The Flushing tunnel is designed to bring water into the canal from the East River and from Buttermilk Channel, which will significantly improve water quality.
According to Gary Kline of New York State's Department Of Environmental Conservation, who shared the news with Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus, "dissolved Oxygen results in the canal for the past 2 weeks have been between 9-12 mg/l since the City brought the third pump on line for testing. This is a significant improvement in a very short time... Sample results also indicate that there has been no significant increase in turbidity observed during the start up period as the tunnel has gone from 1 pump to now all 3 pumps in operation.. The start up turbidity sampling is to conclude next week.... I hope the community will notice a major improvement in water quality this summer as compared to the past three years during the construction. The sewage pump station also nears completion and start up testing."
The equipment has been out of commission since 2009, when the City began to upgrade both the Gowanus Canal Flushing Tunnel and the Waste Water Pumping Station.
The upgrades cost $190 million and were supposed to already be completed. The project, ran into delays when flood waters submerged the new equipment during Hurricane Sandy.
The photos above were taken on Friday, May 9th.
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4 comments:
Well it certainly doesn't look like there is much improvement in the water with all three pumps running, certainly not what was expected from all those DEP presentations on the work.
I think part of the problem may be that the East River water has also been particularly smelly lately. Just moving that water into the canal where it mixes with all the recent CSO water, just doesn't seem to be doing much for the pea-soup green, oil covered canal water.
Guess it will take some time to dilute it all with East River water. Maybe, with three pumps, by August we will see some positive color change to the canal water.
What a complete waste of money. Millions for this fetid body of water. the canal should have been damned, drained then filled in. and green space should be a top it.
The sewerage pipes leading into the canal should have been addressed, because as long as they are feeding into the canal, nothing will be solved.
This whole project is a complete waste of our tax payers money.
Our May 3 canoe voyage spotted plenty of Coneys Island whitefish. We suppose the heavy rain of May 1st inspired romance?
The report back from the May 6 canoe race training session was that all debris had successfully been flushed from the Canal.
Please wait for the rain to stop before flushing anything that isn't #2!
Owen
Gowanus Dredger
The deputy at the City Council gets a credit on this! And he's from Queens too. What is this: Hollywood rules. Will he be getting an Academy Award on-air mention?
I thought Brad Lander had the canal in his district, and Carlos Menchaca as well.
TOM
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