After decades of efforts to improve the Harlem River’s water quality, the state is considering upgrading its class designation to encourage swimming.
The river is the first New York City waterbody to be considered for reclassification by the state in 2025. However, the proposed reclassification anticipates continued sewage overflows in the Harlem River watershed, which has disappointed environmental advocates. They see the proposed designation as a pessimistic assessment of the river’s future at best and a lack of commitment from the state to substantially reduce the river’s current pollution levels at worst.
“It’s a way of saying, ‘We are never going to be able to clean up this river to a level where it’s actually clean all of the time,’ and it’s making that legal, instead of [the state] having to keep saying, ‘We’re trying to get there, but we can’t get there yet,’” said Joy Hecht, Harlem River Community Rowing board member and treasurer.
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The Harlem River is currently designated as a class I waterbody, which means its recommended uses are for fishing and secondary-contact recreation such as boating.
The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is considering a class SB designation for the river with a Wet Weather (WW) exception, which would update its acceptable uses to include primary-contact recreation such as swimming. Under the WW exception, which was created in 2023, the state would recommend against entering the river for up to 36 hours after periods of heavy rain. According to a Jan. 31 draft report by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), a copy of which was obtained by the Amsterdam News, this is because even 0.5 inches of total rainfall can lead to combined sewage overflows (CSOs) in the river, temporarily creating unsafe swimming conditions.
CSOs refer to overflows from combined sewage systems — systems that collect industrial wastewater, domestic sewage, and rainwater runoff in the same pipe. When rainwater runoff exceeds a system’s capacity, it can lead to untreated sewage and stormwater discharging into nearby waterways.
The Harlem River still experiences a high number of CSOs, particularly due to an outfall at W. 192nd Street, which is one of the largest contributors to CSOs in New York City. However, the river’s current pollution levels have decreased dramatically since the 1900s, particularly after passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.
In 2011, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership launched as one of seven pilot locations of the Bronx and Harlem River Watersheds, which spurred further efforts to clean up the Harlem River. Ongoing green infrastructure initiatives such as the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting Project and Van Cortland Lake Improvements Project are expected to decrease CSOs into the Harlem River by more than 215 million gallons per year upon completion and have done much to improve the water quality of the river.
However, in its draft report, which focuses on the Harlem River’s use attainability, the DEP wrote that it is “not feasible” to pursue an SB classification without a WW exception, which would require reducing CSOs in the river further by 75%.
Pursuing a three-quarters or 100% reduction of CSOs in the river would cause an increased financial burden on DEP customers, the report determined. This conclusion has saddened several environmental advocates, even as they expressed excitement about the increased water quality and opportunities for swimming in the river.
“NYC has invested billions of dollars to improve the health of our waterways and they are cleaner today than they have been in the last 150 years,” a DEP spokesperson wrote in a statement to Amsterdam News. “We were glad to hear from the community on their desires for the Harlem River and look forward to working collaboratively on further improvements.”
The DEP has projected that it would cost approximately $11.48 billion to fully reduce CSOs and approximately $9.32 billion to reduce CSOs in the Harlem River by 75%.
The city’s wastewater and stormwater systems,which include “combined and separate sanitary sewers with 7,400 miles of sewer pipes, 152,000 catch basins, 96 wastewater pumping stations, and 14 WRRFs, plus various green infrastructure assets,” are 95% funded through user fees for water and wastewater.
The DEP anticipates that upgrading the Harlem River’s classification to an SB waterbody without the WW exception would increase user fees per household by $183 citywide. Maintaining existing pollution control costs $1,462 per household citywide currently, the DEP report estimated.
Of residents within the Harlem River watershed, 30% are living below the federal poverty level, according to a DEP analysis of census tract data. Pursuing the level of CSO reductions required to eliminate the WW exception for the river and make it safe to swim in at all times could cause increased financial strain on those who stand to benefit the most from reduced river pollution levels under the DEP’s current financing system.
Access is equity
Chauncy Young, coordinator with the Harlem River Working Group, a coalition of groups working for 15 years to reconnect community members to the river waterfront, called the river’s pollution and residents’ lack of physical access to the waterfront, which has decreased opportunities for Bronx residents to participate in water activities like rowing and swimming, a “huge equity issue” that he felt the city should be prioritizing.
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps has ranked the Bronx as the “least healthy” county in New York state for 16 years in a row. Access to exercise opportunities is one of the factors it considers in its determinations.
“It was a space that was once such a vibrant part of our communities and somehow had been taken away, almost like a history forgotten,” Young said, recalling how the river was once “the center of recreational activities for the whole region.”
The Harlem River used to have dozens of boathouses along its banks and once held a reputation as a hub for competitive rowing, but intense urbanization decreased residents’ access to the river and several boathouses eventually fell into disuse. A resurgence in rowing is currently taking place on the river, with several boathouses re-emerging.
“New York City has done such an extraordinary job of trying to create access to green space, but has so much more work to do to create access to blue space,” said Brigid Ahern, CEO of Row New York. She expressed optimism for more “outdoor experiences on the water.”
Rosa Diaz, Community Board 11 secretary and chair of its Environmental, Open Spaces, and Parks committee, said she feels similarly but the river’s continued pollution has left her with some reservations about using it for swimming. “If we do have the opportunity to swim, it will be wonderful,” she said. “It can open a lot of opportunities for our East Harlem community and the surrounding areas.”