Paerdegat Basin Project Slowly Moving Along
By Dara Mormile
If you’re wondering what those construction trucks and cranes are doing on the Ralph Avenue side of Paerdegat Basin, it’s the giant Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project, which was originally supposed to be finished last year. Now they’re saying it will be more like five or six years from now.
The massive Paerdegat Basin Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) project, originally scheduled to be completed last year, is taking longer than expected. Much longer.
According to officials at New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the completion date is now 2011. Reasons for the delay,, they said, include budgeting, new technology and reassessment of the construction site.
According to Community Board 18’s District Needs and Priorities Fiscal Year 2006 report, which was issued last month, the DEP originally expected the project, which started in 1999, to be finished in 2003. The date was then pushed to 2009 and currently is 2011.
Commenting on the delays, State Senator Carl Kruger, who was chairman of Community Board 18 (CB 18) in 1997 when hearings were held regarding the project, said, "What was once a four-year project has become a twelve-year project."
Conservationists will be pleased to know that the ecology was taken into account, as CSO engineers have planted marsh grass all along the banks of Paerdegat Basin. Photos by Charles Rogers
DEP press secretary Ian Michaels told the Canarsie Courier that new goals have been set for the $270 million project.
"As part of the city’s plan to clean up bodies of water throughout New York Harbor, the CSO will improve water quality in the Basin, comply with NYSDEC water quality standards and maximize the use of existing facilities," Michaels said.
A 2003 DEP press release stated that a new pumping station will reduce chemicals and sediments in the water, improving its quality for recreational boating and fishing, as well as make the Basin environmentally improved.
The first phase of the project consists of reconstructing the pumping station and is now complete, according to DEP spokesperson Natalie Milner. Its total cost is $10 million.
Senator Kruger said, "If I were the DEP, I would be ashamed. This community has been terrorized by everything bad that the DEP can do and the only thing that we’ve been able to see come out of it is a deeper hole that’s gone on for years. Every time we attend a meeting for a presentation, all we find ourselves being told is that it’s going to be another year."
Kruger wants the DEP to deliver a project that will be done on time. "When you’re done telling the community all the wonderful things you’re going to do for us, you should look at it in perspective and see what you haven’t done for us."
The project also includes Bergen Avenue construction, wetland reconstruction, area improvement and a natural area park that will extend from Avenue V through Bergen Beach. Other elements include sewer regulators, which will insure maximum capture of precipitation, dredging the mouth of the Basin and adjacent areas and construction of a 20 million gallon underground retention tank.
Overseeing the project is environmental engineer Ana Walsh of the construction company Hazen & Sawyer. She explained to residents, during a meeting in June, how odor problems would be eliminated, a point about which they had reservations. The existing water has chemicals, like coliform, and dissolved oxygen levels that do not comply with state environmental standards.
Even though water conditions downstream towards Jamaica Bay are better, pollution in the mouth of the Basin stems from storm water and other runoff. Ecologists have addressed beach problems along the shore of the Basin by planting marsh grass areas to strain and thus eliminate pollutants.
CB 18 District Manager Dorothy Turano was given a report from the DEP last year about the five-phase project, which spans from Ralph Avenue to Paerdegat Basin and into Jamaica Bay. She said she is disappointed in the proposed turnaround time for the facility.
"This project will bring clean water and recreational qualities which people will be able to use. When it’s finally done, part of the arrangement is to get an office for Community Board 18. I planned on moving in there before I retire but I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime."
Jun 12, 2007
Sewage Spill Exposed a Lingering City Problem
Sewage Spill Exposed a Lingering City Problem
ANDREA ELLIOTT / NY Times 28aug03
Minutes after New York City lost its power on Aug. 14, streams of raw sewage began to flow into surrounding waterways. By the time electricity was restored, 490 million gallons had spilled — 145 million gallons from the city's largest pumping station, on the Lower East Side — causing beaches to close and posing health and environmental hazards.
