insewage pipes and treatment plants. er eorts include gathering so-caoatables, like litter, beore they gthe outalls, and staggering the o

wastewater to increase the amountplants can handle. Another initiativcludes monitoring beaches to catchstop illegal sewer connections.

That menu o solutions still ocon what happens to the rain atgets to the drainsnot beorehandconcentrating its eorts there, DElimiting the eectiveness o its Cprogram, advocates say. These


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SUMMER 2007

o-pipe projects cannot and are not in-tended or designed to eliminate com-bined sewer overows or allow the cityto meet water quality standards, saysa recent repor t rom Riverkeeper.

V. Which end o the pipe?A dierent approach would be to try

to divert water rom ever getting intothe sewage systemto stop it at itssource with specially designed roos,rain barrels, trees, porous suraces andother methods; in other words, to go

green. Green processes pit naturesadaptive strength against the very man-made orces that threaten it. Riverkeep-er attorney Robert Goldstein recalls arecent sewage spill in Yonkers: There

was a wetland between the break andthe river, and it didnt mean much tome at the time, but everything thatcame out o that sewer pipe went intothis wetland, he says. Our boat testedright outside the break and ound noelevated levels [o ecal bacteria]. Its amiracle, but its not a miracle. This is

what natures unction is.New York City, like all urban areas,

has a high percentage o impervioussurace cover; it is the Asphalt Jungleo noir cinema ame. The concrete andasphalt that coat much o the city es-sentially act as an umbrella channelingrainall o to the edges and inhibitingthe soils natural unction o absorption.

In a recent study by the Earth Instituteo Columbia University, scientists brokedown the citys cover using advancedmapping techniques and revealed thatthe citys surace is, on average, 64.1percent impervious, rom a high o 94.3percent in mid-Manhattan west to a low

o 60.2 percent in Maspeth, Queens.Green approaches ocus on turn-

ing the citys impervious suraces intosponges or rainwater. Green roos use

vegetation and porous material to cap-ture the rain that alls on them. The ab-sorptive power o the soil acts as a cru-cial delaying mechanism to keep waterout o the sewer system until the stormpasses. While there is certainly a limitto how much water green roos canholdespecially during long storms

depending on their thickness, they canprevent 80 percent o runo during atypical rain event, says Leslie Homan,executive director o Earth Pledge, agroup that promotes green roos. Theability o plants to breathe water vaporback into the atmosphere, a processknown as evapotranspiration, meansthat they are unctioning essentially asminiature, living stormwater retentiontanks and treatment plants.

While green roosa ew o whichcan be ound in the citycan cost $20

to $40 a square oot to install (comparedto traditional roos than run $4 to $6 asquare oot) their efciency can be re-markable. A recent report by Riverkeep-erone cited by PlaNYCclaims thator every $1,000 invested in new greenroo construction, up to 810 gallons ostormwater can be removed rom thesewer system every year. The report

which claims that there are 16,000 acreso potentially eligible at roos in thecitysuggests that green roos couldcapture 13 billion gallons o runo, orabout hal the citys annual CSO output,at a ar lower cost than building reten-tion tanks to hold all that water.

Other technologies, like tree pits thateature expanded absorption basins andrain barrels that capture water or usein backyard irrigation are what CSO re-duction advocates are seeking to deployon a mass scale to make up or the built

just sy o te igest grade. Oter ratinagencies also rate Water Finance Autoity debt iglyin some cases, igtan New York Citys general obligatiobonds. Tose ig ratings, wic savratepayers money because tey allow t

Water Finance Autority to pay a lowinterest rate, are a reward or te careway in wic te city pledges its watees. Under New York City Water FinancAutority bond covenants, money roratepayers goes to bondolders frst, teto DEP to pay or operations and ten rent to te citys general und. So te repayment serves as a cusion. Sould water ees all o one year, te rent paymecould go to bondolders.

Removing tat cusion would ave be done careully. Any reduction in tprotection or bondolders could spoo

rating agencies and investors, and sincte Water Finance Autority is pledgeto deend te interests o bondolders,migt even ave to sue te Water Boato protect investors. Te need to keete market appy is wy Tompson, proposing a way to lower water ratesays te Water Board sould still collete rent payment, but agree to ave tcity rebate te rent so te board can aply it to reducing uture rate ikes. Sucan approac migt actually improve tcitys bond outlook, says analyst MegaNeuburger rom Fitc. I tere was moo tat money to pay or capital improvments, debt service would be better, ssays, so it would be a positive or tWater Board monetarily.

