We, the undersigned, support the efforts of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) to daylight Tibbetts Brook and create a greenway south of Van Cortlandt Park down to the Harlem River. We are thankful for all of the hard work and effort that NYC Parks has done to help make this a reality. The project would have tremendous economic, environmental, recreational and aesthetic benefits for the Bronx. Moreover, it would help connect neighborhoods that have been cut off from each other and from Van Cortlandt Park.
Currently, the water from Van Cortlandt Lake enters the Broadway sewer at a rate of 4 to 5 million gallons of water per day -- and that’s on a dry day. This water is then treated - for no reason- at the Wards Island Stormwater Treatment Plant. Then when it does rain, the combination of sewage, street runoff and the brook enters the combined sewer, bypassing the treatment plant and flowing directly into the Harlem River. This one Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), WI-056, connected to the Broadway sewer makes up more than half of the CSO water entering the Harlem River. This clean water needs to be removed from the sewer to reduce CSO occurrences on the Harlem River and help with flooding issues along Broadway and other areas of the Tibbetts Brook Watershed.
We support NYC Parks efforts to
study and plan for daylighting within Van Cortlandt Park by enhancing and
expanding the wetlands southwest of Van Cortlandt Lake, which will enable it to
hold more water thus reducing the amount of water entering the sewer. However,
this is a minor step in the right direction. In order to provide a potential
route, and daylighting opportunity for Tibbetts Brook outside the Broadway
sewer, NYC Parks needs to obtain the land that CSX owns between Van Cortlandt
South and West 230th Street . We support any effort by the City to continue
this path southward past 225th Street to a place along the Harlem River
waterfront where Tibbetts Brook could flow directly into the Harlem River.
We ask that CSX be good stewards of the land. The company has not used this abandoned rail line in decades. It is less than a mile long and between 25 and 50 feet wide, has no independent development potential and is used for illegal dumping. NYC Parks has made a fair monetary offer to purchase the land and CSX should accept. Better still, the company should be encouraged to donate the land, which is what they did with their old rail line in Lower Manhattan that became the High Line. Why not donate land in the Bronx where it will have positive impact on fragile economy?
Daylighting Tibbetts Brook is a key project in the Van Cortlandt Park 2034 Master Plan. We are dedicated to helping make this dream become a reality and are actively planning for it.
Signed (as of 12/9/2019),
Van Cortlandt Park Alliance
Bronx Community Board 7
Bronx Community Board 8
Bronx Council for Environmental Quality
Bronx is Blooming
City as a Living Lab (CALL)
NYC Councilman Andrew Cohen
NYS Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz
Congressman Eliot Engel
Fort Independence Neighborhood Association
Kingsbridge Business Improvement District
Kingsbridge Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corp.
NYC Councilman Mark Levine
The Natural Areas Conservancy
New Yorkers for Parks
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
NYC H2O
Old Blue RFC
Senator Gustavo Rivera
Riverkeeper, Inc.
S.W.I.M. Coalition
Trust for Public Land
Wave Hill
Updates
Reached 500 supporters
September 27, 2021
September 27, 2021
Seeing the count climb toward five hundred is truly overwhelming and I am just the person who hit the button to start this. Your passion for daylighting Tibbetts Brook is the real engine here. If we can keep this momentum going just a bit longer perhaps our message will finally become impossible to ignore.
November 29, 2018
Seeing this grow has been completely overwhelming and I honestly thought this goal was beyond reach. The momentum behind the daylighting project belongs entirely to those of you who recognized its importance early on.
Reached 100 supporters
April 12, 2016
94 Comments
Communities carved up highways, streams turned into little more than sewage pipes... This is a chance to undo some of the damage done and reclaim the natural beauty of our borough.
This is a great plan to put to good use what is now just a wasted strip of land that does no good for anyone . I used to work in the bank that borders it 40 yrs. ago and it was just as useless then as it at present .
In 1977, we designed, under a Consent Agreement with EPA, a wastewater treatment plant to deal with CSO because San Francisco had no choice about separating the distinctly different flows. If there's a chance to separate the flows, it will save 100s of millions of dollars and immediately impact the environment.
Van Cortlandt Park is a treasure that has suffered neglect and highway bisections, it needs to be restored and treated with respect as a rare and vital piece of nature in the northern Bronx (and southern Westchester). A sewer is no place for a brook!
It does not make sense to pour clean water into the sewer system. When it rains, the sewers overflow and raw sewage is dumped into our rivers, which damages the ecosystem. Daylighting the Tibbetts Brook would alleviate that problem, not to mention making the area through which the daylighted brook would flow more attractive.
It’s about time.
I volunteer with the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance and believe the daylighting will help the Harlem River.
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We, the undersigned, support the efforts of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) to daylight Tibbetts Brook and create a greenway south of Van Cortlandt Park down to the Harlem River. We are thankful for all of the hard work and effort that NYC Parks has done to help make this a reality. The project would have tremendous economic, environmental, recreational and aesthetic benefits for the Bronx. Moreover, it would help connect neighborhoods that have been cut off from each other and from Van Cortlandt Park.