This was not the first time. The blackout of 1977 caused a sewage overflow of 828 million gallons, which spilled from eight treatment plants and the same sprawling station on the Lower East Side, the 13th Street Pump Station on Avenue D between East 12th and 13th Streets.
Back then, city officials found a solution: they provided all treatment plants with backup generators, which functioned properly, for the most part, during the blackout earlier this month. But no generator was ever built at the 13th Street Pump Station, a failure caused by a mixture of administrative lethargy and delays brought on by stiff community resistance.
So when the lights went out again, the sewage spilled out again.
"We always knew if there was a blackout, 13th Street would just shut its gates and pump everything out," said Alfonso R. Lopez, deputy commissioner for the Bureau of Waste Water Treatment. "Everybody recognizes we need generators. No one wants to give up real estate."
To be sure, this was not the only sewage problem on Aug. 14. More than 260 million gallons of raw sewage was spilled because of faulty or inoperable generators at 2 of the city's 14 waste water treatment plants — Red Hook and North River. And even if those generators had been running properly and the 13th Street station had had backup power, sewage would still have spilled because of the lag time before generators begin operating, Mr. Lopez said.
But, city officials concede, it is a virtual certainty that the 2003 spill did not have to be as bad as it was. The proper functioning of the generators at North River and Red Hook would have made a huge difference. But that was not even a possibility at the 13th Street Pump Station, where a solution to fixing the problem is not nearly as straightforward and — though under way — is years in the future.
"It is outrageous," said Sarah J. Meyland, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an environmental organization with offices around the state. "Across the board there often is a very casual feeling about allowing raw sewage back into the environment under sporadic circumstances, as if sewage is really not that bad.
"In the same way we want the electrical system never to fail we should have the same expectation that the sewer system never fail except for acts of nature," Ms. Meyland added. "Not a situation like this one where there clearly is an engineering solution available."
The 13th Street Pump Station is surrounded by a low-income housing development and is across the street from a Con Edison plant, a combination that has produced a construction quagmire. Community leaders complained that pollution from the Con Edison plant, which is expanding, has added to already high asthma rates in the area.
For that reason, they have long resisted plans to build a diesel-fueled generator at the pump station, said Susan Stetzer, chairwoman of the public safety and sanitation committee for Community Board 3. "You shouldn't be building it on the grounds of a housing development," Ms. Stetzer said. "Why don't they build it on the grounds of Gracie Mansion?"
The argument that a power failure could occur seemed to hold little weight as the years passed.
"Over time it was easier to face the risk of sewer discharge than the reality of building a big plant in the face of community opposition," said Christopher Ward, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. "The environmental problem that sewage creates is invisible to New Yorkers, whereas taking property and diesel emissions is not."
The city took little action toward building the generator until, in 1995, the state issued an order forcing the construction of two generators at the 13th Street Pump Station as part of a larger plan to upgrade a treatment plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. That plant receives 150 million gallons of sewage every day from the 13th Street station.
City officials attended meetings and gave presentations describing what the city felt it needed to do, but were met with anger and distrust from the people who lived nearby.
Still, the community board approved a plan in June to build the generators on the roof of the 13th Street Pump Station — at a cost to the city of $9.75 million — but the system will not be up and running for at least four years, Mr. Ward said.
City engineers can make positive comparisons when talking about the sewage that spilled this month. Before 1986, when one of the last of New York City's waste water treatment plants was completed, all of the sewage from the West Side of Manhattan spilled untreated into the Hudson.
City engineers also said that before September 1967, when the New Town Creek plant in Brooklyn was completed, more raw sewage spilled into the waterways every day than spilled during the blackout of 2003.
Still, the problems during the blackout underscored longstanding flaws with the way the city disposes of its sewage.
Propelled by gravity, waste water flows from sinks, toilets and showers to a maze of pipes below New York City's streets. These pipes also receive storm water runoff in most parts of the city. From there, the sewage is pumped to treatment plants.
