Integral pieces of the $30 million tunnel boring machine (TBM) that will be used to repair a leak in the 85-mile-long Delaware Aqueduct have begun to arrive in Newburgh. Earlier this year, the machine was named Nora after trailblazing suffragist and engineer Nora Stanton Blatch Deforest Barney. 135 young people participated in the 2017 Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) summer internship program. Sheep have been deployed to Rondout Reservoir to help maintain the facility's grassy fields after peviously having been stationed at Neversink Dam.
After 10 years of outreach through the Hydrant Education Action Team (HEAT) program, reports of illegally opened hydrants have fallen by more than 60 percent. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) joined with Council Member Andy King to distribute rain barrels to approximately 100 Bronx homeowners from the Wakefield, Olinville, Edenwald, Eastchester, Williamsbridge, Baychester, and Co-op City neighborhoods. Ground was broken on a project to convert an asphalt schoolyard at JHS 189Q in Flushing, Queens, to a playground with green infrastructure elements.
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announces the Ashokan Century Program, a comprehensive $750 million project to upgrade infrastructure and facilities at the Ashokan Reservoir in Ulster County. Work will be performed on the main dam and dikes, spillway channel, and dividing weir bridge, as well as the Catskill Aqueduct headworks and chambers and a monument to J. Waldo Smith, the Chief Engineer of the original construction. Work continues on the Delaware Aqueduct Bypass Tunnel, with preparations in place for the start of tunnel boring. DEP joined local elected officials to distribute rainbarrels to around 320 homeowners on the South Shore of Staten Island.
As required by the Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) permit, the Progress Report on the development of the Stormwater Management Program (SWMP) was presented to the public. The comments received on each Progress Report presented and published will be used to inform development of the SWMP Plan.
The City of New York's (City) Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) Permit requires the development of a floatable and settleable trash and debris (herein referred to as "floatables") management program as part of the Stormwater Management Program (SWMP). In particular, the MS4 Permit requires the submission of a work plan "to determine the loading rate of floatable and settleable trash and debris discharged, including land-based sources, from the MS4 to waterbodies listed as impaired for floatables."