S.W.I.M. Coalition

Who’s in the March S.W.I.M. SPOTLIGHT?

The NYC Empire Dragon Boat Team!

Women of the Empire Dragon Boat Team participate in the Oyster Project!

The women of the Empire Dragon Boat Team are an extraordinary group of cancer survivors, who have been plowing through NYC waterways and promoting active lifestyles since 2009.

They are in our S.W.I.M.spotlight for their recent participation in the Oyster Project; an effort initiated by the NY/NJ Baykeeper organization to rebuild NYC’s oyster reefs. To date, they have introduced 500 baby oysters to the Flushing Bay which will help sequester harmful toxins out of our waterways and enhance the overall health of the tidal ecosystem.

Not only is the Empire Dragon Boat Team committed to this important effort, they deserve the spotlight for being a remarkable support system that gives women who are recovering from cancer, an important physical outlet. In the literal sense, the Empire Dragon Boat Team helps women strength the muscles that are too often compromised by lumpectomies. And in many ways, rowing helps to strengthen the spirit of these women and enable them to continue the fight against cancer, one “stroke” at a time.

 Cheers to the Empire Dragon Boat Team who are in the S.W.I.M. spotlight for their inspiration and efforts towards bioremediation of the bay!

For more information on the women of the NYC Empire Dragon Boat Team check out their homepage here!

Come find out what is happening with CSO public notification projects!

Leif Percifield of Parsons the New School of Design and Kate Zidar from Newtown Creek Alliance will be speaking about their CSO public notification projects. Leif will be presenting DontFlushMe, a project designed to encourage water conservation before and during CSO events. Kate is presenting Weather in the Watershed, a project to install weather stations on public sites to monitor rainfall and predict CSO activity.

Thursday March 22, 3:00 to 5:00PM
Hudson River Foundation
17 Battery Place, 9th Floor, New York, NY

Please RSVP to swimmablenyc@gmail.com - space is limited!

Check out a March 12 Wall Stree Journal Article which says :  “New York City has enlisted trees, “green” roofs and massive tanks in its effort to reduce the billions of gallons of untreated wastewater that overflow into city waterways during rain storms each year.

Now, it’s turning to schoolyards.

 The city’s Department of Environmental Protection is developing a plan with the Trust for Public Land, a national not-for-profit group, to build as many as 10 “green” playgrounds, designed to capture the first inch of rain in every storm—keeping the water from pouring into the city’s sewer system and inundating wastewater treatment plants.”

For the full article, click here!

A New York Times article dated March 13 states, “Look out for “bioswales”: Measuring about five feet wide and 20 feet long, these small patches of plants, trees and rocks will soon be making an appearance all over New York as part the city’s sustainable-planning efforts.

The bioswale, or bioretention swale, is essentially a street tree, but recontextualized with plants and low curbs, the better to absorb rainfall…”

For more on this topic, check out the NY Times article here!

Today S.W.I.M. members joined NYSDEC & NYCDEP on a rooftop in the Brooklyn Navy Yard for the official announcement of the groundbreaking agreement to integrate Green Infrastructure into the Long Term Control Plans.

From the DEP’s press release:

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and New York City Department of Environmental Protection today announced an agreement on an enforcement Order to improve the overall water quality in New York Harbor waters. Under this agreement, the City will invest approximately $187 million over the next three years and an estimated $2.4 billion of public and private funding over the next 18 years to install green infrastructure technologies to manage stormwater before it enters the City’s combined sewer system. The City maintains the flexibility to prioritize green investments in areas of the City that will benefit most from the resulting reductions in combined sewer overflows.

Back when S.W.I.M. was founded six years ago, getting GI into the LTCPs was one of our primary goals.  Here we are after much advocacy and much leadership from the City and State with a new road map. However, we still have a long way to go to reach swimmable, fishable waterways in NYC. As our friends at Riverkeeper phrased it earlier today, today’s announcement is a good start.

Hooray!

SWIM Coalition submitted a comment letter on the EPA’s draft recreational water quality criteria proposed under the Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act of 2000. Our primary concern was the 90-day average for pathogen levels. We argued that the 90-day average was inadequate for protecting public health. The complete letter can be found here.