Note: This assignment is due on Friday, October 31.
1. Look at this interactive video for an explanation of New York City’s water supply and wastewater disposal system.
Question: Compare the water system in your hometown to the system in New York City. How is it similar? How is it different? (For example, what is the source of the water—and how does it get to your tap? How is wastewater and sewage disposed of?)
2. Newtown Creek is a 3.5-mile-long tidal estuary. Once fed by freshwater creeks (now paved over) in Brooklyn and Queens, it is now one of the most polluted waterways in the nation.
The wastewater treatment plant on Newtown Creek is the city's largest. It processes sewage for 1 million residents, mainly from the east side of Manhattan below 72nd Street—including the Williams Club. Although the plant was recently upgraded and can handle 50 percent more volume than in the past, “combined sewage overflows” (CSOs) cause untreated sewage to spill over into Newtown Creek after heavy rain.
When we pulled a cup of water from Newtown Creek on Monday, it looked surprisingly clear. But was it clean? Please view these statistics and note how the water quality changes dramatically following rain events at the location our class visited and even more so further up the creek and farther from the tidal action of the East River.
Now watch this PBS presentation on Newtown Creek. (Click “watch and listen on the right-hand side of the web page).
Questions:
a. About three weeks before we visited Newtown Creek, the water in the creek was tested (see here and here). What were the findings?
b. Did anything in the PBS presentation alter your perception of your field experience at Newtown Creek?
c. Why do you think people care about this profoundly polluted waterway?
3. The nature walk at the Newtown Creek wastewater treatment plant took 9 years and $3.2 million to complete. It uses motifs that are seen at many riverside parks in New York—erratic boulders, native plants, Native American words etched into stone steps, and nautical themes. It also provides public access to the creek’s waterfront for the first time in decades.
Questions:
a. How would you describe the park and its surroundings? (Feel free to use comparison, metaphor, and your own personal response. But also include details of what you saw, heard, and smelled.)
b. What did you think of the idea of a park/nature walk in this location?