New York City adopts green infrastructure strategy for reducing sewer overflows into waterways
A Change in Approach
“During heavy rainfall (or blackouts) untreated sewage and storm water is released into the East River, New York Harbor, Jamaica Bay, the Gowanus Canal (disgusting video!) and Newtown Creek. But the Bloomberg Administration is planning to spend $1.5 billion over the next 20 years to retain that waste,” writes John Del Signore, Senior Editor with the New York City Gothamist, in his blog on September 29, 2010.
The new plan, called NYC Green Infrastructure, “will replace the existing approach for sewer overflow control, which relies solely on traditional investments like holding tanks and tunnels, with a mix of green infrastructure and cost-effective traditional infrastructure that will reduce sewer overflows into waterways.”
To Learn More:
To read the complete article, click on Bloomberg To Cut The Crap From NYC Waterways
About the New York Plan
New York's Green Infrastructure Plan presents an alternative approach to improving water quality that integrates 'green infrastructure', such as swales and green roofs, with investments to optimize the existing system and to build targeted, smaller-scale 'grey' or traditional infrastructure.
This is a multi-pronged, modular, and adaptive approach to a complicated problem that will provide widespread, immediate benefits at a lower cost. The green infrastructure component of this strategy builds upon and reinforces the strong public and government support that will be necessary to make additional water quality investments.
A critical goal of the green infrastructure component is to manage runoff from 10% of the impervious surfaces in combined sewer watersheds through detention and infiltration source controls.
Posted October 2010