'Uncategorized'
Con Ed and NYSDEC representatives met and shared information related to the 11.4 spill and the following response.
As had been reported, the transformer, which caught fire at 5:14 am, held 29,000 gallons of light mineral oil. The immediate containment area was capable of holding 110% of that capacity, but the addition of fire foam by the Yonkers FD exceeded that amount. The containment pond beyond the primary holding area could have held all of the spilled material but a stuck valve at the oil/water separator allowed the oil, in this case the heavier material was allowed to escape. In all 13,000 gallons were recovered, and an untold amount was burned or escaped into the storm drains and then into the river. Con Ed contends that it was approximately 100-150 gallons but the DEC disputes that amount. The safety equipment that failed has been repaired.
Upon realizing that the containment had been breached, at about 6:09 am, Con Ed notified the authorities including the DEC. By the time outfalls were inspected at 7:30 am, the oil had already entered the river. Booms were put in place along at various sections of the river and the out fall was plugged. Several hundred feet of the 72 inch out fall were cleaned by hand, and the rest of the pipe was cleaned using other methods.
As is mentioned in the follow up, the original booms that were placed perpendicular to the riverbanks were eventually replaced with booms at approximately 45 degree angles to contain more oil. The booms will remain in place as the clean up continues.
A large part of the cleanup is the removal of leaves from the banks. The crews rake about a foot up the river bank before they are removed and bagged. To date, more than 7,500 bags of leaves have been removed, as well as 10-12 vacuum truck loads, each carrying about 15 cubic yards of material. In certain areas along the river, more organic material than just leaves may be removed.
Looking to the future, it is expected that some of the issue encountered will either be remedied or, due to this experience, leave participants better prepared for any other events. The possibility of leaks and spills from a variety of sources still exists and the response, including boom placement, should be more rapid and more efficient. Some local organizations may be invited to participate in trainings for response emergencies, and the DEC has offered to train groups in spill identification. As well the DEC and Con Ed will follow up with river studies as well as be accessible to inquiries form other organizations. As the clean up continues, the reports will follow.
November 20th, 2009
As of Thursday, November 12th, Con Edison contractors, NYSDEC and others are not seeing the massive sheening that was encountered with this problem at the end of last week. They have looked for the best locations for deploying more booms, utilizing the natural characteristics of the river and local input to assist in the collection of the contaminated leaves, which now is the source of the majority of small sheens seen on the river. There are now booms at more locations, including several soft booms, hard booms and sweeps installed between Burke Avenue and the New York Botanical Garden. Almost all of the booms are placed at about a 45 degree angle to the river flow, to, as one contractor told us, “not have any bellying of the booms,” and guiding the remaining oil into containable areas. Lining the shores in these areas are strips of sorbent pads and, where crews were noted, bags of debris consisting mostly of leaf matter scooped from the river. Much of the removal was conducted from boats.
As for any impacts to waterfowl, a DEC biologist traversed the river, and did not encounter any waterfowl. It is assumed that the birds have relocated due to the cleanup activities along the river. This is a good thing, as it will keep them out of harms’ way. Twin Lakes in the New York Botanical Garden, where some water fowl were noted to possibly be preening excessively, would be the logical relocation point for any birds suspected of being impacted by the oil. Local wildlife experts stated that it is also the time for preening and this may be an extension of that practice. A DEC fish and wildlife section chief indicated that preening alone would not warrant the capturing, isolation, and cleaning of the birds, which in itself is a very stressful and traumatic experience for these wild animals. The tell-tale event will be when the temperatures dip down again, leading to potential loss of thermal integrity of the bird’s feathers, if they are indeed oiled to the point of impacting the bird’s ability to survive. This would lead to birds coming out of the water, and exhibiting not just discomfort from the oil, but heat loss stress, as well. Con Edison has Tri-State Bird Rescue as a contractor; an organization DEC has worked with over the years that it feels does very good work in this specialty of wildlife handling and care. The DEC will monitor their behavior for such distress, and would appreciate if other interested parties could do the same.
Boom guiding oil to bank at boulder vane. Burke Ave
Close up of boulder vane
Booms under Kazmiroff Blvd
November 20th, 2009
The below was reported on 11.9.09 and posted today. The follow ups will be posted immediately.
Water that ran clear just a few days ago now wears an iridescent skin. On Wednesday, November 4th 2009, a fire at a Con Edison plant in Yonkers over a mile from the Bronx River allowed an estimated 2,000 gallons of oil to spill into the sewers which then carried it directly into the river. What it means for life in and around the river at the present moment and into the future is not yet clear. Some information, however, may be of interest.
