2021 Citizens Water Quality Testing Results (Weeks 11-20)
/Week 17: September 10
While it feels like we can't shake this rainy summer, only 0.28 inches of rain was measured in Central Park this week. Pretty mixed results across the harbor, but you may notice that main-channel sites with high amounts of current generally have better results than the tributary sites (i.e., Wallabout Channel or Anable Basin).
BOP's Week 17 sampling team: volunteer Austin Tucker, Assistant Waterfront Director Marc Melendez. Field Station Assistant Hana Isihara
WATERWAYS NEWS:
Remembering the 9/11 boatlift (NY Post)
Don't flush the pills--new pharmaceutical drop boxes coming soon! (Albany Times-Union)
HARBOR EVENTS:
Need a last-minute plan for tonight? At 7 pm Marie Lorenz and collaborators Dana Spiotta, Kurt Rohde, and Charlotte Mundy will be performing a 10-minute floating opera on the Hudson River at 147th St.
Bioblitz and Boating with The Guardians of Flushing Bay this Sunday, September 12th; the bioblitz is 11 AM-1 PM, and boating is 1 PM-2:30 PM and 2:30-4 PM. Reservations required!
Wrap up your summer by helping to clean up Starlight Park on Thursday, Sept 16 10 AM-12 PM
WEEKLY SLIDESHOW:
BOP volunteer Austin Tucker collects the Brooklyn Bridge Beach sample. The result: 63 colony forming units of fecal indicator bacteria, better than many places in the harbor (including some public bathing beaches).
High tide at the Battery yesterday was at 10:29 AM, which made shoreline sampling this week a relative breeze! Jie Ma and Mika collecting at Grand Ferry Park.
The Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park installed new 'eco-docks' at Bushwick Inlet last week. In addition to hosting a floating wetlands of spartina grass, each dock will support four Billion Oyster Project Oyster Research Stations--cages filled with juvenile oysters. FBIP and BOP are planning a public monitoring session on October 2, stay tuned for more details!
There was no sampling on the Raritan and Hackensack Rivers last week because most sites were underwater. Update from the Raritan yesterday: the water is still high and river banks are a mess, strewn with trash (photo of the Edison Boat Basin sampling site by Michele Bakacs).
Upside of Ida? Five (count em!) fewer rats roaming the sewers.
Species ID Quiz
Some fishy friends are round, and some are flat. Who is this?
Harbor Geography Quiz
Local version of the mid-Pacific gyre--but where?
Last Week’s Quiz Answers
Species ID: dead whale temporarily secured to floating dock (photo is from the next day, after the Army Corps towed the carcass to Staten Island; cause of death TBD)
Harbor Geography: Sebago Canoe Club gangway and dock, Paerdegat Basin, Jamaica Bay
Week 16: September 3
Not everyone sampled yesterday, even though it was beautiful--many groups canceled their collection runs due to 'hazardous conditions.' The samples that were taken seem to confirm that judgment. It was a red-number day at all but two sites, both of those on ocean-facing beaches on Staten Island.
Grim tidelines: looking up and down on the East River yesterday morning, where a huge surge of stormwater and sewage from Newtown Creek pushed out into the harbor.
WATERWAYS NEWS:
Worst storm since Sandy? (NY Times)
Basement apartments as death traps (NY Times)
WEEKLY SLIDESHOW
Extreme commitment: Sean Lynch with Gowanus Canal and Valentino Pier samples.
Shonel Rahim sampling at Gerritsen Creek near the Salt Marsh Nature Center (John Ribaudo)
Steppin' out: Cody Hermann at an overflowing Meadow Lake.
The headwaters of Paerdegat Creek, aka Prospect Park Lake, also overflowed and ran down Parkside and Coney Island Aves (Eymund Diegel)
More 'oogy' water at the Second Street kayak launch in Long Island City (Sanjay Shirke)
Nevertheless life goes on (Flushing Bay)
The long row: Tom Graves from Essex, New York passes under the Brooklyn Bridge, on his way from Lake Champlain to Philadelphia
New Oyster Habitat heading to Bushwick Inlet! More on this next week.
