Swimmable Waters for New York City

Location: New York City and Westchester County, NY | Status: Active

Summary: Save the Sound has a multi-faceted campaign that includes lawsuits, community organizing, and participation in administrative processes to improve the quality of New York City waters.  

The power of the Clean Water Act is that it requires actions to make all waters eventually fishable and swimmable. This includes the Western Narrows of Long Island Sound (aka the upper East River) and all New York City waters. While this may seem like a pipe dream, we’ve made real progress with increasing amounts of recreation on the waters. Indeed, in summer 2024 we witnessed Olympic swimming in the Seine River, thanks to Paris’ efforts to clean its waters. There is no reason we cannot ultimately see this in New York City.  

  With today’s technology, raw sewage should no longer be entering rivers, creeks, and Long Island Sound. Yet combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, happen in New York City whenever there is significant rain or snowmelt–about 100 times per year. Because sewage treatment plants are overwhelmed by rainwater mixing with sewage, they collectively discharge 27 billion gallons of untreated or undertreated sewage into New York City waters. Raw sewage contains disease-causing pathogens, nitrogen, and solids that don’t belong in our water. It can also contain toxins and heavy metals, rendering the waters unsafe for boating, swimming, and other recreational uses.

New York City is well-aware of its enormous wastewater challenges but their infrastructure plans to not match their goals. The city has invested billions of dollars and Mayor Adams’ administration has expressed ambitious goals to reduce sewage discharges by more than four billion gallons a year by 2045 and eliminate all discharges by 2060. Yet in spite of these grand statements, they are failing to take steps that would meet these, or even much more modest goals, as set forth below.

Read on to learn more about the many ways Save the Sound is working toward swimmable waters for NYC.

The Lawsuit: In 2015, Save the Sound, along with Riverkeeper and NRDC, brought a Federal Court action against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to compel them to require New York State to publish new water quality standards for NYC waters that would ultimately allow swimming without risk to health. In 2022, after the matter was fully briefed, we agreed to stay the case so long as New York State went through a process to update their water quality standards to comply with the Clean Water Act. Per that agreement, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced a public process in which they would (1) publish water quality standards that protect health, and (2) reclassify waters based on their potential to achieve swimmability. The agency has promised that for any waters that were reclassified as below swimmable, they would either request a variance or perform a formal Use Attainability Analysis, both of which would require them to justify their decision and to achieve the cleanest water condition possible. If done properly, this would meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act and address the concerns set out in our suit. If we feel the process is not proceeding or not proceeding in accordance with relevant law, however, we have fully reserved our rights to re-start the case and return to court.   

Water Quality Standards Process: Per our agreement, DEC has begun the formal process to upgrade the water quality standards. First, DEC amended water quality standard regulations to, in part, update them to levels that will protect public health. DEC’s next step will be to reclassify specific water bodies to match these newly amended regulations. EPA will review these changes for compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Save the Sound is participating in the rulemaking process along with our allies but we have serious concerns that (1) the new health-based standards for primary contact recreation (i.e. swimming) will not be applied to all appropriate waters, and (2) there is as of yet no firm end date for when and on what schedule final determinations will be made, potentially leaving NYC waters without federally enforceable standards for years to come. If we do not receive adequate solutions for these issues, we may have to return to court and lift the stay to re-activate our legal challenge.  

Combined Sewer Overflows:  In related advocacy, Save the Sound has been working with our allies the SWIM Coalition to require New York City to meaningfully reduce the amount of raw and undertreated sewage dumped each year into NYC waterways. Under the Clean Water Act, CSOs must be addressed through Long Term Control Plans (LTCPs) that create enforceable requirements to reduce the discharges over time. The New York City LTCPs were proposed over the last several years, yet they don’t do enough to meaningfully protect human health and aquatic life. In particular, they rely heavily on treatment with chlorine, rather than reduction in sewage overflows, which only partially treats the sewage and fails to protect water quality.  They also fail to comply with federal law in that they fail to actually show how water quality standards could be met.

The Game Changer – Renewable Rikers: One potential solution we have been advocating for, along with our allies in the Renewable Rikers coalition, is the conversion of the closed Rikers Island jail complex into a sewage treatment plant that would consolidate the four Upper East River treatment plants—Hunt’s Point, Wards Island, Bowery Bay, and Tallman Island—into a state-of-the-art facility. Known as Renewable Rikers, this would be the best-case, long-term solution. In March 2024, New York City released a study concluding that a new wastewater treatment plant on Rikers Island is indeed a feasible solution for NYC water quality. While this is the most promising option, it is far from assured as Mayor Adams has failed to take the last several scheduled steps required for closure of the jail complex, despite legislation requiring closure by August 2027. And in early November 2023, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams announced she would reconvene the Independent Rikers Commission to devise a new plan to close Rikers Island. We will continue to advocate for the problem to be addressed. 

Below is a summary chart of the combined sewer overflows entering the Long Island Sound Western Narrows (aka Upper East River). Making New York City waters swimmable will be dependent, in large part, on reducing these overflows.

Waterbody	Gallons of Sewage Discharged per Year	City’s Proposed Reduction/Treatment
Alley Creek	78 Million	No reduction in sewage discharges and partial treatment with chlorine
Bronx River	455 Million	No reduction in sewage discharges and partial treatment with chlorine
East River/Western Long Island Sound (Citywide LTCP)	5,130 Million	Reduction by 87 Million or 1.7%
Flushing Creek/Flushing Bay	2,701 Million	Reduction by 775 Million or 28.7% and partial treatment with chlorine
Hutchinson River	323 Million	No reduction in sewage discharges and partial treatment with chlorine
Westchester Creek	289 Million	No reduction in sewage discharges and partial treatment with chlorine

Latest step: We have reached an agreed upon schedule for the next phase of the water quality standards process.

Next step: We will continue conversations with EPA and DEC to help them devise an acceptable plan of action with a clear and expeditious timeline for NYC water quality standards while evaluating whether a continued stay of litigation is appropriate. Our next joint status report to the court is due April 25, 2025. We will also continue advocacy for stronger Long Term Control Plans and for Renewable Rikers.

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Page last updated: September 24, 2024

Swimmable Waters for New York City

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