{"id":351138,"date":"2026-09-19T15:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351138\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T15:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:08:12","slug":"vito-fossella-rips-nyc-for-staten-islands-sewage-tainted-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/351138\/","title":{"rendered":"Vito Fossella rips NYC for Staten Island’s sewage-tainted lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a tale of two parks. <\/p>\n

City bureaucrats only care about parks where tourists go \u2014 leaving a local gem in the forgotten borough to drown in raw sewage, according to Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella. <\/p>\n

Fossella this week ripped the toxic double standard that\u2019s left Clove Lakes Park<\/a> to rot \u2014 as he urgently called for a summit of city and state agencies after The Post revealed that a collapsed sewer line from a lakeside restaurant has been spewing human waste into the waters for decades.<\/p>\n

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella is demanding action to address the pollution at Clove Lakes Park. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were Central Park, people would be flipping out,\u201d Fossella told The Post during a tour of the park\u2019s verdant trails overlooking the deeply polluted lake.<\/a><\/p>\n

It took the city Parks Department a week after The Post\u2019s reporting to finally shut down boating and fishing at the park, and Fossella claimed that city agencies are still leaving him in the dark about the full extent of the problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the public deserves is a safe, fun, healthy, public recreation area, and they don\u2019t have it right now,\u201d the Republican beep and former congressman said.<\/p>\n

He recalled his own childhood days playing baseball in the idyllic park, while calling for a full investigation into the pollution crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s very unsettling and troubling is that it appears that this has been sort of going on for quite some time. We need to know who knew what and when,\u201d the borough president<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

The extent of the damage may be more severe than what\u2019s currently known.<\/p>\n

A sewer has been spouting raw sewage into Clove Lake. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Parks Department employees were observed performing a dye test to determine if other sewer lines in the park were malfunctioning. A Parks Department employee said that they were testing every building in the park.<\/p>\n

When asked if more collapsed sewer lines were found, a different Parks worker sighed and said, \u201cI plead the Fifth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The park\u2019s public bathrooms were locked during the testing. <\/p>\n

The Parks Department told The Post that they were not aware of any other sewer lines leaking into Clove Lake and that they are working with the Department of Environmental Protection regarding next steps. <\/p>\n

Parks Department employees conducted dye tests to see if other sewer lines were malfunctioning at the park. Helayne Seidman for the NY Post<\/p>\n

One parkgoer said that he had heard of plumbing problems at the site The Stone House restaurant occupies going back 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basement always had sewage. I had a friend who worked there, he\u2019d have to take his shoes off when he got home,\u201d Tad, 71, a trucker who frequents the park said.<\/p>\n

Fossella took city regulators to task for not addressing the problem sooner, and slammed them for not possessing or releasing crucial data regarding fecal coliform contamination.<\/p>\n

Parkgoers were outraged. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be repercussions up and down the line,\u201d said radiologist Sydney Russel, 25.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m upset about it, really. Because it was beautiful. I took my kids here, and they were little,\u201d said retired Staten Island nurse Donna DeWaters, 71.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a tale of two parks. City bureaucrats only care about parks where tourists go \u2014 leaving a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[57,9,24,63,13926,35906,134,136,135,58],"class_list":["post-351138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-pollution","tag-sewer","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351138","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=351138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}