Species ID Quiz
On the right is a RIB (rigid inflatable boat) tied up at the floating dock on Pier 40. But what's that floating just to the left? (Ingo Gunther)
Harbor Geography Quiz
whose dock, on what waterway?Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Last week's quiz answers:
Species ID: Atlantic silversides, aka spearing (Menidia menidia)
Harbor Geography: Triboro Bridge, Hell Gate Railroad Bridge, Astoria Generating Station
Week 15: August 27
In honor of Hurricane Henri's visit last weekend, we decided to do some extra sampling at four of our East River sites, in order to get a better sense of 'recovery time'--that is, how long it takes for bacteria levels in the water to return to acceptable levels. You can see from the graph below (or this results table) how the sites improved from Monday, when it was still raining, to Thursday.
Au revoir Henri: Tuesday's sample at Brooklyn Bridge Beach.
WATERWAYS NEWS:
2 Months of Rain in a Day and a Half: New York City Sets Records (New York Times)
First it was hemp, now it's kelp (The Guardian)
Wiring the Hudson: update on riverbottom power cables proposed for the Hudson (Riverkeeper)
When Environmental Racism Causes a Hygienic Hell (New York Times)
WEEKLY SLIDE SHOW:
Last day on the job: Karina Garcia, Pace University biology major and intern extraordinaire, sampling at Brooklyn Bridge Beach.
Microplastics samplers have big jars: Beizhan Yan and Federico de Lima at Wallabout Channel.
Wanna ship something up or down the Hudson in a carbon-neutral way? Check out the schooner Apollonia's sail freight operation.
Wow, looks like a pretty good beach--too bad it's about to be buried under giant blocks of rip-rap (Graeme Birchall)
Please stay one sturgeon apart! (Dawn Marie Berry)
Hang time: blue crabs in Newtown Creek
Needle, tracks: Brooklyn Bridge Beach
Species ID Quiz
what fish?
Harbor Geography Quiz
what two bridges and what power plant?
Week 14: August 20
At first glance it looks like not much rain, so why the big bacteria numbers once again? Remember, we get our rainfall totals from the Central Park register, but precipitation varies throughout the city--and some places obviously got more. In any case, with Henri bearing down and hurricane season heating up, it's hard not to think we're going to see more rain this season, and thus continued high bacteria levels in the harbor.
What does dirty water look like in the lab? Here's a sample tray from Second Street on the Gowanus Canal with all but one well illuminated, signifying a very large 'most probable number' of 'colony-forming units' of fecal indicator bacteria per 100 ml of sample water.
WATERWAYS NEWS:
Yes, people live there too: the unexpectedly rich ecosystem of Newtown Creek (New York Times)
Who was Michael J. Ollis and why is the newest Staten Island Ferry named after him? (SI Live)
Modified rapture: cruise ships are back and they're bigger than ever (Daily Mail)
$16 billion for sea gates for the Jersey Shore? (NBC New York)
WEEKLY SLIDE SHOW:
Hackensack Riverkeeper intern Cassie Harper with sample from Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus (Hugh Carola)
Dawn Marie Berry at Pier 96: also a pretty clean spot this week
Sanjay Shirke at Gantry State Park with one of the few clean samples taken this week
Kent Ave in Williamsburg: the tip of the iceberg
Big steel can be beautiful...
Those dead bunker are back again, and the gulls are
Fiddler crabs are back in the Gowanus! (Owen Foote/Sean Lynch)
Species ID Quiz
it's a fish, yes, but what kind?
Harbor Geography Quiz
Moolah King Baby Island: where is it?
Last week's quiz answers
Species ID: Twelve-scaled polychaete worm (Lepidonotus squamatus), and no it doesn't bite (humans anyway)
Harbor Geography: South tip of Roosevelt Island, where misguided park designers entombed the original bedrock in concrete and riprap
Week 13: August 13
Another pre-apocalyptic week with intense rainstorms, dubious air quality, and an amazing wave of heat and humidity. August has arrived!
Frontal assault: looking south from Pier 40 on Tuesday evening (Ingo Gunther)
Waterway News of Notes
Beach closures in Jersey and beach advisories in New York
EPA to NYC: Your Math Does Not Add Up (Brooklyn Eagle)
"Some of Brooklyn would remain liveable" (Brooklyn Paper)
Get Involved
Got a waterway story? Sign up to tell it at the annual Harbor & Estuary Program conference, Nov. 15-18.
