New York City residents have been complaining for more than a month about the pollution and health risks of their sewage and stormwater systems, but the city hasn’t responded.
So what exactly is causing the problem?
Well, according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency, the city has been dumping too much sewage into the ocean, where it could be picked up by marine life.
The city’s sewage system is a major source of pollution to the ocean and its surrounding waters, and sewage that enters the ocean is also a source of stormwater.
In recent years, New York has become notorious for dumping nearly 1 billion gallons of untreated sewage into its waterways every day, and some residents say it’s only getting worse.
“I’ve seen a lot of sewage dumped in the ocean,” said Scott Fazio, an environmental attorney who works in New York.
“There are definitely things in the system that need to be cleaned up.
But this is the largest amount of sewage I’ve seen in New Yorkers’ yards in 20 years.”
According to the EPA, the sewage dumping was “part of the response to a series of storm events” that hit New York in 2017 and 2018.
Fazio said that some of the sewage that gets dumped in New Jersey is also being dumped in Staten Island, which is in Brooklyn.
According the EPA report, New Yorkers are also complaining about a series from the sewer system, including the sewage pipe that runs through their home, as well as the piping that connects the sewer to the street.
New York City’s Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for cleaning up the sewage system, but Fazionio said it’s not enough.
He said that, at this point, it’s hard to know how much sewage is actually being dumped into the city’s waterways.
“[The EPA] hasn’t done an analysis of the raw sewage that’s being dumped, and we need to get that analysis done,” he said.
At this point it seems the EPA has made some progress cleaning up a sewage pipe.
But Fazios said it isn’t enough.
“The sewage pipe is so large that they have to have more and more sewer lines to be able to clean up that sewage,” he added.
Still, Fazions said that the city should have done more to clean it up.
“There’s no reason for this to continue to be in the river,” he continued.
Read more about sewage pollution in New york: How much sewage does New York dump?
How bad is NYC’s sewage problem?
