The Dept. of Environmental Protection announced the 15 winning projects of its 2011 Green Infrastructure Grant Program and awarded $3.8 million to fund the building of green infrastructure projects designed to reduce sewer overflows and improve water quality in New York Harbor including green roofs, blue roofs, porous concrete, and bioswales. The 15 winners were selected out of 52 applications by a panel that included experts from the city’s Depts of Transportation, Design and Construction, Parks and Recreation, the DEP, the mayor’s office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability and the New York State Dept. of Environmental Conservation. Together the winning projects are expected to manage as much as 5.7 million gallons of stormwater per year.
In addition to providing cost effective stormwater controls, DEP also selected the winning projects for their ability to provide other benefits such as increased shade, decreased energy use for cooling buildings and increased awareness in both stormwater management and community stewardship. The winners will be providing $953,500 in matching contributions and the projects will be monitored on their effectiveness in managing stormwater.
The city has been combating the negative impacts of stormwater runoff for years, and we have developed a cost-effective strategy to find solutions across the five boroughs,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith in a statement.
The winning projects include a $166,608 green roof located at 217 Park Row in Manhattan’s Chinatown that will manage approximately 255,000 gallons of stromwater per year and reduce combined sewer overflows to the East River; a $41,975 green roof located at 61 Bergen Street in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn that will manage 60,000 gallons of stromwater per year and reduce CSOs to the Gowanus Canal; a $418,073 green roof located at 381 Park Avenue South in Gramercy Park, Manhattan that will manage over 274,000 gallons of stormwater and reduce CSOs to the East River; the building of a $206,188 green roof through a partnership between AWISCO Welding Supplies, Maspeth, Queens, on an industrial building in Maspeth that will manage over 390,000 gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to Newtown Creek. The Maspeth green roof will be visible from the Kosciusko Bridge.
Other winning projects include the Brooklyn Greenway Columbia Street Green Infrastructure Project, a $462,259 project located in Red Hook, Brooklyn that includes the installation of infiltration planters and porous concrete in the sidewalk along an entire block of Columbia Street and will reduce CSOs to the East River by managing 285,000 gallons of stormwater per year from 10,400 sq ft of roadway; a $592,730, 40,000-sq-ft commercial rooftop farm at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that will manage over 1 million gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to the East River; the construction of a $174,667 green roof on a high-rise building in Midtown through a partnership between the Durst Organization, New York, and the Yale University School of Forestry that will manage over 55,000 gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to the East River; a $180,205 integrated cistern system that will be installed in Morrisiana, Bronx, by the Forest House Affordable Housing Development and will manage over 491,000 gallons of stormwater per year; and a $111,391 cistern system proposed by the Intelligent Distributed Detention Systems-Gowanus Canal Watershed in Park Slope, Brooklyn that will manage 78,296 gallons of stormwater per year on two types of properties and reduce CSOs to he Gowanus Canal.
The last five projects include the building of two rooftop gardens at the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House in Manhattan that will manage up to 63,000 gallons of stormwater per year and provide its clients with fresh vegetables as well as capture rain water and reduce CSOs to the East River; the $420,125 retrofitting of two porous concrete parking lots at Manhattan College in Riverdale, Bronx that will manage over 1 million gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to the Harlem River; the $244,920 installation of a right-of-way bioswale by the New York Restoration Project at the Carroll Street Community Garden in Park Slope, Brooklyn that will manage approximately 130,000 gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to the Gowanus Canal; and a $288,000 alternating blue roof and green roof system on the Osborne Association’s building in Longwood, Bronx that will manage over 240,000 gallons of stormwater per year and reduce CSOs to the East River. Green roofs absorb rainwater through their soil and plants and blue roofs detain the it in trays creating the temporary storage of stormwater and its gradual release. The final winning project is a $375,000 retrofit of three different areas on the campus of Queens College in Flushing to infiltrate stormwater runoff and reduce CSOs to Flushing Creek through the use of porous concrete and rain gardens. The project will manage over 707,000 gallons of stromwater per year.
Green infrastructure is an innovative approach to reducing polluted stormwater runoff and sewer overflows while enhancing urban communities,” said State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens in a statement. “We applaud New York City’s commitment to protect water quality through direct support for community-driven environmental protection efforts and congratulate the awardees.