Got $100 and a strong back? Sign up here to row around Manhattan
Beach cleanup in Shirley Chisholm Park, Aug 23
NYC Environmental Justice for All Report--second public comment period is open.
Weekly Slideshow
Karina Garcia sampling at Anable Basin in Long Island City.
Temporary observation of a juvenile blackfish (Hana Isihara)
That's West New York, NJ over there, across the Hudson from Pier 96--but where then is East New Jersey, NY? (Marcos Dinnerstein)
Soft landing: the beach on the Governors Island side of the Buttermilk Channel.
Appearances can be deceiving: Gowanus Canal sample that was pretty far (about 40x) over the limit for swimming (Sean Lynch)
Murderers' Row: Meadow Lake, Flushing Creek and Flushing Bay samples (Cody Hermann)
Species ID Quiz
what is it and how hard does it bite?
Harbor Geography Quiz
Bird hangout off the tip of what island?
Last week's quiz answers
Species ID: juvenille blackfish
Harbor Geography: Flushing Creek, Queens
Week 12: August 6
There was almost no recorded precipitation in Central Park this week--only 0.4 inches last Sunday--so one might have expected our results to be mostly in the 'green' (in other words, meeting beach bathing standards). That didn't happen, probably for many reasons. In some places, there may be broken pipes or (illegal) dry-weather discharges, while in others the issue could be street cleaning, high winds stirring up sediment, or even excessive waterfowl populations. How to figure it out? More testing!
Finally feels like summer out there
Waterway News of Note
Can Kate Orff's gray-green infrastructure save the city? (the New Yorker)
Got $395? Take a seaplane to Boston (CBS New York)
Weekend Events of Interest
Hong Kong Dragonboat Festival on Meadow Lake in Flushing Meadows Park, Saturday Aug 7 (tomorrow) in Flushing Meadows Park https://www.hkdbf-ny.org/
Hindu Lamp Ceremony, Main St. Beach, Dumbo, Saturday August 7 (tomorrow) 4-7:30
Build paper boats and expand your aesthetic horizons at the arts center at Governors Island
Weekly Slide Show
More water science: Lamont Doherty Earth Institute's Beizhan Yan and Federico de Lima at Wallabout Channel with a passive sampler--a mesh box strung with microplastic beads that will be analyzed for the contaminants that attach to them.
Rachel Wu and Rebecca Pryor of the Guardians of Flushing Bay measuring dissolved oxygen levels (and a lot of other parameters) on Flushing Creek.
Holly Fongblatt and Arturo Mendoza, intrepid Newtown Creek cyclosamplers!
Department of good ideas: "Filter sock" for sediment control during construction on Governors Island. It's stuffed with locally sourced hardwood compost.
Julia Holmes (who rowed the Erie Canal and the Mississippi) out on the East River for the first time
"You can check out any time you like...but you can never leave"
Species ID Quiz
What juvenille fish is this?
Harbor Geography Quiz
what waterway?
Last week's quiz answers
Species ID: Wharf Roach (Ligia exotica)
Harbor Geography: Dyckman St. Beach, upper Manhattan
Week 11 : July 30
Yesterday's rain brought the Central Park total for the month to 11.09 inches, making this the third wettest July on record after 1889 (11.89) and 1975 (11.77). So no surprise that this was another off week, with a few bright spots up north (SUNY Maritime) and down south (Raritan River, Jamaica Bay).
Bumper cars: New York Harbor School freshman orientation at the tunnel vent embayment on Governors Island
The Season So Far…
Number of samples taken: 634
Percentage of tests failed (red): 48
Average rainfall per week (Central Park): 1.45 inches
Number of volunteers: 100+
Number of partnering programs and labs: 12
Waterway News of Note
Bacon and eggs are killing Britain's rivers, and probably ours too (Monbiot.com)
Stewardship Opportunity
Be a rain garden maintainer!
Weekly Slide Show
Most contaminated sample of the week: Coney Island Creek
Bushwick Inlet update: Just about to hatch (Hana Isihara)
Team paddleboarding is a thing! (Hana Isihara)
Back off!
Plastic upcycling: one of Duke Riley's murals at Governors Island ferry terminal
Species ID Quiz
nut, bolt, washer and what?
Harbor Geography Quiz
where is this beach?