Currently, the water from Van Cortlandt Lake enters the Broadway sewer at a rate of 4 to 5 million gallons of water per day -- and that’s on a dry day. This water is then treated - for no reason- at the Wards Island Stormwater Treatment Plant. Then when it does rain, the combination of sewage, street runoff and the brook enters the combined sewer, bypassing the treatment plant and flowing directly into the Harlem River. This one Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), WI-056, connected to the Broadway sewer makes up more than half of the CSO water entering the Harlem River. This clean water needs to be removed from the sewer to reduce CSO occurrences on the Harlem River and help with flooding issues along Broadway and other areas of the Tibbetts Brook Watershed.
We support NYC Parks efforts to
study and plan for daylighting within Van Cortlandt Park by enhancing and
expanding the wetlands southwest of Van Cortlandt Lake, which will enable it to
hold more water thus reducing the amount of water entering the sewer. However,
this is a minor step in the right direction. In order to provide a potential
route, and daylighting opportunity for Tibbetts Brook outside the Broadway
sewer, NYC Parks needs to obtain the land that CSX owns between Van Cortlandt
South and West 230th Street . We support any effort by the City to continue
this path southward past 225th Street to a place along the Harlem River
waterfront where Tibbetts Brook could flow directly into the Harlem River.
We ask that CSX be good stewards of the land. The company has not used this abandoned rail line in decades. It is less than a mile long and between 25 and 50 feet wide, has no independent development potential and is used for illegal dumping. NYC Parks has made a fair monetary offer to purchase the land and CSX should accept. Better still, the company should be encouraged to donate the land, which is what they did with their old rail line in Lower Manhattan that became the High Line. Why not donate land in the Bronx where it will have positive impact on fragile economy?
Daylighting Tibbetts Brook is a key project in the Van Cortlandt Park 2034 Master Plan. We are dedicated to helping make this dream become a reality and are actively planning for it.
Signed (as of 12/9/2019),
Van Cortlandt Park Alliance
Bronx Community Board 7
Bronx Community Board 8
Bronx Council for Environmental Quality
Bronx is Blooming
City as a Living Lab (CALL)
NYC Councilman Andrew Cohen
NYS Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz
Congressman Eliot Engel
Fort Independence Neighborhood Association
Kingsbridge Business Improvement District
Kingsbridge Riverdale Van Cortlandt Development Corp.
NYC Councilman Mark Levine
The Natural Areas Conservancy
New Yorkers for Parks
Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition
NYC H2O
Old Blue RFC
Senator Gustavo Rivera
Riverkeeper, Inc.
S.W.I.M. Coalition
Trust for Public Land
Wave Hill
Updates
Reached 500 supporters
September 27, 2021
September 27, 2021
Seeing the count climb toward five hundred is truly overwhelming and I am just the person who hit the button to start this. Your passion for daylighting Tibbetts Brook is the real engine here. If we can keep this momentum going just a bit longer perhaps our message will finally become impossible to ignore.
November 29, 2018
Seeing this grow has been completely overwhelming and I honestly thought this goal was beyond reach. The momentum behind the daylighting project belongs entirely to those of you who recognized its importance early on.
Reached 100 supporters
April 12, 2016
94 Comments
Judging by the significant bike & pedestrian traffic already on the newly-paved Putnam trail in Van Cortlandt Park, I imagine a safe traffic-free extension south to W230th would serve good use as well.
Communities carved up highways, streams turned into little more than sewage pipes... This is a chance to undo some of the damage done and reclaim the natural beauty of our borough.
This is a great plan to put to good use what is now just a wasted strip of land that does no good for anyone . I used to work in the bank that borders it 40 yrs. ago and it was just as useless then as it at present .
In 1977, we designed, under a Consent Agreement with EPA, a wastewater treatment plant to deal with CSO because San Francisco had no choice about separating the distinctly different flows. If there's a chance to separate the flows, it will save 100s of millions of dollars and immediately impact the environment.
Van Cortlandt Park is a treasure that has suffered neglect and highway bisections, it needs to be restored and treated with respect as a rare and vital piece of nature in the northern Bronx (and southern Westchester). A sewer is no place for a brook!
It does not make sense to pour clean water into the sewer system. When it rains, the sewers overflow and raw sewage is dumped into our rivers, which damages the ecosystem. Daylighting the Tibbetts Brook would alleviate that problem, not to mention making the area through which the daylighted brook would flow more attractive.
It’s about time.
I volunteer with the Van Cortlandt Park Alliance and believe the daylighting will help the Harlem River.
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Judging by the significant bike & pedestrian traffic already on the newly-paved Putnam trail in Van Cortlandt Park, I imagine a safe traffic-free extension south to W230th would serve good use as well.