But making te cange depends ogetting te parties to te 1985 agrementnamely City hall and te WatBoardto endorse it, and tat woumean te city agreeing to millions dollars in lost revenue. City hall dnot respond to requests or commenAt te Water Boards May 14 meetinCairman James Tripp said it was tim

to try. I intend to pursue tis issue wita vengeance, e said. In my view, tcontinuation o te rental agreement simply not satisactory. Were going do someting about it.

A ew minutes later, te board approvete 11.5 percent increase unanimously.

JARRETT MURPh

DEP Commssoner Eml Llod oversees

operations spanning 13 counties and serving

more than 9 million people.Photo: City Hall


18/28

A poneern reen buldn, he Solare, can reuse 25,000 gallons o water a day. A city pro-

gram is trying to encourage other buildings to ollow suit.Photo: Jeff Goldberg, Esto Photographers


1 SUMMER 2007

environments lack o absorption. Theyare also seeking to replace portions otraditional concrete sidewalksthattogether with streets make up 45.9 per-cent o the citys impervious cover, ac-

cording to the Columbia reportwithporous pavement, an emerging greentechnology being adopted across thecountry or its dramatic ability to holdand flter water underground ratherthan leave it scurrying downhill towardthe nearest gutter. A study by hydrolo-gist and engineer Franco Montalto, aColumbia University research ellow,analyzed the water-holding peror-mance o an absorptive sidewalk andound that there would be no annualruno rom this confguration porouspavement, i.e. there would be 100 per-cent reduction in annual runo, overthe imperviously paved condition. Tobolster this incredible fnding, the re-port asks its readers to note that near100 percent runo capture is common-ly reported or porous pavement instal-lations. A project in Seattle that usesa similar approach has ound over two

years that stormwater runo has beenreduced by 99 percent.

While porous pavement is a new ap-proach, old-ashioned tree planting alsoholds water. The ability o plants to absorb

volumes o water greater than their sur-ace areas10 times or more greater inthe case o some water-retaining Green-streets, the pocket parks oten ound ontrafc mediansare what make themhighly desirable or CSO abatement in acompact urban environment. New Yorkstrees absorb more than 890 million gal-lons o stormwater each year, accordingto the Parks Departments 2005-2006Street Tree Census.

Since green methods make use ostormwater rather than ushing it downthe drain, they eliminate inefcien-cies in the water system. Rather thantreating rainwater and then having toprovide it to the homeowner or water-ing the tomatoes, green methods aimto capture the water or use beore itenters the sewage system. The ecologi-cal benefts are myriad. Not only doesless stormwater overow into city wa-

terways through CSO outalls, but gets treated at the plants, toowis good because treated water is do

with chlorine, which can be toxic,is resh water, which can alter thelinity o some city waterways. Whmore, the less sewage treated, the

energy that gets used: New Yorks er and water system contributes a17 percent o the citys greenhouseemissions, and since the water sysis almost entirely powered by grasewage treatment creates most o carbon ootprint.

Several U.S. cities have recognthe potential o green measuresmitigate wastewater control problKansas City has a program to cr10,000 rain gardens. Chicago, while

building traditional retention tanksCSO water, has adopted legislation tquire new developments o greater 15,000 square eet to retain some o tstormwater on site. Portland mandthat developments including more 500 square eet o impervious surmanage stormwater on site.

Those innovations in other have rustrated New York Citys sctifc and activist community in re

years, who have seen little o thaproach at work here. For backers o

green approach, the debate has mobeyond needing another pilot progYoull go blue in the ace readinthere reports that espouse greenrastructure, says Riverkeeper linvestigator Basil Seggos. Were beyond knowing that green works.

