Keeping pollutants out of the Bronx River

Hunts Point industrial site tries going green

By Eliot Caroom
Eliot.caroom@journalism.cuny.edu

Hunts Point Riverside Park is a pristine patch of green surrounded by rusting metal: train tracks line one side of the park, and mountains of scrap metal another. But the salvage yard where the Sims Metal recycling company collects discarded metal will soon include its own patch of green: a wall covered in moss and ferns, and a wet meadow with native plants.

The plants are part of a $2-3 million water treatment system aimed at keeping pollutants out of the Bronx River by imitating natural wetlands.

“It will have a huge impact on how the site behaves,” said Paul Mankiewicz, executive director of the Gaia Institute, a Bronx-based non-profit environmental engineering firm that designed the project.

In the past, the company has relied on machinery to separate oil from rainwater in an effort to keep contaminants from the river. Once the green wall is in place and the marsh plants take root, they will capture rainwater and filter pollutants, explained Mankiewicz, who is also a member of the board of the Bronx River Alliance.

Sims Metal and its predecessor, the Hugo Neu company, have already won praise for sharing waterfront access with local youth groups from The Point and Rocking the Boat.

“Hugo Neu is making efforts to be a good neighbor,” said Maggie Greenfield, communications director for the Bronx River Alliance. “They’re very reasonable and flexible, and very willing to work with . . . folks who are trying to use the river for recreation and enjoyment.”

The idea for the water filtration project came when Hugo Neu President John Neu and Mankiewicz were riding a ferry to a clam-bake hosted by Andy Willner, executive Director of Baykeeper, an environmental organization devoted to protecting New York and New Jersey waterways.

“They’re really green-oriented people,” Mankiewicz said of Neu and his wife Wendy. “I told them, ‘If you want to make your site work, you’ve got to catch storm water,’ and they said, ‘Tell us how to do it.’”

After the project began, Hugo Neu’s recycling division merged with Sims Metal, another major recycling company. Sims Metal continued to support the project.

“Both companies share a commitment to the environment and our communities,” said Dan Strechay, a spokesman for Sims Metal. “Taking care of the waterfront has always been a priority for our company.”

Storm water runoff is an important factor in the water quality of the Bronx River, the city’s only freshwater river. A century ago most of Hunts Point was marshland. Rainwater was filtered naturally: soil acted like a sponge, absorbing and cleaning the water, and evaporation returned the moisture to the air.

Now that most of the surface is paved, polluted storm water runs into the Bronx River.

When construction at the salvage yard is completed, the water will be pumped into a “wet meadow,” sponge-like ground that seeks to recreate the marshy land that bordered the river before it was filled in.

The new system is complex and expensive. It will include 240 underground chambers, at a cost of $2-3 million, according to Mankiewicz. By the time it is complete in early 2008, the underground array will have a capacity of almost half a million gallons, enough to hold 5-6 inches worth of rainfall for the entire site.

Specially created drainage ditches called “swales” will direct rainfall towards this series of artificial wetlands. From the wetlands and an underground holding well, groundwater will be pumped to the top of the green wall by an array of eight solar-powered pumps.

The green wall, which will border Edgewater Road, will be constructed from recycled materials. Wetland plants like liverworts and ferns will grow from the wall, allowing evaporation rates of 1-2 inches a day.

Once the wetlands are built, some 30 different native plants including Atlantic White Cedar will grow there. Students at Rocking the Boat will help to maintain the wetlands.

In addition to helping to clean the Bronx River, “this project will also beautify and green the face” of the recycling yard, Greenfield said.

Mankiewicz believes that if more companies follow Sims and Hugo Neu’s lead, they could literally change the climate of New York, lowering temperatures year-round.

“If you had a 10 percent increase in green space, you could notice an effect across the city,” Mankiewicz said.

“Everybody in this country is going to have to comply with storm water regulations some day,” John Neu said. “My attachment is not to the water; it’s to the globe. People have to understand, if we don’t take a proactive stand, everything is about to change.

“That’s the way a lot of people feel, and I guess we just have more time and money to pay attention to it.”

From the HUNTS POINT EXPRESS