New York is among 772 cities around the nation with combined sewer systems — those that mix storm water with other waste. About 20,000 cities use a newer, more efficient system, separating the two forms of waste so that storm water is not processed at treatment plants along with sewage.
When it rains heavily, pipes in a combined system can overflow and spill raw sewage. In New York City, that happens about half the time it rains, causing an estimated 40 billion gallons of untreated waste water (20 percent of which is raw sewage) to spill into surrounding waterways every year, city officials said.
"Blackouts are unfortunate but are relatively rare," said Reed Super, senior lawyer of Riverkeeper, an environmental organization based in Garrison, N.Y. "It really just points out a larger problem, which is that it happens on a regular basis. Raw sewage flows into our waterways every time it rains over a certain threshold."
Along with other cities, New York City is trying to curb the problem of combined sewage overflows by building underground reservoirs that work almost like bladders. When waste water begins to overflow, some of it will be channeled to these three underground tanks. It will be held there until water levels drop again, and then the waste water will be pumped to treatment plants.
The projects, in Flushing and Alley Creek, Queens, and in Paerdegat Basin, Brooklyn, will cost more than $680 million. Critics say these efforts are a Band-Aid solution to a larger problem, and even city officials wonder how the city will keep up with the cost of maintaining the sewage system, parts of which date to the 1850's. "The city faces billions of dollars of waste water upgrades," Mr. Ward said. "A huge environmental question facing the city is the efficacy of those investments instead of competing environmental interests."
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ANDREA ELLIOTT / NY Times 28aug03
Minutes after New York City lost its power on Aug. 14, streams of raw sewage began to flow into surrounding waterways. By the time electricity was restored, 490 million gallons had spilled — 145 million gallons from the city's largest pumping station, on the Lower East Side — causing beaches to close and posing health and environmental hazards.
This was not the first time. The blackout of 1977 caused a sewage overflow of 828 million gallons, which spilled from eight treatment plants and the same sprawling station on the Lower East Side, the 13th Street Pump Station on Avenue D between East 12th and 13th Streets.
Back then, city officials found a solution: they provided all treatment plants with backup generators, which functioned properly, for the most part, during the blackout earlier this month. But no generator was ever built at the 13th Street Pump Station, a failure caused by a mixture of administrative lethargy and delays brought on by stiff community resistance.
So when the lights went out again, the sewage spilled out again.
"We always knew if there was a blackout, 13th Street would just shut its gates and pump everything out," said Alfonso R. Lopez, deputy commissioner for the Bureau of Waste Water Treatment. "Everybody recognizes we need generators. No one wants to give up real estate."
To be sure, this was not the only sewage problem on Aug. 14. More than 260 million gallons of raw sewage was spilled because of faulty or inoperable generators at 2 of the city's 14 waste water treatment plants — Red Hook and North River. And even if those generators had been running properly and the 13th Street station had had backup power, sewage would still have spilled because of the lag time before generators begin operating, Mr. Lopez said.
But, city officials concede, it is a virtual certainty that the 2003 spill did not have to be as bad as it was. The proper functioning of the generators at North River and Red Hook would have made a huge difference. But that was not even a possibility at the 13th Street Pump Station, where a solution to fixing the problem is not nearly as straightforward and — though under way — is years in the future.
"It is outrageous," said Sarah J. Meyland, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an environmental organization with offices around the state. "Across the board there often is a very casual feeling about allowing raw sewage back into the environment under sporadic circumstances, as if sewage is really not that bad.
"In the same way we want the electrical system never to fail we should have the same expectation that the sewer system never fail except for acts of nature," Ms. Meyland added. "Not a situation like this one where there clearly is an engineering solution available."
The 13th Street Pump Station is surrounded by a low-income housing development and is across the street from a Con Edison plant, a combination that has produced a construction quagmire. Community leaders complained that pollution from the Con Edison plant, which is expanding, has added to already high asthma rates in the area.