The fire occurred in the Dunwoodie plant on Smart and Marcos Avenues in Yonkers at 8:30 in the morning. A 345 kilovolt power transformer caught fire due to unexplained causes. Transformers of this sort are filled with adielectric insulating oil that serves to ensure that the voltage stays in the coils. The tank ruptured either before or because of the fire and some 30,000 gallons of mineral oil spilled onto the facility floor. Con Edison believes that the majority of the mineral oil burned off in the fire. Mineral oil has a higher combustion heat level than its re-ignition level so it does not self extinguish. This trait meant that the fire department had to use a large amount of material to try to put the fire out. This material (foam?) combined with the oil from the transformer then overflowed the transformer’s mandatory spill containment area and the oil entered the storm sewers which then provided a direct route for the oil to flow to the river over a mile away. Con Edison contacted the NYSDEC and the DEP immediately to get cleanup efforts started, and the Alliance was informed of the event.
The earliest estimates of the amount were purported to be around 150 gallons, but that estimate has continued to grow. Measuring a fluid in a container is not that difficult, but measuring a fluid that is floating on top of another and flowing down stream is quite a different task. Dr. Paul Mankiewitz offered that it may be possible to calculate an estimate if one knows the molecular weight and to what thickness the oil would spread on top of the water. Then, using the measurements of width of the spill as it flows down the river at a calculated flow rate and some form of documentation such as filming the spill as it passed under a given point until it finished, a volume measure could be calculated. At this time it is unknown if any such measures were taken or how the calculations are being made.
Visual descriptions of the oil vary depending on the site, but range from viscous, dark oil, to a creamy white material on the surface to a multicolored sheen that spreads across the river when struck by the sun. Close observation shows that the oil can present though not seen as the surface of the water gains and unfamiliar regularity, like a barely noticeable fog. Eddies in the water allow for more oil to regroup and often show the more viscous properties.
Through Con Edison contacts and eyewitness reports it was learned that different types of booms were placed across the river at various points. There are two types of booms that could be used and these
Figure 1 Possible transformer example
are solid booms and soft or sorbent booms. The solid boom many of us are familiar with as it is similar to the boom that stretches across the river at Concrete Plant Park, with a floatation device on the top and a flap or a fin that sticks down into the water. As the oil flows downstream, it will flow up against the boom and, if placed correctly, be diverted into a slower moving part of the river for collection. NOAA guidelines state that using a boom at 90 degrees across a body of water, as is the boom in the tidal section which is meant to catch floatables, moving more that 0.5 meters per second would not be efficient as the oil would be forced to the center of the stream and accumulation under flow would force more oil down into the water and allowing it to escape below the boom.
Figure 2 Booms at 211th street
The second type of boom was referred to as a soft or sorbent boom, possibly known as a sorbent rope which is what it resembles. These ropes are not meant to catch and contain the oil like the solid booms, but to absorb the oil as it encounters it. They have no flap that extends down into the water. The fabric in the rope, which is about six inches in diameter, is hydrophobic ( it doesn’t like water) so it does not absorb water, and oleophyllic (it likes oil), so it does absorb oil. As the flow reaches these ropes, theoretically only the oil is absorbed and, when saturated, it must be carefully removed from the river and replaced. Like a rag, if squeezed when saturated, the oil may be released. The ropes float on top of the water, slowly sinking as they fill with oil, and can only catch what encounters the rope at the surface. Any debris that gathers before the rope may allow the oil to be forced down under the boom without touching the sorbent material. Video is available of this process.
There have been booms placed in Yonkers as well as in the Bronx in Muskrat cove, 229th and 211th streets, Gun Hill road, Allerton ave. (Kazmiroff) and points farther downstream. Most of these were sorbent booms but yesterday, Saturday November 7th , several more solid booms had been put in place.
Crews from Con Edison and representatives from the NYSDEC have been observed along the river inspecting the booms and conducting clean up. At 211th street, the crews have begun to vacuum up debris that may be tainted with the oil. The latest cleanup may include sweeping all leaf mater into the river and vacuuming it out for recycling and disposal.
