YOUR LETTERS ARE NEEDED!

On September 8, 2004, New York State DEC and New York City DEP released a proposed Administrative Order on Consent (ACO). The new ACO would fine the City $2 million dollars for its past failures to comply with requirements for controlling CSOs, and it sets forth a new 18-year plan and schedule for CSO abatement projects.

Astonishingly, the ACO does not require the City to develop a plan to meet the federal and state water quality standards which apply to its waters! Instead of meeting existing standards, the approach put forth by the City and State is premised on lowering the water quality standards to allow the City to avoid undertaking additional control measures. This would sanction the existing level of pollution in our most polluted waters, rather than cleaning them up, and would perpetuate existing impairments to recreational uses and aquatic life. It could also allow other pollution sources to increase. (For the text of the proposed 2004 CSO consent order and the public notice, see “related info.”)

This approach to the City’s largest water pollution problem is simply unacceptable! With an enormous public and political outcry (as well as citizen enforcement of the laws), we can stop this misguided plan. Your voice matters. In addition, your use of New York City’s waters for fishing, swimming or boating matters. Under the law, the City cannot change water quality standards to eliminate an existing use. So let us know which recreational uses you engage in in NYC waters, and let the City and State know as well.

Please write to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (addresses below). Use your own words, but you may want to say some or all of the following:

• You strongly oppose the City’s proposal to seek a lowering of NYC’s water quality standards.



• The City should be required to develop and implement a “Long Term CSO Control Plan” that will meet all existing water quality standards.



• If you swim, fish, boat, or otherwise use and enjoy the waters of NYC, specify what you do and where. These uses should be protected and supported, not eliminated.



• It is the City’s responsibility to keep sewage and polluted runoff out of the public waterways.



• The proposed 2004 CSO ACO should be revised to require full compliance with all existing water quality standards.



• The City and State are not currently doing enough to prevent combined sewer overflows in New York City.



• New York’s surface waters should be cleaned up and the water quality standards raised, not lowered.

Send comment letters to:

Mr. Joseph DiMura, P.E.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
Division of Water
625 Broadway, 4th Floor
Albany, NY 12233-3506

Mr. Warren Kurtz, P.E.
Deputy Commissioner
New York City Department of Environmental Protection
Bureau of Environmental Engineering
59-17 Junction Boulevard
Corona, New York 11368

For more information or to sign up for our list of alerts on this topic, send an email to Riverkeeper’s program associate, Sara Froikin at saraf@riverkeeper.org.

Return to CSO Homepage