History about the gowanus canal
Since the mid-19th century, the natural topography of New York City has been altered, sometimes by the filling in of adjacent waterways to create more land and sometimes by the excavation of land to create new or larger waterways. Both activities occurred in and around the Canal.
In the 1840’s, the Gowanus Creek was a tidal estuary flowing into the Gowanus Bay, in New York Harbor. At that time the creek was surrounded mostly by farms and mills.
Combined sewer overflows, or CSOs, are a problem for many communities across the U.S. On April 11, 1994, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a new national policy for controlling CSOs in order to help communities meet the requirements of the Clean Water Act. Did you know that the Gowanus Canal has the most dangerous water sources in Brooklyn, New york? According to News 12, “the water has a lot of combined diseases”. How did the Gowanus Canal get this way? Ever since the 1800s to the mid 1990s they would dump their trash in the canal. Also, there is a combined sewage pipe that cleans rain water surrounding Brooklyn, flowing into the canal.
How do the combined sewer system work?A combined sewer overflow (CSO) is the discharge from a combined sewer system that is caused by snowmelt or storm water runoff. Thisamazing treatment system that cleans our wastewater consists of: over 6,000 miles of sewer pipes; 135,000 sewer catch basins; over 495 permitted outfalls for the discharge of combined sewer overflows (CSOs); 95 wastewater pumping stations that transport it to 14 wastewater treatment plants located throughout the 5 boroughs.Dating back to the original transformation of Gowanus Creek into the Gowanus Canal, there has been intensive human intervention on the natural marshlands and topography of the watershed. Gowanus faces a number of interrelated environmental challenges, generated in large part by historic industrial uses and the complex, historically undersized sewer infrastructure that was originally designed to overflow into the Canal, which was both a waterway and open sewer. However, the infrastructure challenges are not exclusive to this legacy. Other challenges include open space that is at a premium and school seats that are in short supply.
It’s when sewage that’s sent from waste treatment plants,where contaminants are filtered out into lakes, river and streams. In a combined sewer system, these two streams travel through the pipes to the wastewater treatment plant. One-third of the district of columbia is served by a combined sewer system. [DC Water].The heavy rain or snowmelt, the volume,of runoff can overwhelm the sewer system- and that's when you get a horrific backup like the one in the gowanus. If it cause pollution, why does brooklyn have a combined sewer system? Some date as far back as the late 19th century, when a number of municipalities began installing public sewer systems to address health and aesthetic concerns associated with cesspools and privy vaults.Faced with the choice between combined and separated sewer,many communities opted for the for the former option because it was cheaper-and,at the the time,it was.
“It was not until early in the 20th century that engineers fully recognized that an adequate stormwater drainage system was necessary to protect the sanitary sewer system,”an EPA representative told citylab via email. But the news came too late for New York, Philadelphia, and other cities that had already constructed elaborate combined sewer systems.
I believe that we can all come together and put money to help save the gowanus canal by just planting the water and make it go down the pipes and be clean but if not we can make it green.
the gowans canal now can look like this if we all put are heads togther.
