Pol pushes stormwater plan

Councilmember James F. Gennaro was joined by environmental advocates in Jamaica Bay last week to hail the passage of his comprehensive Stormwater Management Plan, which won unanimous approval in the New York City Council.
Intro 630-A, when signed into law, will require the city to draft a sustainable stormwater management plan by October 1 of this year. The resultant plan would reduce flooding on neighborhood streets as well as protect the waters surrounding New York City from sewage overflows through the use of various simple but innovative methods recommended by experts in environmental design and construction.
Besides improving public health and safety, the plan would also enhance the use and enjoyment of the city’s water bodies for recreational and tourist activities.
“For too long, the city’s local streets and water bodies have been flooded with billions of gallons of overflowing rainwater and sewage after heavy storms,” said Gennaro, chair of the Environmental Protection committee and sponsor of Intro 630-A. “This bill commits the city to implementing the most progressive, natural and cost-effective methods in the country to control storm water and combined sewer overflows at their source. These strategies will have a profound effect on our city’s streets and waterways for which our residents and successive generations of New Yorkers will be grateful.”
Currently, storm water runoff floods local streets, highways and homes and often causes the sewage system to overflow into the city’s water bodies, causing approximately 27 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water to be discharged into the city’s waters in a typical year. It has been reported that such “combined sewer overflows” (CSOs) dump hazardous pathogens into water bodies, posing a danger to the public health, harming ecology and making local water bodies unsuitable for recreational activities.
The stormwater management plan as outlined in Gennaro’s bill relies heavily upon “source control measures,” which try to capture, store and divert stormwater before it reaches streets and sewers in the first place.
Some of the progressive techniques include water barrels on “blue roofs” and underground cisterns to capture and store rainwater; green roofs, green streets and green walls, all of which use soil and vegetation to absorb rainwater; permeable pavement, gray-water reuse and “high level storm sewers” that separate stormwater from sanitary waste.
This plan complements the city’s comprehensive PlaNYC plan by going into specifics of how flooding can be reduced and local waters can be made cleaner.
“Storm water runoff and CSO’s are a major source of pollution and poor water quality in Jamaica Bay and other water bodies in New York City,” said Don Riepe, the Jamaica Bay Guardian from the American Littoral Society. “This bill will provide the impetus to move forward in a timely manner and reduce the negative impacts from these outlets. Many thanks to Councilman Gennaro for his consistent and aggressive help in improving our precious natural resources.”
Intro 630-A complements another law written by Gennaro, Local Law 71, which created the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan. Among other things, that plan is intended to promote low-impact development and best management practices for new and existing development (residential and non-residential) in the communities around the Bay. It calls for a green roof/ blue roof pilot study, a rain barrel give-away pilot study, a parking lot pilot study, a housing development pilot study and various other evaluations and analyses ultimately intended to lead to improvements in stormwater management.