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uh... so we went out um... to do water quality sampling
uh... around the north sewage treatment plant
area um... in Manhattan
is a hundred two degrees on the water
um...
and it smelled
as one might expect umÉ so we started
sampling at tappan zee sampling southbound
and then proceeded to sample in Yonkers at the Westchester sewage plant
in Yonkers and
then at Dykeman and so on
as we were going down
uh... we did see
unfortunately, just south of the george washington bridge we saw people swimming
in the water and they were swimming in an area that was
just in between to two sewage outfalls
the sewage water that was being diverted from the North River Plant
was going
out of these outfalls right into the river
UmÉ
was then moving
toward people that were swimming
that didn't necessarily know that this was going on but there wasn't enough
notification
about this event, people in the city
adding to that on a
hundred-degree day
you're going to go into the water
maybe it smells, maybe it doesn't
it's hot and
you need relief
If you jump in a swimming pool that's chlorinated
you're going to be sucking down some
amount of water you're going to be licking your lips, putting your hands in your mouth
there's really no way to avoid it
hopefully people that were
swimming didn't get sick
I know I got sick and Riverkeeper boat
captain John Lipscomb got sick and one of our science partners for sick as a
result of just conducting water sampling We are testing for Enterococcus, which is
a sewage indicating microbe that lives in your gut
uh... so we're testing
at various locations where we observed
the discharge taking place
uh... we even observed it where the DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection
didn't even know that it was taking place
People need to know that
there's raw sewage going in to the river not just when
something like this happening, not just when something like this is happening
and um...
in Manhattan
has a fire, this happens every single time there is a rain event
People don't know about this, they don't know that
uh... these sewage outfalls are
shooting sewage into the river every single time it's raining
You have young kids, you have people of all different backgrounds, ages, swimming in raw sewage and the don't know it
they need to understand that when it's raining
there are sewage discharges,
even when it's not raining, sometimes. But I don't swim in the river
um... within three days of it raining
I just don't feel
safe about that so
on a hot day
like we saw last week they have people needing some relief from
the heat, and they're going to jump in the river
uh... to get that relief
and it's unfortunate because lot of people that are accessing the river
from these
points, um...
most likely don't have access to private swimming clubs and they don't have access
access to any type of private pool
they're going to use the river
as one would expect
people that are using the river don't know what they're swimming in
and they deserve um...
to know, they deserve to be educated because they're getting sick.
my name is Rob Friedman I'm program staff
for the boat and water quality programs.