by Michelle Mullen<\/p>\n
An endeavor more than 30 years in the making is expected to break ground this fall as the city prepares to begin work on the long-awaited Tibbetts Brook daylighting project.<\/p>\n
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, announced June 5 that it awarded a $149.5 million construction contract and finalized a critical easement agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, clearing the way for construction to begin later this year. <\/p>\n
Once completed, the project will uncover more than a mile of Tibbetts Brook, bringing it to the surface by removing blockages that cover the waterway, such as concrete or asphalt, and returning it to a more natural state in a process called daylighting. The initiative will reconnect the brook to the Harlem River for the first time in more than a century while creating new green space and expanding the Harlem River-Putnam Greenway. <\/p>\n
It is also expected to reduce combined sewer overflows into the Harlem River by more than 215 million gallons annually. <\/p>\n
For longtime environmental advocates like Dart Westphal, a board member and former president of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, who have spent decades pushing for the project, the announcement marks a milestone some said they once doubted they would see.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost impossible to believe,\u201d Westphal said. \u201cYou do these things, and you sometimes think you\u2019re never going to see the end of it, and then you finally do. You know, it\u2019s amazing. It\u2019ll be fun to watch it get built.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tibbetts Brook originally flowed from Yonkers through the Bronx to the Harlem River before being dammed and eventually diverted into the city\u2019s sewer system by 1912. According to the department of environmental protection, the brook\u2019s disappearance became increasingly problematic as stormwater and brook water continued entering combined sewers, contributing to overflows during heavy rain events and sending untreated wastewater into local waterways. <\/p>\n
Westphal, who lives in Spuyten Duyvil and has served on numerous environmental and planning boards, said the roots of the project stretch back to regional greenway discussions in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
In 1993, then-Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer convened a committee to develop a borough-wide greenway plan. Westphal said the former Putnam rail line, which runs through Van Cortlandt Park, became a central piece of those conversations.<\/p>\n
The idea gained momentum over the years as advocates connected several issues which had long been treated separately: expanding greenway access, reducing flooding and addressing sewage overflows into local waterways.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019ve always said is that it takes two or three different reasons to get projects like this to move forward,\u201d Westphal said. \u201cThe [combined-sewer overflow] problem, the flooding problem, all got added together to the need for a greenway and the idea of daylighting that made it important enough for enough people to make it actually happen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Karen Argenti, a member of the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality and the Tibbetts Advisory Group, has also been involved with the effort for decades.<\/p>\n
Argenti traced the project\u2019s origins to discussions surrounding the Hudson River Valley Greenway in the 1990s, when local advocates began questioning why Tibbetts Brook water was being diverted into the sewer system rather than flowing naturally to the Harlem River.<\/p>\n
At the time, she said, stormwater from the brook was being sent to wastewater treatment facilities, increasing pressure on a sewer system never designed to handle that volume of relatively clean water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept advocating for it and advocating for it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working on stuff for the Harlem River since the beginning of the century.\u201d <\/p>\n
The project received a major boost in 2023 when the city purchased the former CSX rail corridor that will carry the restored brook. According to the department of environmental protection, the daylighted stream will run from the Mill Pond in Van Cortlandt Park to West 230th Street in Kingsbridge before entering a new underground conduit beneath Metro-North property and ultimately reconnecting with the Harlem River. <\/p>\n
The recently finalized Metropolitan Transportation Authority easement was considered one of the last major hurdles for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe MTA easement is a key factor because the daylighted stream will connect to the Harlem river through a pipe that runs under MTA rail lines and property,\u201d a spokesperson for the department of environmental protection said. \u201cCoordinating work in this corridor required navigating operational constraints, safety requirements, and other permissions associated with an active rail system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Without an easement from the transportation authority, the agency added, it would not be possible to complete the project as designed.<\/p>\n
When completed, the daylighting will create what department of environmental protection Commissioner Lisa Garcia called the agency\u2019s \u201cmost ambitious green infrastructure project.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy restoring the brook above ground we\u2019re reducing flooding and relieving pressure on our sewers, especially during heavy rainstorms, to create a cleaner, healthier Harlem River,\u201d Garcia said in a statement.<\/p>\n
For Argenti, however, the significance extends beyond stormwater management.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it\u2019s done, it\u2019s going to be absolutely stunning,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will probably invigorate the shopping area, and maybe help lower the temperature.\u201d <\/p>\n
The restored stream corridor is expected to create an entirely new ecosystem with native plants, wildlife habitat, public green space and a living shoreline.<\/p>\n
It will also extend the Harlem River-Putnam Greenway, creating new recreational opportunities for pedestrians and cyclists while reconnecting residents with a waterway that has been hidden underground for generations.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tKeywords<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tTibbetts Brook,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Tibbetts Brook daylighting project,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Bronx environmental projects,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t New York City Department of Environmental Protection,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t DEP,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Harlem River,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Van Cortlandt Park,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Kingsbridge,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t Spuyten Duyvil,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t green infrastructure,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t environmental restoration,\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t urban waterways\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Michelle Mullen An endeavor more than 30 years in the making is expected to break ground this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,104808,32451,104809,21932,11307,12119,9,24,40572,63,48917,129,131,130,79700,104807,104810,18230],"class_list":["post-272004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-bronx-environmental-projects","tag-dep","tag-environmental-restoration","tag-green-infrastructure","tag-harlem-river","tag-kingsbridge","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-department-of-environmental-protection","tag-nyc","tag-spuyten-duyvil","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-tibbetts-brook","tag-tibbetts-brook-daylighting-project","tag-urban-waterways","tag-van-cortlandt-park"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}