S.W.I.M. Coalition

S.W.I.M. Steering Committee member Shino Tanikawa sends along these photos from today’s public hearing regarding HPD/Parks’ proposed new rules that will govern many of our city’s community gardens. The hearing is well attended and gardeners from all over the city have come to voice their concerns that community garden protections are not weakened.

New York City Community Gardening Coalition offers a concise summary of the issue, and all related documents for your perusal. The online form for submitting comments is still active if you were not able to make the rally and hearing today.

S.W.I.M. Coalition will submit comments that urge community gardens be afforded the same if not stronger protection in the new agreement.  We know community gardens  as places of experimentation and creativity, incubators of stewardship and civic engagement, and an important part of Green Infrastructure.

The Water Resources Group created the map below to show the distribution of rainwater harvesting systems such as rain barrels and cisterns in community gardens across the city. Water Resources Group began coordinating rainwater harvesting systems with gardens as a source for irrigation water back in the drought stricken summer of 2001. People like Lenny Labrizzi and Lars Chellberg have been working out the kinks in these types of systems since long before PlaNYC or even the term Green Infrastructure. I think we were calling them BMPs or something back then…this is a great reminder that community gardens are places where people with great ideas are free to try them out. Let’s keep it that way!

At MWA’s City of Water Day, you may have been asked by a S.W.I.M. Coalition member or two to sign our petition demanding that New York City join the ranks of Baltimore and Philadelphia, by setting a firm goal of swimmable/fishable waterways and seeking to get there with Green Infrastructure.

The petition reads:

We, the undersigned, are residents of (or visitors to) New York City who deserve local water quality that meets the federal Clean Water Act’s “fishable/swimmable” goal and would provide a full spectrum of recreational and economic opportunities in/on our marine environment.  Although our harbor is much cleaner than it used to be, raw sewage and polluted urban runoff still frequently make it unsafe to touch the water in our rivers, bays, and creeks.  In a typical year, 27 billion gallons of untreated human sewage mixed with polluted runoff are dumped into local waterways in all five boroughs through Combined Sewer Overflow.

We call on New York City, New York State, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to adopt enforceable plans that manage stormwater in NYC with Green Infrastructure. By creating a verdant, permeable city, we utilize stormwater as a resource, not a waste! Green Infrastructure will keep our waterways clean, cool and clean the air, and create a healthier place for people to live, work, recreate and visit.

We, the undersigned, demand “swimmable and fishable” waterways.

If you missed us there, or wished you could pass the petition on to a few friends, today is your lucky day!  SIGN THE S.W.I.M. COALITION’S PETITION FOR SWIMMABLE/FISHABLE WATERS ONLINE HERE!

If you would like to carry a hard copy of this petition at your next event, you can download a pdf of it HERE. Contact swimmablenyc@gmail.com for instructions on returning petition pages. Thank you!

Earlier this spring, a plan came out of Baltimore  “Baltimore Waterfront Healthy Harbor Initiative Creating a Swimmable, Fishable Harbor” (emphasis added).

This peaked our interest here at S.W.I.M. headquarters for two main reasons:

1. The vocal purpose of the plan is to attain swimmable, fishable water in an urban center.  You mean the Clean Water Act can be met in a city? This document goes to the public with this existing regulatory goal to create a popular incentive for broad collaboration on water quality improvements in the watershed – the expanded use of inner harbor waters for swimming and fishing.

2. The nature of the group releasing this plan seems to be a broad coalition of interest. The Healthy Harbor Initiative partners include: The Waterfront Partnership (something between a standard non-profit and a business improvement district), the Mayor’s Office, agency folks from Public Works and City Planning, technical guidance from BioHabitats, and a long list of business and development partners on the harbor.  For a downtown commercial district, this seems to represent the area…any Baltimorians reading who can chime in?

So what can S.W.I.M.ers learn from this report? Of late, water quality planning has been taken on by the Mayor’s Office (PlaNYC and the Sustainable Stormwater Management Plan) and by NYC DEP (The Long Term Control Plans)…see our Resources section for links to both. We have heard “recreation” as a planning goal, but recreation can mean anything from visual contact to swimming, and that’s an important range of options in terms of water quality. Also, if you look for an acknowledgment page in these plans (and find one), you won’t find the kind of public/private/technical alliance behind it as page 2 of the  Baltimore Waterfront Healthy Harbor Initiative. Is that partnership element what enables the swimmable/fishable statement? More importantly, will it make the swimmable/fishable goal ACHIEVABLE?

Discuss!

May 2010 marked the start of Riverkeeper’s fifth season of water quality sampling in the Hudson River Estuary.  Click here to view a summary of water quality conditions observed along the entire Hudson for the whole month of May from John Lipscomb. Note that you can sign up to receive the monthly summaries via email by following that link.Together with their science partners from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Queens College, Riverkeeper sampled for Enteroccocus (Entero), an indicator of untreated sewage, at 75 standard sampling locations between May 21 and May 25. This sampling run followed several rain-free days and the generally low Entero cell counts reflect that. All but four sampling locations had “acceptable” counts – good news!

Check out the Riverkeeper website for full details on their water quality monitoring efforts, and their Swimmable River Campaign.  Keep up the good work, Riverkeeper!