For Immediate Release
May 3rd, 2016

Coalition for Daylighting Tibbetts Brook

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park is pleased to announce its formation of the Coalition for the Daylighting of Tibbetts Brook 5.2.16.   This project of NYC Parks is vitally important to the Park, the community and the City’s efforts to better manage stormwater and flooding.  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 clean water is then treated – for no reason- at the Wards Island Stormwater Treatment Plant.  Adding unnecessary water to sewage treatment plants produces more sewage overflows during rain events.  Often when it rains, 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. Daylighting will remove this clean water from the sewer and help to reduce CSO occurrences on the Harlem River and help with flooding issues along Broadway and other areas of the Tibbetts Brook Watershed. Daylighting Tibbetts Brook is one of the key projects in the Van Cortlandt Park 2034 Master Plan which the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation is currently working on and the Friends of Van Cortlandt Park enthusiastically supports.

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park would like to thank the following Elected Officials for joining our Coalition:  NYC Councilman Andrew Cohen, NYS Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and NYS Senator Jeffrey Klein.

The Friends of Van Cortlandt Park would like to thank the following organizations for joining our Coalition: Bronx Community Board 7, Bronx Council for Environmental Quality, Fort Independence Park Neighborhood Association, New Yorkers for Parks, Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. NYC H2O and Trust for Public Land.  Bronx Community Board 8 supports the efforts of the Coalition and have their own resolution in favor of Daylighting Tibbetts Brook.

To learn more about daylighting or lend your voice to the cause, please visit www.vancortlandt.org.  Individuals can also attend a tour on Saturday, May 7th, 2016 called “Reclaiming Nature: An Insiders Tour of Daylighting Tibbetts Brook”. This tour will take place both inside and outside of Van Cortlandt Park. Meet FVCP just inside the park at the last stop of the 1 train at 242nd Street and Broadway at 10am.

For more information:
Christina Taylor, Executive Director of Friends of Van Cortlandt Park
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 718-601-1460.
Website: www.vancortlandt.org

UPDATE: Congressman Eliot Engel joined the Coalition for Daylighting Tibbetts Brook on May 9th, 2016.

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