As recently as last all, DEP of were arguing that while alttive eorts to reduce wastewatethe sourcesometimes called socontrolsare tempting, the traditiapproach is still the most likely to mreductions in sewage overows.

very important to emphasize herealthough the toolbox or source trol strategies is plentiul, and manthese strategies are currently used

where throughout the country, manthese tools have limited value or lscale CSO mitigation in an urban


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down The drainHere are some o he penales New york C has had o pa or

volan ederal and sae reulaons on drnkn waer and sewae:

$15.1 million since 2002 to the state Department o EnvironmentalConservation or wastewater violations

$5.5 million to the U.S. Department o Justice or violating the Clean WateAct by introducing turbid water to Esopus Creek in the Catskills watershed

$3.7 million and counting or ailing to lter the Croton system and missingdeadlines in a deal with the EPA in which the city promised to build a ltrationplant, where delays in the construction are costing the city $30,000 a day in nes

$500,000 a year to und a monitor who watches over the citys waterprotection practices, as part o the sentence or the citys criminal convictions onClean Water Act violations which also led to $50,000 in nes

$27,500 to the EPA in May 2006 or excessive turbidity in the Catskills/Delaware drinking water system

(surc: DeC, ePA, Do


SUMMER 2007

vironment, the DEPs Lawitts told anOctober 2006 City Council hearing.Thereore, our CSO control strategies

will rely most heavily on the provenend-o-pipe practices.

Lawittss comments touched a nerve,and might have been a turning point.

In conversations with the city as themayors sustainability eort gatheredsteam, advocates pressed their casethat green solutions were indeedproven. As PlaNYC took shape, advo-cates say, the city warmed to the ideao expanding the use o green methods.DEP has started to talk to groups likeEarth Pledge and the Gaia Instituteto estimate the potential efciencyo green roos or develop new park-land projects to capture rain. Looking

ahead, two city laws passed in 2005might soon inuence the citys environ-mental conversation. Local Law 83 callsor a Wetlands Transer Task Force tosubmit a report in September 2007 ontranserring city-owned wetlands to thecitys Department o Parks and Recre-ation or other agencies or protection.Local Law 71 launched the ongoing

watershed protection study at JamaicaBay and mandated the incorporationo best management practicesa

category o innovative approaches thatincludes green inrastructureinto thebays remediation.

But hopeul as it is, the Jamaica Bayprocess is somewhat bittersweet orgreen advocates in the rest o the city,

who wish the DEP was compelled to

do green planning across the fve bor-oughs. Indeed, while the DEP is show-ing more openness to alternative solu-tions to long-standing environmentalchallenges, the eorts are localized orisolated, while the problems o storm-

water and sewage overow are massiveand citywide.

Thats why its unclear whether thesenascent green eorts to control sew-age overows have enough undingand scope to make up or the capacity

lost by DEPs canceled detention tankprojects.. That question extends to themultiaceted approach Mayor Bloom-berg has pitched in PlaNYC.

VI. The new plan

When Bloomberg turned to the CSOproblem in the April 2007 speech unveil-ing his 2030 initiative, he highlighted thecitys accomplishments to date beoredetailing his plan. Since 1980, weve

cut [CSO] water pollution by more hal, the mayor said. Now, well bon that progress, by investing mthan $10 billion in continued upgrto our sewage treatment acilities in preventing the rainwater run-otriggers sewage overow. That m

greening our streets, expanding bluebelts, promoting green roos, eplanting water-cleansing mollusks!

It was hard not to be impressed PlaNYCs dizzying buet o greentions, spread across 12 colorul psprinkled with textbook-like diagrand even an image o a Swedish molarm extending down into the depth

what can be considered a true vicor the green lobby, the plan announon its last page its most substantial

concrete oering: a fve-year greenincentive in the orm o a propertyabatement equal to 35 percent o thstallation cost.

The plan urther explains thacity is developing our residentialtwo commercial pilots to analyzepotential cumulative benefts o groos on the citys combined sesystem, at an expected cost o over $1.3 million or each. PlaNYC designates a task orce to get all the


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20 SUMMER 2007

ers into one room, an important stepgiven the multiple agencies that have arole in how the city handles watertheParks Department controls trees, De-partment o Transportation the streets,Department o Buildings the construc-tion code and DEP the pipes and plants.

