It's been a busy week for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. The big news out of the agency is a brand-new strategic plan that stresses the city's opposition to hydraulic fracturing, its plans for hydropower, and its commitment to keeping its water supply clean enough to avoid building a filtration plant.
The press release annoucing the plan listed some bullet points. Here are a few that jumped out at us:
- Maintain the city's unfiltered drinking water status
- Complete key construction projects to protect and maintain drinking water quality: the Catskill/Delaware Ultraviolet Disinfection Facility, the Croton Water Filtration Plant, and Stage 2 of City Water Tunnel No. 3
- Protect the water supply from hydrofracking
- Repair leaks in the Delaware Aqueduct
- Develop 30-50 megawatts of clean energy supply at DEP's facilities through public/private partnerships
To read the whole strategic plan, click here.
And if that weren't enough news for you, yesterday the DEP issued another press release, this one touting new upgrades at two wastewater treatment plants in the watershed region -- one in Grahamsville and one in Margaretville.
The upgrades, which cost $7.4 million, included safety improvements, fire and gas alarms, propane-shutoff systems, and, in Grahamsville, the installation of a chemical-free disinfection process that uses ultraviolet light.
From the press release:
With the completion of the upgrade, all of city’s five wastewater treatment plants that discharge within the city’s unfiltered Catskill/Delaware Watershed now use the ultraviolet disinfection process. Ultraviolet light at special-designed wave lengths disrupts the DNA of viruses and bacteria that may have escaped removal by the other treatment processes such as bio-degradation, settling, and filtration, while leaving almost no chemical trace or disinfection byproducts behind. Safety improvements such as alarm and shut-off systems at each plant will address regulatory compliance standards and employee safety and health concerns. Additionally, the installation of ultraviolet disinfection will reduce overall operating costs as well as maintenance-related and health and safety operational costs.