The spill and its aftermath still have many questions yet to be answered. Those of us that use the river everyday for studies and or recreation are concerned for the long term effects. Mineral oil, the most spilled oil in the U.S., does not have any clear documentation of its hazards to wildlife in such events. Searches for research turn up scant responses and no information has been provided. Most of the hazard studies found were for long term human contact. Water fowl have been observed in the Botanical Garden and in points north in some form of discomfort or distress due, apparently, to the encounters with the oil. The mallards along Bronx Park at about 221st street were paddling in obviously oily water and feeding through the surface to get at the algae on the bottom. At Kazimiroff Bridge, a kingfisher flew up river. King fisher’s feed by dipping there beaks directly into the water as they skim the surface. They certainly will ingest the oil directly. Dissolved Oxygen levels as of Friday did not appear to be directly affected as of yet, but there may be long term concerns. The oil on the surface reflects more sunlight than the water and will not allow it to penetrate the plant on the bottom, if in fact they are still active at this time of year, and the oil has also reduced the amount of ripples that may serve to introduce O2 into the water. The old saying of oil calming troubled water can be clearly seen on the river at this time, but that is not a positive thought. Another issue is macroinvertebrate life, the food source for many aquatic animals and birds and the judge of the health of a river. The oil may affect them directly, but the clean up may more so. The vacuuming up of leaf matter may also be taking macorinvertebrates with it, and is certainly reducing the food source from the river which is decomposing leaf matter. All of this remains to be seen but must be followed closely.
But a discussion about why this happened at all will need to be had as well. Below is an example from a Con Edison proposal for a power plant placement:
Power transformers will also be provided with dielectric fluid containment pits to contain any
leakage, along with water separators to process minor dielectric fluid leaks, in compliance with
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations and the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations,
1 This information is being provided in response to the PSC interrogatory request DPS #32, Part 10.
Exhibit E-2 – Other Facilities
February 2008
Page 10
\\epserver\Jobs\P252-000 NYRI\P252-009 Article VII Rev\Exhibits\Exhibit E-2_Other Facilities\Exhibit E-2_FINAL_1-15-08.doc
Title 40 (CFR 40), Parts 110 and 112. These regulations require that appropriate containment
and diversionary structures be provided to prevent discharged fluids from reaching navigable
waters, if a facility reasonably could be expected to discharge fluids in harmful quantities into or
upon said navigable waterways.
Transformer containment pits for dielectric fluid will be designed in accordance with Factory
Mutual Standard 5-4/14-8 Transformers, the Edison Electric Institute Fire Protection for
Transformers, IEEE Standard 980 Guide for Containment and Control of Oil Spills in Substations,
and recommendations from the converter station manufacturer.
It is reasonable to assume that Con Edison provided such a containment area for this transformer, but the regulations only call for a container large enough to hold the oil from one transformer and average precipitation in the area. Obviously a fire department hose, applying foam or water, is much more than the average rainfall making the regulation possibly in adequate. As for the secondary containment area, could it be that, at a mile and a half from the river the assumption was that river contact was minimal?
That leads to the next question which has to do with storm drains. In August of this year the NYs Attorney General approved funding for storm water reduction upgrades:
New York AG Pours $1.8M into Bronx River Stormwater Upgrades
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2009/2009-08-28-092.asp
Some of the work focuses on storm water reduction close to the river, but this issue makes it clear that the sewer shed of the Bronx River is much larger than its banks. The problem with the storm drains is not in any way a surprise as can be witnessed at the storm drain that enters the Bronx River from Yonkers at Nereid Ave. and has been discussed for several years, but his event makes it clear that the remediation needs to occur at a faster pace.
While that issue is municipal, the progress of the cleanup is also a local, community issue. While the cleanup is progressing and work can be seen at multiple sites. It is important for larger agencies, organizations and corporations to understand that those of us that are not just facts on the ground but feet in the river may be a vital resource to the cleanup itself, even if regulations make it difficult for the community to get down on its hands and knees and soak up the oil with sorbent sheets. Much as the cleanup crews have been divided into zones, local organizations and individuals have information on the micro level that can help the larger scale agencies get to affected areas more efficiently. If we plot the booms and efforts on a map, a future project, we can see can see that the placement focused around bridges that cross the river rather than the shape and flow of the river itself. We provided unsolicited information about a certain area, a boulder vane just north of Burke Bridge where a large quantity of oil had gathered, and this local response allowed the larger crew to soak up an undisclosed amount of oil before it eventually seeped around the boulders and farther down river. Con Ed thanked us for this input. Bronx International students also gathered GPS data and observations which were provided to the DEC to aid in the efforts, but it is unclear if this data was of any help. Some encounters in the field were met with “We will handle it,” but others were thankful and made remarks to the effect that the information and local knowledge could be very useful in the efforts. Community involvement may help the immediate effort, but will surely help the long term goals of all.
