Alley Creek to be less crappy

From the Times Ledger:

A newly completed sewer facility in Bayside will keep the water in northeast Queens cleaner and its streets dryer.

Last week, the commissioner of the city Department of Environmental Protection announced the completion of the Alley Creek Combined Sewer Overflow Facility, which will reduce the amount of pollutants discharged into Alley Creek and Little Neck Bay.

“The completion of the Alley Creek CSO Facility is a major step forward in our efforts to improve harbor water quality, especially in northeast Queens,” DEP Commissioner Cas Holloway wrote in a statement.

The city’s waste and stormwater systems are integrated with one another, and when heavy rains push the system beyond capacity, it has to discharge the mix, which can be detrimental to the flora and fauna that populate the waterways.

When the two concrete barrels of the new retention facility overflow during large storm events, the adjacent storage tanks have the capacity to store up to 5 million gallons. According to the DEP, this decreases the overall volume of combined overflows discharged into Alley Creek by about 54 percent each year.

The DEP also rehabilitated the Old Douglaston Pump Station, which now has the capacity to pump more than 80 million gallons of wastewater a day from the Alley Creek CSO to the Tallman Island Wastewater Treatment Plant for treatment and disinfection.

Water bills on the rise

From NBC:

DEP Commissioner Cas Holloway says some residents are seeing inflated water bills, not because of the new electronic meters, but because of costs associated with last summer’s record high temperatures.

“This is one of the hottest summers ever, so we know that people used more water,” Holloway said. “People use more water when it’s hot. It took more water to water people’s lawns.”

Indeed, the DEP provided detailed water records showing Martin’s water usage last summer spiked significantly in the early morning hours when his sprinkler system was on.

The City also cited water consumption data showing, aside from last summer, New Yorkers haven’t been using more water since the wireless meter installation began.

“Bills are not going up because wireless meters are being installed,” Holloway said.

Still, there is a stubborn perception the radio transmitters might somehow be more prone to errors. After a wireless transmitter was installed in Kay MacDermott’s basement, the retired assistant district attorney noticed the City began billing her for sewer use – even though her home is connected to a private septic tank.

Over the last four years, city water rates have jumped by more than 50 percent and the DEP is forecasting another significant increase in water prices this year. Officials suggested residents who are complaining about the new meters might be erroneously blaming the new technology, when the real culprit behind inflated bills is higher water rates.

DEP planting marsh grass

From the Times Ledger:

The city began a new organic operation to help save the wetlands in Jamaica Bay last Thursday that they hope will stop the deterioration of the marshlands at the heart of the problem.

Cas Halloway, commissioner for the city Department of Environmental Protection, announced the second phase of the agency’s Eelgrass Restoration Project designed to add 1,000 new plants to the ecosystem. The plants not only provide a safe habitat for birds and fish, but also help reduce the excess nitrogen in the bay’s water supply and stop the saltwater marshlands from degrading.

“Restoring eelgrass to Jamaica Bay is another important step in our efforts to improve this invaluable natural resource,” Holloway said in a statement. “This program, if successful, will mark the first time in nearly 100 years that eelgrass is able to survive in Jamaica Bay.”

The eelgrass will be planted at three locations near Jamaica Bay — Breezy Point, the Breezy Point Yacht Club and Dubos Point — and will be protected by special fencing, poles and sandbags, according to the commissioner. The DEP will hold biweekly monitoring efforts to track the progress of the plants and make notes on how it grows and thrives in the ecosystem.

DEP admits infrastructure is sorely lacking

From the Times Ledger:

The new commissioner of the city Department of Environmental Protection updated the Borough Board Monday on the hundreds of millions of dollars in sewer projects planned for Queens.

“I am keenly aware of many of the issues this community faces,” said DEP Commissioner Caswell Holloway. “Sewer investments in Queens are a major priority for the administration and they’re a major priority for me.”

From 2010-14, the city plans to spend $571 million on water and sewer projects in the borough, including $109 million within Community Boards 8, 12 and 13.

Holloway said southeast Queens, the Rockaways and parts of Whitestone lack storm sewers. He said the chronic flooding in southeast Queens is due to topography and a lack of infrastructure.

Yeah, that we know. What we don't understand is why City Planning went apeshit with the upzoning all over the place knowing this to be the case.

Bloomberg chooses inexperienced mayoral aide for DEP commissioner

From the Daily News:

Now that he's got a third election win behind him and four more years ahead, Mayor Bloomberg seems in no hurry to launch that staff shakeup he once proposed.

He sent word early in his campaign he planned to move people around and bring in fresh blood to keep his third term from getting stale.

Then, last month, he said he hoped to replace as many as eight of his 40 commissioners - although some of those, like retiring Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, are tired after years in the job and would likely have left anyway.

So, while outside observers play Kremlinologist to look for signs of who will stay or go, insiders don't expect many big names to exit anytime soon.

"What you're going to see is very little to no meaningful turnover in the next few months," said one person in a position to know.

Some key staffers may switch positions inside the bullpen on the second floor of City Hall, say people who speak with the mayor every day.

But most of those shufflers are chiefs of staff and advisers - the sort of low-profile but high-impact people who are invisible to the public but critical to making the trains run on time.

From the NY Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said he will remain vastly ambitious in his third term, and is committed to a sweeping environmental agenda.

But on Monday, after conducting a 13-month international search for a new environmental commissioner, he chose a 36-year-old City Hall aide who has scant experience in the field.

The appointment of Caswell F. Holloway IV, who since 2006 has served as chief of staff to Edward Skyler, a deputy mayor, raised the eyebrows of some policy experts and leaders of good-government groups. They said the move signaled that the mayor was increasingly relying on a tight-knit inner circle at a time when he could benefit from fresh energy and new perspectives.

The mayor’s staff described Mr. Holloway as a deft behind-the-scenes problem-solver who pushed through a plan for a citywide waste management system, over the objections of a state lawmaker; oversaw the collection of human remains found at ground zero years after the attack; and drew up plans to revive the unsightly Gowanus Canal.

And we all know how successful those were...