For that reason, they have long resisted plans to build a diesel-fueled generator at the pump station, said Susan Stetzer, chairwoman of the public safety and sanitation committee for Community Board 3. "You shouldn't be building it on the grounds of a housing development," Ms. Stetzer said. "Why don't they build it on the grounds of Gracie Mansion?"
The argument that a power failure could occur seemed to hold little weight as the years passed.
"Over time it was easier to face the risk of sewer discharge than the reality of building a big plant in the face of community opposition," said Christopher Ward, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. "The environmental problem that sewage creates is invisible to New Yorkers, whereas taking property and diesel emissions is not."
The city took little action toward building the generator until, in 1995, the state issued an order forcing the construction of two generators at the 13th Street Pump Station as part of a larger plan to upgrade a treatment plant in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. That plant receives 150 million gallons of sewage every day from the 13th Street station.
City officials attended meetings and gave presentations describing what the city felt it needed to do, but were met with anger and distrust from the people who lived nearby.
Still, the community board approved a plan in June to build the generators on the roof of the 13th Street Pump Station — at a cost to the city of $9.75 million — but the system will not be up and running for at least four years, Mr. Ward said.
City engineers can make positive comparisons when talking about the sewage that spilled this month. Before 1986, when one of the last of New York City's waste water treatment plants was completed, all of the sewage from the West Side of Manhattan spilled untreated into the Hudson.
City engineers also said that before September 1967, when the New Town Creek plant in Brooklyn was completed, more raw sewage spilled into the waterways every day than spilled during the blackout of 2003.
Still, the problems during the blackout underscored longstanding flaws with the way the city disposes of its sewage.
Propelled by gravity, waste water flows from sinks, toilets and showers to a maze of pipes below New York City's streets. These pipes also receive storm water runoff in most parts of the city. From there, the sewage is pumped to treatment plants.
New York is among 772 cities around the nation with combined sewer systems — those that mix storm water with other waste. About 20,000 cities use a newer, more efficient system, separating the two forms of waste so that storm water is not processed at treatment plants along with sewage.
When it rains heavily, pipes in a combined system can overflow and spill raw sewage. In New York City, that happens about half the time it rains, causing an estimated 40 billion gallons of untreated waste water (20 percent of which is raw sewage) to spill into surrounding waterways every year, city officials said.
"Blackouts are unfortunate but are relatively rare," said Reed Super, senior lawyer of Riverkeeper, an environmental organization based in Garrison, N.Y. "It really just points out a larger problem, which is that it happens on a regular basis. Raw sewage flows into our waterways every time it rains over a certain threshold."
Along with other cities, New York City is trying to curb the problem of combined sewage overflows by building underground reservoirs that work almost like bladders. When waste water begins to overflow, some of it will be channeled to these three underground tanks. It will be held there until water levels drop again, and then the waste water will be pumped to treatment plants.
The projects, in Flushing and Alley Creek, Queens, and in Paerdegat Basin, Brooklyn, will cost more than $680 million. Critics say these efforts are a Band-Aid solution to a larger problem, and even city officials wonder how the city will keep up with the cost of maintaining the sewage system, parts of which date to the 1850's. "The city faces billions of dollars of waste water upgrades," Mr. Ward said. "A huge environmental question facing the city is the efficacy of those investments instead of competing environmental interests."
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Please see the Fair Use Notice on the Homepage
Jun 10, 2007
What does Pizza have to do with Kayaking?
How often did Sebago people stop on Ave. J and east 16th after a day of paddling, for a slice of the best pizza in NYC? Like a hand made kayak, a hand made pizza is a work of art, and we are about to lose it due to a string of bad luck and fortune that has come to Mr. DeMarco, pizza master...
On Monday,last week during another inspection, the pizzeria was cited for unsanitary conditions including flies, a mouse infestation and bare-hand contact with food, said Sara Markt, a health department spokeswoman. The operators also failed to meet some of the conditions they had agreed to in April, like proving that they had passed a food safety course.
