NYC’s dramatic return to a clean water environment is within reach, but there’s one major problem

Imagine living in a city of islands, separated by the bays and rivers of one of the most productive estuaries on the face of the earth. In such a city, we would be able to see the animals around us. The fish, birds, dolphins, seals and whales of a thriving natural ecosystem. This could be New York. We are a waterfront city with over 500 miles of coastline surrounded by what once was one of the greatest natural places in the world (The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky and Gotham Unbound by Ted Steinberg are both fascinating accounts of the historic abundance of animal life in New York Harbor). Thanks to the excellent work of many industrious New Yorkers, the Harbor is the cleanest it’s been in over a hundred years. It’s not yet the great, astonishingly abundant ecosystem it once was, but it is bouncing back and the animals are returning. Half the days of the year, most of the Harbor is clean enough to support the animals that used to thrive, and technically the water is clean enough for swimming.

I know the animals are returning because I have seen them. I have had the great fortune of spending a good deal of my professional time in, on and under New York Harbor. In just the last fifteen years, the rapid increase in abundance of wild animals in the harbor has been incredible. The following are just a few of the many examples I have witnessed personally in that time. 

In one half-mile section of the Arthur Kill, between Staten Island and New Jersey eleven mating pairs of ospreys build their nests and hunt for fish. The Bronx River has a handful of trees that fill up with black crowned night herons every night, all summer long. Late at night, in the summer a pair of northern skimmers carve elegant figure eights into the surface of Newtown Creek, all the way back in English Kills. On summer evenings, when the tide is right, hundreds of common terns and laughing gulls pluck small fish out of the water right next to the Statue of Liberty.

I’ve seen pods of dolphins feeding in Jamaica Bay. Dozens of great blue herons returning to their rookery on the north side of the Harlem River as the sun sets over the palisades and the last of the orange light peeks over the rail bridge. Giant sturgeon breaking the surface of the Hudson River, just west of Battery park. Ospreys returning to the East River and nesting for the first time in a hundred years in what is now the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Seals based on Hoffman and Swinburne Island just south of the Verrazano venturing up to feed in the East River. And of course, gannets, my personal favorite. Hundreds of giant, seagoing dive bombers with six-foot wingspans, flying and diving in great circles slowly herding schools of bunker up onto Coney Island Shoal. All of these animals have returned to the Harbor because of the abundance of food and clean(ish) water that they find here most days of the year. When it hasn’t rained, the water quality in the Harbor is safe and the fish and invertebrates provide abundant sources of food.

But, each and everytime it rains, our combined sewer system overflows. Street drains run into sanitary sewers and overflow into the Harbor at over 400 different locations. On these days, runoff from the street combines with everything we flush down our toilets and it all runs together directly into this wild space filled with animals. 

On these days, after a rain, I’ve seen the night herons step gingerly between diapers, small bags of pet waste and thousands of floss picks to try to find their food. Giant, swirling piles of street trash collect in the same backwaters that are, on other days, the perfect hunting grounds. Cigarette butts, pens, plastic bottles, trash bags, condoms and tampon applicators line our rivers and bays along with the fetid, polluted water pouring from our outdated, overburdened wastewater treatment system. For a day or two following each rain event, the Harbor is gross. All of the animals that call the Harbor home are put at risk after the rain.

New York City is not alone, this problem of combined sewer overflows exists in every major coastal city and the investment required to prevent overflows is massive. But it is possible. The current plan by the city to address this issue is totally inadequate and will only result in a 1.3% reduction in the volume of sewage pouring into waterways each year. New York City could be the only major coastal city in the world that properly handles its wastewater. The only major coastal city that keeps the water around it clean and welcoming to marine life. The solution is simple, less runoff and more holding tanks. New construction could be required to hold wastewater onsite during the rain, to be routed to treatment plants once the weather clears. Street plantings and porous pavement prevent runoff and make streets better. This excellent interactive map shows the current extent of street trees, their incredible ability to retain water and their unsurprising and unequal distribution throughout the city. Green roofs retain water from rain events, improve air quality and can be amenities for New Yorkers to enjoy. Holding tanks are already in place and under construction at locations along the waterfront, some of which create new upland open park space. More numerous and larger holding tanks, underground, would hold excess runoff and wastewater for delayed treatment. All of these solutions are underway, in various forms, in New York. To adequately address the challenge, these efforts need to be expanded dramatically.

We could make this happen. If enough New Yorkers stand up and demand that we change; make clear to those in positions of power that we won’t stand for the continued contamination of our natural resource, that the lives of the wild animals should not be compromised by our inability to act; if we commit these improvements on the scale that is necessary we could make the changes to support the burgeoning ecosystem around us. 

Currently, all of us, as New Yorkers, are denied access to the biggest and best-looking open space in the City everytime it rains because it’s too polluted. If we were able to properly handle and treat our wastewater, we could have true, safe access to a Harbor full of animals. Imagine if the animals I have seen could be viewed by anyone taking a walk along the waterfront. If the birds, fish, dolphins and whales were common sites that all New Yorkers could enjoy.    

Pete Malinowski grew up farming oysters with his parents and siblings on the Fishers Island Oyster Farm. His passion for the environment and education led him to the New York Harbor School, where he founded the school’s Aquaculture and Oyster Restoration Programs and spent five years as a teacher. This work, growing and restoring oysters with Harbor School students led to the development of Billion Oyster Project, which Pete has been leading since 2017. He spends as much of his free time as possible on the water or in the woods with his three children Adrian, Maxwell and Daisy.