This event is still very much in progress. It is up to all of us to look at the issue as closely as possible to monitor and aid in the present efforts, the long and short term affect on the river, and follow the review of events to ensure that this sort of event does not happen again.
Damian Griffin
November 20th, 2009
The Ethical Culture Fieldston School will be taking a trip down the Bronx River in October as a part of their interdisciplinary Bronx River 
Biography unit. One section will look into the health of the river, and in preparation, my son and I got out and placed leaf packs into a couple of different places along the Bronx River. The expectation is that macroinvertebrates will make their home out of the leaf packs and we will be able to remove them, count and classify them before replacing them in their old neighborhood. The group will be supported by Bob Ward, and part of the hope is that such studies will become a regular monitoring procedure upon the river.
September 19th, 2009
The Water Pod has arrived at Concrete Plant Park helping to mark the return of public access to
this incredible site. It quickly has become a normal feature of the area, harkening back the original function of the site that gives the park its name. But while the pod might spark memories for past employees, the monarch butterflies that are migrating through the Bronx River Corridor have quickly decided that the plants aboard the pod are a good choice of nourishment. several pupae have also attached themselves to plants on board.
Did I mention the parrots? Yes, several pairs are nesting at CCP in what I believe is a choke cherry bush. I first heard there call a couple of weeks ago, and then my daugther and I were greeted by them this morning as we left CCP.
Rocking the Boat and Pete Seeger…
September 5th, 2009
While one way to prove an understanding of environment and environmental education may be a multiple choice exam, the real proof lies in action. In the early days of July the young people that attend the Tremont United Methodist Church Summer Program visited the Bronx River at the Mitsubishi River Walk adjacent to the Bronx Zoo. The goal was to get in a canoe in the Bronx River and learn the basics of paddling. Forty-five youth, thier counselors and their director, Cheryl Holtz Andrews, met their goal with flying colors, paddling until their armswere ready to fall off. But this was just the beginning. Two young lady’s looked around at the river and were not quite satisfied with the experience of canoeing for the first time in their lives.
“Damian, we should do something about all of these plastic bottles floating in the river,” said one.
“Yeah, they could all be recycled,” said the other. And from their they set about making it happen.
Today, after almost two months of convincing their director that it was a necessary event, the two returned with 12 other program participants and once again paddled the river. This time, however, the focus was the removal of any floatable garbage that they could reach safely from their canoes. With dilligence and care (and no lack of joyful enthusiasm) the youth spent over an hour paddling to distinct areas of the river between the Bronx Zoo and The New York Botanical Garden and removing plastic bottles, plastic bags and one large plastic triangle once used as part of a traffic blockade. It was impressive to see the pride with which each successive 
canoe came up on to the bank to show off what they had found in the river, what they had done to improve the environment that surrounds them. If there is a test to discover just what has been internalized from a lesson, this was it.
August 24th, 2009
Wednesday’s visit to Barretto Point Park to provide some waterfront education and canoeing was a great success. We were only there for a couple of hours but more than 20 people were able to canoe in the East River and learn about what lurks beneath the waves.
After a quick seining brought up dozens of silver sides ( thousands escaped), another fish caught my eye. It was a little harder to corral than the silversides, but a concerted effort landed a juvenile flounder (summer flounder?). 
On the bottom of the shore, the camoflague helped the fish absolutely disappear, but in my hand it looks quite alien.
August 19th, 2009
On July 18, 2008, the Bronx River Alliance placed more than 350 stormdrain markers (above) in Bronx River sewersheds, HP-007, HP-004, HP-009 and HP-008. Support, in the form of funding and ten energetic volunteers, for this project was provided by Goldman Sachs. Thank you to all of the staff from both the Alliance and Goldman Sachs who braved the extreme heat in the name of stormwater education! The Alliance aims to have a total of 500 markers placed by the end of August. Please visit the Storm Water Infrastructure Matters Discussion Forum to discuss stormdrain marking in more detail.
July 28th, 2008
Home Depot might not seem like the place to go in search of an epiphany about the need to serve many communities, but epiphanies don’t like to be pigeon holed. I walked through the aisles of Home Depot, searching for items of comfort for the beginning and the ending of life. These items add safety to the surroundings of my loved ones and some feeling of comfort to me. For my 9 month old daughter, I searched for outlet covers and corner bumpers. For my parents I bought a banister for their steps and support bars to help them get in and out of the shower. 80 years separate my two clients, yet their needs are quite similar, and my desire to aid their respective communities is virtually the same for both of them.
