New York City Will Invest to Clean Up Its Waterways
By JOSH DAWSEY
WSJ-To help clean up its rivers, streams and bays, the city plans to install 5,500 curbside gardens to intercept, absorb and filter storm runoff before it flows into waterways.
Officials from the Department of Environmental Protection showed off 19 of the gardens—called bioswales—near Newtown Creek on Monday. The Brooklyn creek was designated a Superfund cleanup site in 2010 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, due to an oil spill in 1989 and decades of heavy industrial work along its banks.
"We know bioswales work," said Carter Strickland, the city's environmental protection commissioner. "The question is how much are they going to work?"
The bioswales are part of a larger city push on so-called green infrastructure, required under a 2012 settlement with New York state. In addition to paying a $200,000 fine to Albany for discharging pollutants into state waters, the city will spend some $5.3 billion to improve its sewer-overflow systems over the next 20 years.
Read more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324063304578523660328535272.html
