RyeCity REVIEW THE
August 17, 2018 | Vol. 6, Number 34 | www.ryecityreview.com
Beaver Swamp Brook pollution persists By JAMES PERO Staff Writer
Bye, summer With the 2018-2019 school year just around the corner, here’s some tips as you prepare your child for that first day. For our Back to School section, see page 9.
BOL allots $750K toward drinking water projects The county Board of Legislators has approved $750,000 in funds that will go toward ensuring the safety of Westchester’s watershed. The funds—which are being appropriated through the East of Hudson Water Quality Investment Program Fund—will go toward water maintenance programs overseen by the towns of Bedford, Cortlandt, Lewisboro,
New Castle, North Castle, North Salem, Pound Ridge, Somers, Yorktown and the town/village of Mount Kisco. According to a statement from lawmakers, the money will pay for expenses incurred by those towns and villages between 2016 and until 2022. The East of Hudson Water Quality Fund is an agreement be-
tween the county and New York City funded by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection that is designed to support maintenance projects of the Kensico and Croton watersheds—New York City derives much of its water from the latter. The fund now contains more than $55 million since the agreement, which was formed in 1997,
started with an original amount of $38 million. “There’s nothing more important than protecting our drinking water,” said county Legislator Kitley Covill a Bedford Democrat, in a statement. “Those of us who live in watershed communities take the responsibility very WATER continued on page 7
Despite increased attention from lawmakers and environmental advocates, problems persist for Beaver Swamp Brook, one of Westchester’s most polluted waterways. Beaver Swamp—a tributary that runs from the town/village of Harrison into the city of Rye, eventually winding through the village of Mamaroneck and emptying into the Long Island Sound—has been under a microscope, both literally and figuratively, since a countywide lawsuit by environmental group Save the Sound in 2015 moved Westchester water quality front and center. According to Elena Colon, an environmental analyst for Save the Sound, despite heightened awareness over contamination, Beaver Swamp Brook continues to represent a hotspot for pollution. “[Beaver Swamp] is about the same—at its elevated levels,” Colon said. “If it’s failing sample tests every week, there’s obviously an issue there.” According to Colon, in three of Save the Sound’s most recent routine samples of a Beaver Swamp site behind Rye Neck High School, levels of enterococcus—bacteria found in human and animal feces—ranged from 700 to as high as 9,000 bacteria per sample. The safe swimming
standard dictates that anything above 104 per sample is unsafe. In a 2017 bacteria report conducted by Save the Sound, Beaver Swamp Brook clocked in as the third worst sample area across all of Westchester, marking the fourth consecutive year that the area has been among the most contaminated sample locations. The source of the contamination, according to a lawsuit filed by Save the Sound in 2015, is miles of neglected and porous sewer lines running throughout the county that have been leeching raw sewage waste into tributaries and endangering human safety and wetlands across Westchester. Last year, 11 municipalities—including Mamaroneck which has already carried out various repairs—named in the original suit, have agreed to a court-ordered timeline for studying the extent of future repairs for sewer lines as part of a settlement, in what Save the Sound considers a major win for its cause. For Beaver Swamp Brook, though contamination still lingers, progress has also been incremental. Fecal coliform number, which soared as high as 3,300 per sample on average in 2014, now hover around 400 per sample on average. Residents like Susan Deshensky, whose Harrison home abuts Beaver Swamp Brook, hope that SWAMP continued on page 7