The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has released its Fiscal Year 2018 Executive Budget. Priorities outlined for the next several years include the completion of shafts for City Tunnel 3, reconstruction of the Catskill Aqueduct from Kensico to Hillview Reservoirs, the completion of the Rondout-West Branch Tunnel repair, and investment into wastewater treatment and sewer projects. A $13.4 million project to upgrade the release works at the New Croton Dam is entering its testing phase. A delegation of environment, forest and climate change experts from India toured the Catskill and Delaware watersheds and met with officials from the DEP as well as the Catskill Watershed Corporation, Watershed Agricultural Council, and the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program.
The State of the Sewers report provides an overview of how the City's sewer system works, DEP's approach to inspection, cleaning, and repair of the system, a breakdown of the most recurrent causes of sewer blockages, a look at the new employee training facility and safety programs, how advanced analytics, software, and mapping tools are being used to target problematic areas and hydraulic modeling is guiding designs for future capital projects and citywide and borough by borough performance analytics.
Local Law Air Reports are required annually by Local Law 77 of 2003 and Local Laws 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of 2005. These reports document the use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and the best available control technologies to redcue particulate matter and nitrogen oxides in the environment.
More than 460 children of employees of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) participated in Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day. Charmaine Berry of the Bureau of Customer Services has been promoted to Chief Inspector of the Bronx Borough Office, the first woman to hold that role in the bureau. The DEP celebrates 30 years of operation of its Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP), which has overseen multiple improvements to wastewater management including a reduction in toxic metal discharges into city sewers of more than 99 percent. Five DEP projects have been honored at the annual gala of the ACEC New York Engineering Excellence Awards.