Margaret DeMarco, Mr. DeMarco’s daughter, said that the family provided a certificate from a food safety course, but that the health department did not recognize it because it was a photocopy.
{}
Jun 8, 2007
The Hudson River Greenland Festival 2007 is open for registration!
June 23rd and 24th, Croton Point Park, Croton onHudson, NY
Follow this link:
http://www.yprc.org/GreenlandFestival.asp
and read all about what we are going to offer this
year.
Jun 7, 2007
The Very Special Garden of Professor M.
Ah, urban gardening, one of the joys of Sebago. All the little beds, each one a reflection of the builder's gardening tastes.
Some of us grow flowers. Some of us grow food.
But at least one of us...
is growing...
butterflies!
And here's one of our monk parakeets, working away already at seven a.m.
I'm still relatively new, but I've heard rumours that there are some politics that swirl around the logo (how nice, to have politics swirling around the logo, instead of around boat storage).
Specifically, I hear that there are pro-bear and anti-bear camps.
Well, here's another idea...what if we take off the ears, and add a beak?
(please don't throw things, I'm kidding!)
Some of us grow flowers. Some of us grow food.
But at least one of us...
is growing...
butterflies!
And here's one of our monk parakeets, working away already at seven a.m.
I'm still relatively new, but I've heard rumours that there are some politics that swirl around the logo (how nice, to have politics swirling around the logo, instead of around boat storage).
Specifically, I hear that there are pro-bear and anti-bear camps.
Well, here's another idea...what if we take off the ears, and add a beak?
(please don't throw things, I'm kidding!)
Jun 6, 2007
Paddle Skills Workshop at Lake Sebago, Harriman State Park, NY
"Yonkers Paddle and Rowing Club", "Sebago Canoe Club" and others will be getting together for a paddle rescue and skills session this Sunday 6/10/07, all day.Those Sebago members that are interested, email the mailing list for car pooling info or to be picked up at the train/bus stop in Sloatsburg.
For some reason the link for the info is gone or hidden at the Sebago CC web site:-(
Here's some links from other paddle clubs:
http://www.cskc.org/Pages/sebago_camp.htm
http://yprc.org/Cabin.asp
The cabin at Lake Sebago is the best kept secret benefit of being a Sebago Canoe Club member and if you haven't been there, your really missing out.
Jun 5, 2007
Blessing of the Fleet 2005
Annual Blessing Of The Fleet Held At Canarsie Pier 2005
Photos by Anthony Wihlborg
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Hosted by the United Inter-Yacht Clubs, the procession of boats from the metropolitan area included vessels from the Midget Squadron, Riley’s, Brooklyn and Hudson River Yacht Clubs and the Howard Beach Motor Club.
After the ceremonial cannon boom, dozens of pleasure craft, plus Coast Guard Auxiliary, National Park Police, NYC Fire Department and NYPD ma-rine patrol boats, passed the pier in review at six knots as a wreath of flowers was tossed into the sea and a special commemorative prayer was in-toned in memory of all those who had lost their lives at sea.
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Pictured (clockwise from top): procession of boats on Jamaica Bay pass Canarsie Pier; yacht club commanders salute passing vessels; Rabbi Rister and Father Tedone; canoers paddle by; Fr. Tedone, City Councilman Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., event organizer Ray Pagano, Vice Commander Tom Polito, Commander Richard Brew, John Coon-ery, Jr., and Rabbi Rister; two of the many boats that were blessed.
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Jun 3, 2007
Governers Island...New Fantasy Island?
What is wrong with this photo below?
The US government sold Governor's Island to New York City for a buck; one stipulation was that it not be used for residential uses, the crack cocaine of the development biz. For years they have been trying to figure out what to do with it, with everything from amusement parks to casinos and hotels. Finally they started over and are running a limited competition; five consortia were invited to submit designs for what are very green, innovative parks. The teams didn't just have to design them they had to develop a raison d'etre. Why have this park? “Everyone knows how to get to Prospect Park or Central Park,” says Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Preservation & Education Corporation. “What is the experience that this park and promenade can provide that is unique? This has to be compelling.”
