Here's a shocking and infuriating example of how the New York City government speaks out of both sides of its mouth. Our local papers are carrying it as filter plant is soaking taxpayers.

Just two months after NYC sent in their CSO Abatement (LTCP or Watershed Facility Plans), which questioned the validity of low impact infrastructure (green roofs, tree beds, etc), they come up with this uninformed statement.

What's basically happening is that a $2.1 billion water plant project is resulting in more than a million gallons of water to be dumped into NYC's combined sewer system causing CSOs into the Harlem River EVERYDAY! The article reveals that the city is calling the cost to the rate payers of discharging more than 1,196,000 gallons per day into our sewers negligible. This is progress as they were denying it up until yesterday, and it was only revealed to me upon a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) visit to the state agency monitoring the DEP.

Just so we are straight, that is more than 436,540,000 gallons of dry weather water discharged ANNUALLY (436 million) into the Harlem River. It is projected in the FOILed documents that this will continue forever. This is NOT a construction discharge, but will be there even after the building is completed.

This boondoggle is costing NYC residents money in terms of what we pay in service rates, restoration and rehabilitation costs for the river, and health costs because people get sick when they come in contact with water that is polluted with sewage. It is time the city heard from people objecting to the city's apparent inattention to a critical health problem.