Scary Water Facts

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Environment New Yotk

In its new, frightening fact sheet, Environment New York found that:

1. New York’s beaches are some of the most polluted in the country due to runoff pollution. Swimming in contaminated water can cause a variety of diseases and infections, including skin rashes, hepatitis and others. Certain strands of animal E. coli that can be found in untreated water can also transfer pathogens to humans.

 

2. On October 9th, a federal court put a stay on the EPA’s enforcement of the Clean Water Rule, putting at least 55% of New York’s streams and 20 million acres of wetlands nationwide at risk of pollution and destruction.

 

3. Without the Clean Water Rule, drinking water sources for over 1 in 3 Americans are vulnerable to pollution. That includes the drinking water for more than half of all New Yorkers.

 

4. General Electric plants in Washington County deposited an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson from 1947 and 1977. 4 When these toxic chemicals move through food chains, they become concentrated in fish. For much of the Hudson, New York State’s Health Department recommends that children and women of child-bearing age eat no fish and advises other people to limit their fish consumption.

 

5. Combined sewers carry both sewage and stormwater in the same pipes, and when rain or snowmelt overwhelms wastewater treatment plant or pipe capacity, untreated sewage will overflow into waterways to prevent treatment plant failures.

 

6. Over 27 billion gallons of raw sewage and untreated stormwater flow into New York Harbor annually.

 

7. In addition to 190 publicly owned wastewater treatment plants, 850 other permits allow discharges of sewage or other wastewater into the Hudson River Estuary watershed from private, commercial or institutional facilities. More than 50 of these private, commercial or institutional facilities have had effluent violations in the past three years. Many of the plants designed to treat sewage do not disinfect effluent before discharge, allowing the ongoing discharge of potentially harmful microbes.

 

8. The Hudson River is polluted with high levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, likely due to untreated wastewater. The strongest strains of bacteria could be dangerous to people with weak immune systems.

 

9. Overall, 99% of tributary sites sampled by Riverkeeper, and 92% of New York City water access points sampled by community scientists failed to meet EPA criteria for safe swimming in 2014.

 

10. Anheuser-Busch is one of the top chemical polluters in the state of New York. The plant in Baldwinsville, NY, poured 1,396,149 pounds of toxic releases into the Oswego River in 2012.

 

11. The Hudson River is among the top 50 waterways in the U.S. for toxic releases, including developmental, reproductive, and cancer causing toxins, making New York’s waterways the 15th most polluted in the country, with 5,303,190 pounds of toxic releases in total in 2012.

 

12. There have been 126 reports of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in 87 New York lakes and streams within the first 10 months of 2015. The bacteria’s toxic algae blooms frequently lead to beach closures, loss of fish and wildlife and even human illnesses. These blooms will continue without mitigation efforts, specifically those to curb phosphorus runoff, a prominent nutrient in manure.

 

13. Despite the recent historic ban on high-volume fracking, New York still has a fracking waste problem. More than 510,000 tons and 23,000 barrels – and counting – of waste from oil and gas extraction operations in neighboring Pennsylvania have been shipped to New York landfills for disposal. Leachate from those landfills is then sent to nearby wastewater treatment facilities. And New York State continues to allow the use of certain kinds of waste from low-volume oil and gas extraction on our roads for de-icing and dust control.