Hudson River Sewage Dump

Updated w/closure & advisory info at 4:30 pm. Please scroll down for details.

If you have access to a kayak & Hudson River waters in the NYC vicinity, and you had any thoughts about beating the heat with some rolling and rescue practice - DON'T.

A fire at the North River Sewage Treatment Plant has knocked out a couple of pumps and there's been a massive discharge (ongoing as I post). Click here for full details.

Via the NYC Kayaker Distributed E-mail List - thank you as always to the Hudson River Watertrail Association for maintaining this incredibly useful "kayak grapevine". I usually hear it there first.

Adding a suggestion, slightly later - if you were considering attending any of the area's public paddling programs this weekend, it would be a good idea to check the website of the place you were going to go before you do. I think most of them have phone numbers you can call for a status update or will make announcements on their sites. I'm only aware of one so far (Hoboken Cove) that has made the call to not run their program this weekend, but others are considering it & will make their decisions as the situation develops.

Sebago will most likely be open for business as usual - we're way way south and around a very sharp turn, I think we're unlikely to have any problems. As long as the Brooklyn beaches along the inlet to Jamaica Bay are OK, we are too - click here for water quality reports.

Update, 4:30 pm...hat tip this time to the the New York City Watertrail Association, http://www.nycwatertrailweb.blogspot.com/ -
Rob Buchanan from the Village Community Boathouse got a press release from the DEP a little while ago. None of the beaches in the Lower Harbor or the Rockaway Peninsula have issues; as of now, seems that it's mostly the area north of the Verranzano that's been impacted. Testing will continue and if there are any changes in status, it'll be up on the water quality site shown above (think I got that from Andy Novick originally, thanks Andy).

Here's the description of the area that the DEP says IS affected:
Water quality modeling indicates that there is no immediate impact to permitted beaches due to the dilution capacity of the river. Based on recommendations from NYC Health, the Hudson River, the East River from the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge to Verrazano Bridge and the Harlem River will not be fit for recreational activities such as swimming, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing or any other water activity that would entail possible direct contact now through at least Sunday.