Recent work at a Superfund site located outside of New York City has revealed that a water clean-up effort appears to be polluting the air. Newtown Creek is one of the most polluted waterways in America.
In the mid-1800s the area around the creek became a booming industrial hub. Refineries, coal yards, fertilizer factories, and sawmills crowded the landscape. And Newtown Creek, which runs a little under four miles, was clogged with industrial effluent, sewage, and debris.
Despite modest improvements, Newtown Creek remains seriously degraded. Cut off from its tributaries, it receives no natural freshwater inputs—just storm water runoff and sewage overflows.
In an attempt to improve Newtown Creek’s water quality, the City of New York been aerating its most polluted areas. Increasing the oxygen content would make it more hospitable to wildlife, like fish and blue crabs.
But aeration is having an unintended consequence. A recent study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology found that stream aeration is releasing aerosols, including sewage bacteria, into the air above Newtown Creek…
“What we’re showing is that there is a connection between water quality and air quality.”
Eli Dueker is a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University…
“Any time you have aerosols created from water surfaces, and it doesn’t have to be aeration remediation, basically anywhere you see white water or white caps, you are seeing the bubbles that are being transferred to the water surface that are then popping and transferring that material into the air.”
The study is one of the first to establish a link between water pollution and air quality, and raises new questions about the health risks posed by dirty water.
Web Extra
Full interview with Eli Dueker, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory…
[audio:http://wamcradio.org/EarthWise/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Eli-Dueker-Sound.mp3|titles=Eli Dueker Sound]Web Links
Newtown Creek
http://www.epa.gov/region2/superfund/npl/newtowncreek/
Newtown Creek
http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/contaminated-sites/newtown-creek/
Local Environmental Pollution Strongly Influences Culturable Bacterial Aerosols at an Urban Aquatic Superfund Site
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es301870t
Photo, taken on December 29, 2006, courtesy of Doug Letterman via Flickr.