Advocates see those proposals asthe product o years o lobbying. EarthPledges Homan has been one o manypeople pushing or years or the city toadopt something like the green rooabatement. Six years ago I was sitting

with [then-DEP commissioner] ChrisWard and pounding on the table sayingthat Mayor Bloomberg could take thelead here. He could stand up and startto move and beat Chicagos butt, she

says. Its taken years, she adds.Stuart Gafn, a Columbia climate re-

search scientist, was part o a team thatanalyzed the costs and perormanceo green roos or the city. He recallsinitial scofng rom builders who in-sisted that green roos, known not just

or their water retaining properties butalso their ability to absorb heat, wouldoer no additional cooling on top ostandard insulation. Gafn says that thetypical reaction rom city ofcials wasone o being loathe to impose man-dates or ees to orce developers to gogreen. But they were open, at least, tothe idea that green roos were an idea

worth supporting. We prevailed uponthem that runo control was more im-

portant, Gafn says. The [sewsystem is well beyond capacity, so realized that this was a no-brainer.

For all their cheering, advocound some parts o PlaNYC more lito make them winceor chuckle. proposal to drain stormwater dire

into waterways through special hlevel storm sewers threatens to redthe CSO problem at the cost o ejecmore toxic runo straight into the crivers and bays. While PlaNYC mtions the potential o swalesvegetgullies between the sidewalk and r

wayto channel, collect and abrainwater, it commits to a pilot projeconstruct only one. There was alsounderwhelming announcement th

1658 C.E. New Amster-dams civic leaders ban

privies with street-level

outlets. The order is

widely ignored.

1703 First public sewer built a yearater mosquito-borne yellow ever

kills at least one in 10 New Yorkers.

1731 City law commands that alltubs o dung be thrown into the

river and not the streets.

1832 Cholera kills 3,513 Newand causes tens o thousands t

the city. Some observers attrib

epidemic not to flthy water bu

miasmic vapors, Koeppel wri

1799 A year ater yellow ever kills 2,000 NewYorkers, Aaron Burrs Manhattan Company wins

charter to build a water system. While the company

eventually completes a small reservoir, the fne

print allows Burr to open a bank that eventually

becomes Chase Manhattan.

1803 City begins flling in theCollect, a pond near todays Foley

Square that was a main source

o resh water but also a popular

dumping spot or dishwater,

laundry suds, animal carcasses and

industrial runo.

The smell oF successNYCs sewage sagain 1829, some 100 ons o human excremen were bured n c sol each da. Despe

a seres o deadl epdemcs, was decades beore he c bul a ssem or brnn

clean waer n, and even loner beore New york made provsons or en sewae

ou. is hard o know wh exacl ook hem so lon, sas gerard Koeppel, auhor

o Waer for goham. there was a ceran amoun o olerance o dsease and sck-

ness n hose das, enerall. Much has chaned. Bu he sewae overow problem s

onl he laes chaper n he sor han bean when humans frs seled here o ea,

drnk and des:

4500 B.C.E. Human waste debutsin New York City as the frst per-

manent settlers arrive. In 1624,

the Dutch join in.


21/28


SUMMER 2007

mere fve tree pits would be planted andmonitored or impacts.

Even the green roo tax abatement,while a major step, imposes no mandateon developers or building owners tohelp solve the pressing CSO problem;in act, since many new developments

get lengthy property tax abatements orother reasons (like a ordable housing),the program might not oer as mucho an incentive as it seems. And theadministrations own green roo proj-ects, while encouraging, are but pilots.

Taken together, critics say, the plan be-trays a lingering hesitancy on the cityspart to really go green. Theyll explorethe possibilities or incorporating theseinitiatives, says Dart Westphal, board

chairman o the Bronx River Allianceand president o the Bronx Council orEnvironmental Quality, reading o theplan. Thats two disclaimers in one sen-tence! he laughs.

Laughing aside, PlaNYC has not as-suaged the deep worries o the citys

water advocates. Our concern is thattheyre trying to get away with notmeeting the Clean Water Act, West-phal says. The concern there is not somuch the policy proposals in PlaNYC,but the goals it aspires to reach.

Measured next to the sweeping ambi-tion o the rest o PlaNYC, the mayors

water quality plan seems pretty timid. While the rules promulgated underthe Clean Water Act call or a CSO cap-

ture rate o 85 percent, PlaNYC mthe deating revelation that the enmenu o new policies it is proposinexpected to improve the CSO caprate to more than 75 percentwis, o course, exactly what the 2004 sent order demands that the city

Given that the city already capturepercent o its wet-weather ow, thatcould have 24 billion gallons still ing every year, or enough to complecover the Brooklyn and the Bronx a oot o untreated wastewater.

city limits magazine - summer 2007 - vol. 31 no. 2

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