We will complete Long-Term Control Plans for all 14 New York City Watersheds, as required by law
In the upcoming months, we will submit the Waterbody/Watershed (WB/WS) Plans for 18 waterbodies to the State's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), detailing strategies for CSO reduction. These plans will rely on proven infrastructure upgrades to expand the capacity of our wastewater treatment plants, by constructing holding tanks, and optimizing our sewer infrastructure. The WB/WS plans will be integrated into the 14 watershed-specific Long-Term Control Plans (LTCP) also mandated by DEC.

Already, the City's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has begun some of these improvements; today, all of our plants are equipped to handle twice the volume of flows that would occur on a normal day of dry weather. Other strategies will include aeration, which involves pumping oxygen into waterways to encourage aquatic life; destratification facilities, which churn areas of water to ensure that oxygen is being evenly distributed; sewer optimization, which maximizes the amount of wastewater conveyed to the treatment plant; force mains, which divert CSOs from tributaries with no natural flushing systems into larger water bodies that can assimilate the sewage more easily; and dredging, which will begin to remove decades of bio-solids that have settled onto the bottom of our rivers and tributaries.

Preliminary projections estimate that the implementation of the LTCPs will result in an increase in CSOs captured from approximately 70% to 75%. In addition, the plan will specify other enhancements, including reducing floating debris such as bottles, bags, and other trash through netting facilities.

Progress (as of 4/22/08):
As part of the Long-Term Control Plan process required through state and federal regulations, the City submitted Waterbody/Watershed (WB/WS) plans for 18 waterbodies to the NYS DEC in June, detailing strategies for Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) reduction. The City continues to update stakeholders on the progress of the Long-Term Control Plan process and is working with NYS DEC to finalize the WB/WS plans. The City held a public meeting to discuss the Gowanus Canal WB/WS plan in February and plans to hold a public meeting for the Alley Creek WB/WS plan in May.