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Stormwater is that part of the rain or snow that falls on the landscape and is not absorbed into the soil. Many years ago landscapes captured all precipitation; but today, the built urbanized environment takes water falling speedily after a storm, and funnels it into pipes and basins leading to sewer treatment plants, or in the case of a big storm, into the closest body of water.

New construction must take care of its own storm water “in situ,” that is on its own place (read: property). The simple truth is that there is less and less land to capture the falling rain. Even the storm drains have limits. Note the recent NYC metropolitan area weather maps, where the more urban areas of the five boroughs and Long Island are more and more “Flash Flood Watch and Warning” alerts because there is no place for the water to go.

The people in charge of limiting the frequency and occurrence of flood watches and warnings should be the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Unfortunately they do not understand the urgency or need for these protections. Actually it is the Mayor who is really in charge and should be the one held accountable; but for years Mayor’s have not listened to reason. I hear from a reliable source that as early as 1950-60 Robert Moses was advocating for some kind of stormwater treatment to protect all the beaches that he was creating, but even the then DEP equivalent would not listen.

In is a striking example of a project that could hold promise of creating a sustainable design – perhaps a platinum LEEDS credential — the DEP’s Croton Filtration Plant, a major industrial complex to clean water, will instead discharge millions of gallons of groundwater and stormwater pollutants onto parkland, violating an inalienable right of the Public Trust Doctrine to forever preserve parkland for the people. That the City continues to act without boundaries, by first going to the Legislature to alienate 24 acres of land to build a 9 acre facility, and then taking more than they first stated, is arbitrary and capricious.

It is akin to building your house on the full lot size and then using your neighbor’s land to go to the back door, or park your car. While some golf courses consider greens and water features as amenities, a “roof-turned-into-a-putting-range” and a “stormwater-moat-turned-into-a-settling-basin” by any other name is not an amenity but a necessity. The current design is not sustainable, violates stormwater regulations, and crosses the alienation lines taking land away from the Golf Tees, causing them to reclaim land given to the people many years before.

Go back to the drawing board and stay within your boundaries!

Karen Argenti