As often happens, a decision made to correct an earlier mistake or to provide access for one group that had been previously ignored can benefit many people. A very clear example is for the benefit offered to parents with strollers, bicyclists, and pullers or pushers of carts every time they mount or dismount a sidewalk. Those little sidewalk cut-ins that make the transition smooth were designed to aid the disabled in ADA of 19–. That decision made many lives better.
Two new parks have been opened in Hunts Point in the last year. Ostensibly, the parks were opened to offer the local population access to the waters that surround them for recreation and relaxation. But it may and should grow into something much more.
All along the Bronx River, we are working towards making the river itself and its adjoining environs more accessible to the thousands of school children that live nearby or have heard about its history. The combined efforts of the Education Program and the Recreation Program offer ideas and opportunities to teachers from the area, ranging from a canoe trip with a dissolved oxygen lab to a simple, “Yes, you can walk around in that area.” The teachers are thankful for the support, and the students express their gratitude with their keen interest. About thirty of those students came together on Thursday, June 5th at Hunts Point Riverside Park for the Bronx River Student Symposium. They showed how they are learning about water quality, the wildlife and restoration of the river. Incredible has it sounds, students came on a day off from school to share what they feel is important about the river; Their Bronx River. The access to the river has turned on something in these students far beyond the science or environmental and social issues that they discussed. The students were the ones teaching those that were present about the river. They showed they own the issue and the place, and they are poised to take over. Nothing could make a teacher happier than to have a student move beyond them, hopefully make them superfluous.
The desire, no; the feeling of responsibility to bring about one change for one person or group that need can often have a greater effect on groups beyond those targeted. The Bronx River Alliance and the groups that we partner with have tried to increase access to the river for teachers and students, and the students will take it on to the world. In the case of the banister that I put up for my octogenarian parents, the first one to use it was nine month old daughter. The first person to grab on to that banister was not the intended user, but that smile of satisfaction that came from the safe feeling of the sturdy oak rail told me that I had done the right thing.
DG
June 8th, 2008
Why do we bother teaching science to students? Do we really believe that we are teaching the next Charles Drew? Do we see in the faces of the youth around us some audacity of imagination that just might happen to advance an end to diabetes? The truth is that it is actually true. When you work with somebody who is learning something new in the world of science, some odd duende appears and you believe that this person may just make an advance in the world that will benefit us all. But that is not why science is important; It is important beyond the science itself because of the dialog that you see between the mind and the world that surrounds us. Last Friday I was lucky enough to speak with some of the interlocutors that have been involved in that dialogue at the Banana Kelly Science Fair.
Nic and Carly at Banana Kelly High School have built their ninth grade science curriculum around the Bronx River and water quality monitoring. They have also given students a window onto their world and some of the students have taken that view very seriously. As I walked between the two rooms where the Science Fair was set up, I was amazed at the amount of information that the students had sorted through and had to make sense of in the form of a presentation. There were discussions about salinity, turbidity, global warming and comparisons of the levels of pollution in the Bronx River, the Hudson River, and the Newtown Creek. Just like with adults, the depth of the discussion varied greatly across the classes, but you could feel that the dominant opinion was that the subject merited discussion.
In the interest of full disclosure, Nic and Carly put me in the difficult position of grading the projects that I viewed, a job that they face everyday. I was given a rubric and had to see where on that scale the students stood. This is necessary because the students, all of us actually, need to know that people are looking critically at everything that we say and do. The unfortunate thing is that I wrote all notes on those rubrics instead of in my notebook, besides the fact that I was a little harsh in my grading.
At any rate, many students showed that they had looked deeply into the data and asked, “Why does the salinity level change?” or “What is the relationship between the amount of precipitation and turbidity?” Then they tried to make sense of these numbers, a task they call mental mastication. The data, mostly just numbers and dates, was obviously much more to these young people; they had collected the data, seen the parts of the world they were talking about, and knew that they were talking about their world. The dialogue that they engaged in was intimate which made the information relevant.
Beyond the actual information, the off-the-cuff remarks of many of the students made me really think about what education is really about and how hard it is to judge the understanding of a student. “Maybe,” Said one, “The Bronx River is cleaner because people have been trying to clean it up. Maybe that’s what the Newtown Creek needs.” To be able to see beyond the first view, beyond the numbers and actually bring in a historical perspective is profound and extremely heartening. It is beyond science and into life itself.
I was glad to have been invited by Banana Kelly to this event, but I must admit that I felt a bit like W.H. Auden: “When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.” That goes for the students and their teachers as well. And for these dukes, our natural world is their court.
DG
April 21st, 2008
Previous Posts
