Current:Home > BackNew York’s Marshes Plagued by Sewage Runoff and Lack of Sediment-LoTradeCoin
New York’s Marshes Plagued by Sewage Runoff and Lack of Sediment
View Date:2025-01-11 07:34:27
NEW YORK—New York City marshes are not only impacted by storm surge and rising sea levels, they are also threatened by the outflows of sewage and stormwater that the city releases into the waterways during rainstorms, as well as the high nitrogen levels present in treated water.
The amount of inorganic sediment—sand, silt and clay—in the marshes, particularly those in Queens, is decreasing. Due to the changes humans have made to the natural flow of sediment in the New York City area, marshes are not receiving enough sediment from land upstream to fight erosion.
The Natural Areas Conservancy, a conservation group that helped create the city’s framework for managing and restoring its wetlands, as well as the scientists who study the wetlands, have described these changes as sediment starvation.
Read More
New York City’s Marshes, Resplendent and Threatened
By Lauren Dalban
A deficiency like this can weaken the structure of a marsh, making it more prone to erosion through consistent waterlogging on the coast.
“With sea level rise, you’re basically getting marshes that, with the tides, are exposed or flooded,” said Helen Forgione, the senior manager of conservation science at the Natural Areas Conservancy. “You’re getting them flooded for a much greater period of time with the rising sea elevation.”
In her 2018 study, Dr. Dorothy Peteet, a senior research scientist with the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies who has studied the marshes for over 30 years, found that the organic material, or plant growth, on top of many of the marshes in Jamaica Bay was increasing, all while the marshes were starving for sediments.
Sewage is very high in nitrogen. When sewage consistently flows onto marshes, it fertilizes the plants over and over again. Like many older cities, New York uses a combined sewer system that sends sewage and stormwater runoff into the same pipes. To keep the system from backing up and flooding streets in periods of heavy rain, the system is designed to overflow at discharge points, sending untreated sewage directly into streams, rivers and the marshes.
Explore the latest news about what’s at stake for the climate during this election season.
Such inundation “tells the plants that they don’t need to make many roots,” said Peteet. “So then it’s just wimpy little roots in the bottom that don’t hold on very well.”
The long roots of healthy marsh plants, like Spartina grass, help strengthen the marsh against erosion from storm surges and rising sea levels. When they are repeatedly fertilized, their ability to help mitigate erosion is limited, particularly in a marsh already weakened and at low elevation due to a lack of inorganic sediment.
Higher levels of nitrogen can also cause an algae to bloom over the marsh, often choking marine animals and aquatic plant species of oxygen.
“It’s an algae bloom that’s just so big because there’s so much fertilizer in the water,” said Peteet.
“If you get too much algae in the water then you get things that start to die because they don’t have enough oxygen underneath.”
According to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, it has invested approximately $1.3 billion to upgrade nitrogen removal infrastructure at eight wastewater resource recovery facilities along the East River and Jamaica Bay, ensuring that they considerably reduce the nitrogen levels in treated water.
“The upgrades, even in the last couple decades, have made a huge improvement in the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus and so on that is put into the system,” said Forgione. “Just looking at pollutant levels or pollution levels in the water column, the water quality is definitely much better than it was 20, 30 years ago.”
About This Story
Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That’s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.
That’s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can’t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We’ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.
Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.
Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don’t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places?
Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.
Thank you,
David Sassoon
Founder and Publisher
Vernon Loeb
Executive Editor
Share this article
veryGood! (1759)
Related
- Why Dolly Parton Is a Fan of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's Little Love Affair
- New trial opens for American friends over fatal stabbing of Rome police officer
- 2 women drove a man’s body to a bank to withdraw his money, Ohio police say
- March Madness automatic bids 2024: Who has clinched spot in men's NCAA Tournament?
- Suicides in the US military increased in 2023, continuing a long-term trend
- New Jersey infant killed, parents injured in apparent attack by family dog, police say
- 70-foot sperm whale beached off Florida’s Gulf Coast
- Lawyer says Missouri man thought his mom was an intruder when he shot and killed her
- FBI offers up to $25,000 reward for information about suspect behind Northwest ballot box fires
- Drew Brees announces scholarship for walk-ons in honor of Jason Kelce's retirement
Ranking
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Good Try (Freestyle)
- Chris Evans and His Leading Lady Alba Baptista Match Styles at Pre-Oscars Party
- Tribes Meeting With Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Describe Harms Uranium Mining Has Had on Them, and the Threats New Mines Pose
- France enshrines abortion as a constitutional right as the world marks International Women’s Day
- Manhattan rooftop fire sends plumes of dark smoke into skyline
- 'Built by preppers for preppers': See this Wisconsin compound built for off-the-grid lifestyles
- Man dead after being shot by police responding to reports of shots fired at Denver area hotel
- Vanity Fair and Saint Laurent toast ‘Oppenheimer’ at a historic home before Oscars
Recommendation
-
Should Georgia bench Carson Beck with CFP at stake against Tennessee? That's not happening
-
Fletcher Cox announces retirement after 12 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles
-
We Won't Be Quiet Over Emily Blunt and John Krasinski's Cutest Pics
-
Let These Photos of Former Couples at the Oscars Award You a Trip Down Memory Lane
-
Queen Bey and Yale: The Ivy League university is set to offer a course on Beyoncé and her legacy
-
Mark Ronson Teases Ryan Gosling's Bananas 2024 Oscars Performance of I'm Just Ken
-
What to know about the SAVE plan, the income-driven plan to repay student loans
-
New Jersey police officer wounded and man killed in exchange of gunfire, authorities say