Landscape architects West 8 (who won a comparable competition to redo Toronto's waterfront) with Quennell Rothschild & Partners, architects Rogers Marvel and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and planners SMWM, did, I think, the funkiest; it has a " Vertical Landscape, mountains popping up out of the flat southern tip that would integrate active recreational, cultural, and educational functions. Inside could be snack bars, exhibits, a funicular, and caves for spelunking. Says West 8 partner Jerry van Eyck: “We wanted to give it the attitude of a national park, one with primal nature, robustness, where you don’t feel the hand of man.” And what TreeHugger could resist the promise that "Three thousand free wooden bikes would allow for rapid circumnavigation on looping, leafy paths.
The US government sold Governor's Island to New York City for a buck; one stipulation was that it not be used for residential uses, the crack cocaine of the development biz. For years they have been trying to figure out what to do with it, with everything from amusement parks to casinos and hotels. Finally they started over and are running a limited competition; five consortia were invited to submit designs for what are very green, innovative parks. The teams didn't just have to design them they had to develop a raison d'etre. Why have this park? “Everyone knows how to get to Prospect Park or Central Park,” says Leslie Koch, president of the Governors Island Preservation & Education Corporation. “What is the experience that this park and promenade can provide that is unique? This has to be compelling.”
Landscape architects West 8 (who won a comparable competition to redo Toronto's waterfront) with Quennell Rothschild & Partners, architects Rogers Marvel and Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and planners SMWM, did, I think, the funkiest; it has a " Vertical Landscape, mountains popping up out of the flat southern tip that would integrate active recreational, cultural, and educational functions. Inside could be snack bars, exhibits, a funicular, and caves for spelunking. Says West 8 partner Jerry van Eyck: “We wanted to give it the attitude of a national park, one with primal nature, robustness, where you don’t feel the hand of man.” And what TreeHugger could resist the promise that "Three thousand free wooden bikes would allow for rapid circumnavigation on looping, leafy paths.
Jun 1, 2007
Full Moon over Jamaica...
Jamaica Bay, that is.
Nice paddle although a bit on the short side - I was shooting for the Elder's Point Marsh, launched a little while before sunset. It was pretty breezy (the dinghy sailors were all coming in just as I was going out, they looked pretty happy!), and I didn't make it all the way to Elder's Point because I started seeing some distant flickers in the clouds. Forecast had mentioned thunderstorms & since it's bad form to get electrocuted and/or drowned during the work week, I elected to pack it in & head back for the dock. Nice paddle though - never been out in the bay at such high water, the beaches were pretty much gone, the shorebirds all sounded like they were having some serious discussions about the scraps that were left. I set my course by the wind direction, went out against some pretty good-sized (for Jamaica Bay) chop - maybe a foot, and then had a fabulously surf-y trip back. Romanys do get happy in a following sea! Good fun.
Would've been even more fun with company. June's new moon is on a Saturday. The 30th to be specific. Hmmmm.
Nice paddle although a bit on the short side - I was shooting for the Elder's Point Marsh, launched a little while before sunset. It was pretty breezy (the dinghy sailors were all coming in just as I was going out, they looked pretty happy!), and I didn't make it all the way to Elder's Point because I started seeing some distant flickers in the clouds. Forecast had mentioned thunderstorms & since it's bad form to get electrocuted and/or drowned during the work week, I elected to pack it in & head back for the dock. Nice paddle though - never been out in the bay at such high water, the beaches were pretty much gone, the shorebirds all sounded like they were having some serious discussions about the scraps that were left. I set my course by the wind direction, went out against some pretty good-sized (for Jamaica Bay) chop - maybe a foot, and then had a fabulously surf-y trip back. Romanys do get happy in a following sea! Good fun.
Would've been even more fun with company. June's new moon is on a Saturday. The 30th to be specific. Hmmmm.
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