Full Title: Catalyzing Green Infrastructure On Private Property: Recommendations for a Green, Equitable, and Sustainable New York City
Author(s): Alisa Valderrama, John Lochner, Marianna Koval
Publisher(s): Natural Resources Defense Council & New York University
Publication Date: August 1, 2017
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
A little more than 25 years ago, New York City faced a formidable challenge. To protect the drinking water of the eight million people who lived and worked in the Big Apple, it confronted construction costs of nearly $10 billion and operating costs of $365 million annually for a new system that would filter the 1.1 billion gallons of water that New Yorkers used every day. But instead of using a more traditional approach involving concrete and pipes—what’s often called “gray infrastructure”—it did something transformational. The City created an extraordinary partnership among government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and watershed farms and businesses— the historic New York City Watershed Protection Program (WPP), which formed the Watershed Agricultural Council (WAC)—to implement what is perhaps the world’s largest planned green infrastructure (GI) system on private property. Green infrastructure includes not just natural landscapes and smart agricultural practices, but also installations well suited to urban environments: green roofs and rain gardens, bioswales, porous pavers, rainwater harvesting systems, and other practices that capture rainwater close to where it falls, before it can overwhelm sewers and trigger raw sewage overflows. By using green infrastructure to protect 1.2 million acres in upstate New York, rather than expensive and energy-consuming filtration facilities, the WPP and WAC have helped to keep the city’s drinking water among the cleanest and safest in the country for nearly three decades.