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It is mid-August and once again our local bay waters find themselves under attack this summer. Increased human pollution is literally choking the life out of the bay.
It started last Wednesday, August 8th. An intense storm whacked New York City that morning. The National Weather Service reported that a tropical air mass dumped an unexpected and amazing amount of rain in a short three hour period. Between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m., about 2.5 inches fell on Central Park and almost 3.5 inches of rain descended on nearby Kennedy International Airport.
The National Weather Service also confirmed that a tornado touched down several times in neighboring Staten Island and in Brooklyn, where winds, which reached speeds of 111 to 135 mph, ripped off roofs and downed trees. Tornadoes have hit New York City before, but not often. Indeed, weather experts believe that Wednesday's storm was the first tornado in Brooklyn since 1889.
(A dead Menhaden and a dead Blue-claw Crab floating in the Atlantic Highlands Harbor soon after the recent heavy rain storm that flooded subways and streets of New York City, and discharged massive amounts of pollution in the water)
The storm also flooded subway stations, and brought the nation's largest mass transit system to a halt. Subway tracks were swamped and commuter trains were held up for hours because of flooding. The storm hit just in time for the morning commute. By rush hour, the city's subway pumping stations became overwhelmed, and the subway system was virtually hog-tied.
This memorable weather event was well-publicized in the local and national media. What was not well investigated, however, was what happened to all that storm water and rainwater from the streets of New York City and from the flooded tunnels of the subway and train systems?
Millions, perhaps even billions of gallons of untreated organic waste, including raw sewage, went directly into our local bay waters on Wednesday. Unfortunately, this is not a news flash.
(Perils of Water Pollution: Dead fish and city trash pollute local waters nearly every time there is a major rain event over New York City and surrounding urban areas)
Environmentalists and government leaders have known for decades that heavy rains regularly overwhelm the vast sewage systems of New York City and other major urban areas like Newark and Jersey City. Large quantities of polluted storm water from miles of city streets and flooded subway and train tunnels combine with raw sewage from rundown sewage treatment plants to empty directly into nearby East River, the Hudson River and New York Harbor.
This is called a Combined Sewer Overflow or CSO for short. It has been a major water quality problem for decades. CSOs bring forth the largest single source of pathogens, nitrogen, bacteria, and floating trash to local waters. This in turn kills fish and animals as far downstream of New York City as Atlantic Highlands and Sandy Hook Bay.
Paul Boyd, chair of the Atlantic Highlands Environmental Commission, first alerted folks to polluted water in Sandy Hook Bay on Thursday morning. People were scared because bay waters between Avenue A and the Hesse earthen pier was black; heaps of floating black and dark-green pieces of aquatic vegetation in the water was washing up on the shore. Some local residents even thought the dark water was an oil spill. Town police, the Atlantic Highlands Fire Marshall, and the Monmouth County Health Department were all called. They confirmed that the dirty water was not oil, but elevated nutrient enriched waters that produced high amounts of organic matter or an algae bloom. In all probability this came about from polluted runoff after the heavy rainfall of Wednesday's storm.
(Masses of dead Menhaden pollute the waters of the Atlantic Highlands Harbor on Thursday, August 9th. Photo by Benson Chiles)
Later in the day, Benson Chiles, chair of the Atlantic Highlands Planning Board, notified people of numerous dead fish and crabs in the harbor. Hundreds of dead aquatic critters, such as Menhaden, Blue-claw Crabs, Horseshoe Crabs and other fish, were found floating in the Atlantic Highlands Harbor and along the piers and boats. Moreover, among the dead fish was floating city trash, such as thousands of used cigarette butts, plastic bottles, plastic bags, and candy wrappers. It was gross! People usually head down to the harbor for the cool breezes, now the breeze is just this smelly, sticky fish smell. It reeks awful.
One of the major disadvantages of being not only close, but also situated exactly downstream of New York City, one of the largest urban coastlines in the world, is that little Atlantic Highlands and Sandy Hook Bay always get hit hard after a storm. Water quality is terrible as high amounts of polluted water from New York City enter local waters and flow downstream after a major storm event. NYC has a hard time keeping their water clean downstream.
As Cindy Zipf, Exective Director of Clean Ocean Action, once stated, "If there's ... no rain, no pain. The water quality is nice ... But if it rains, we get the runoff from the most densely populated urban area in the country and the result of that is garbage on the beach and polluted water."
(A family enjoying the water at Ideal Beach in Port Monmouth on Saturday, August 11th. Were local bay waters healthy after the recent fish kill and discharge of raw sewage? There were no signs to let people know either way)
Unfortunately, there are really no quick or easy solutions to solving over 1,000 CSOs around the New York-New Jersey Harbor. Perhaps one solution would be to redirect excess stormwater during a major storm event to enormous storage tanks that could contain 50 million gallons of rainwater and sewage until they could be sent back through treatment plants.
Maybe another answer would be to increase the amount of water monitoring in both Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay. Currently, the State of New Jersey tests local waters once a week. A better surveillance system, however, would work well to identify quickly sources of pollution and to transfer that knowledge to the public as a warning not to swim in the bay.
It all comes down to money. It will take millions if not billions of dollars throughout the entire harbor watershed region to upgrade all its major sewage treatment plants with the latest technology. As of yet, little money by New York, New Jersey, or the federal government goes towards repairing faulty sewer infrastructure or to build underground basins to collect and hold overflows of stormwater and sewage after heavy rainfalls until it can be pumped through a plant for treatment. As a result, millions of people in some of the largest urban areas in the world continue to use outdated, highly polluting sewer treatment systems that discharge raw stormwater and sewage into local waters during major storm events. That is sinful!
Government leaders from both New York and New Jersey talk a lot about coastal stewardship, but now is a good time to ask if they are really doing anything to advance the standard of our water quality in Raritan Bay and Sandy Hook Bay. While politicians debate issues, our water quality is becoming dangerous. It affects people's health and our quality of life in a negative sense. There should be no doubt that our bay waters are ill by the hand of humans. We have been tampering with Mother Nature for far too long.
We need to combat this build of nutrients, trash, raw sewage, and polluted stormwater in the bay now. It is time to chart a new course that provides the funds needed to more strongly protect coastal waters, and to improve water quality and safeguard habitat. We need to have a better understanding of just how important our bay waters are to our daily lives, from our local economies to our quality of life. Even the smallest intrusion can tip the scales and upset the balance of nature in our local bay waters. | 
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