Impaired Water
There is a hidden place in New York City, an artery where beavers once thrived, known long ago as the “River of High Bluffs” to Indigenous Peoples that lived along the banks. The 23-mile-long Bronx River is New York City's only freshwater stream, and was at one time considered a potential source of city drinking water.
Over a century of human encroachment has left the river's water in such poor quality that the entire stream is designated as impaired on the EPA's 303(d) list of impaired and threatened waters. This story documents contemporary community efforts to foster public connection to the river and reclaim the river's water quality. In 2024, the 50th anniversary of the beginning of its restoration, the Bronx River remains a stream that people cannot safely set foot in.
This story is in progress.
Algal blooms in a sewage outflow that joins the Bronx River near Bronxville High School. Algae growth contributes to one of the main impairments to the river's health: low levels of dissolved oxygen, which inhibits the river's ability to provide a proper habitat for aquatic flora and fauna.
A hammock along the Bronx River's beginning in Valhalla, NY.
A sewage outflow in White Plains, New York. Water quality samples completed in Westchester County during the recreational season from May-October, 2018 registered the highest possible values for fecal bacteria, and led to 2018 being the river's worst year for water quality in over a decade.
Bronxville High School Science teacher Justine McClellan assists students in her Bronx River Research class in taking water quality measurements during class in September of 2019.
A student in Justine McClellan's Bronx River Research class presents her work after a morning of field work in the Bronx River.
The Bronx River passing over bedrock formations beside the River House Apartments in Bronxville, New York.
The Kensico Dam in Valhalla, New York, completed in 1917, severs the Bronx River's connection to its original headwaters.
A view of the Bronx River at Starlight Park during construction of a bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The bridge is a critical crossing of the river along the Bronx River Greenway, a 25 mile long multi-use path that, when complete, will connect communities along the entirety of the Bronx River.
Victoria Toro, Community Outreach Coordinator with the nonprofit Bronx River Alliance instructs participants before a canoe trip down a portion of the Bronx River.
Rodrick Bell, a lifelong resident of the Bronx and of Virginia Powhatan descent, guides a community paddle down the Bronx River while padding under the Duncomb Arched Bridges, which have supported the Bronx River Parkway since 1925.
Litter lays scattered in a riparian area along the Bronx River in Concrete Plant Park. Trash and other floating debris are one of the main impairments to the river's water quality.
A Great Egret stands on the river bank near a boom that collects floating refuse and debris at Concrete Plant Park.
Katie Lamboy, Environmental Educator and Science Coordinator at Center for the Urban River at Beczak (CURB) uploads water quality data to the web. A native of the Bronx, Katie's duties at CURB include processing water samples collected for the Bronx River Alliance's citizen science data collection initiative: Project Water Drop. The program tracks multiple indicators of the river's water quality: average dissolved oxygen (DO), PH, and levels of fecal coliform and enterococcus indicator bacteria. This data is crucial in assessing the river's health and locating sewage outfalls illegally discharging waste into the river.
The West Farms rapids in the Bronx, where modern day reclamation efforts began with the Bronx River Restoration Project in 1974.
Linda Cox, the first Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance poses for a photograph at the overlook for the dam at E 180th street.
A defunct milldam in the Bronx Zoo prevents species of anadromous river herring from migrating to the upper reaches of the Bronx River.
A school of fish swim downstream of the combined sewage outfall in Starlight Park in the South Bronx.
One of the 'Pillars of Moses' in the Bronx River at Starlight Park, a support column for a planned, though never completed connection from the Sheridan Expressway onto the Cross Bronx Expressway. At this point, the Bronx River was artificially straightened and given armored embankments to accommodate the project.
Maggie Greenfield, then-Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance and Bronx River Administrator for the City of New York speaks with a journalist after the release of 400 Alewife Herring into the river at the Bronx Zoo, April, 2019.
The remnants of an old boat along the shoreline at Soundview Park, where the Bronx River connects with the Long Island Sound.
Kinney Glass, then-Program and Operations Assistant with Rocking the Boat instructs students from the Bronx Academy for Multi-Media in sailing at the mouth of the Bronx River. During weekly after-school programming at Rocking the Boat, students engage in boat building, sailing, environmental education, and rowing on the Bronx River.
The first cages installed at the Soundview Oyster Reef, New York City's largest, revealed during a 'King Tide', Summer 2021.
Dr. Allison Fitzgerald, New York Oyster Program Coordinator with NY/NJ Baykeeper holds an oyster that was measured during citizen science monitoring of the 5 acre Soundview Oyster Reef, New York City's largest reef.
Diana Fu, then-Education Field Science Specialist at Billion Oyster Project describes oyster anatomy and the process of measuring oysters to students of The Bronx High School of Science. On this day the students placed three cages of live oysters in the river at Concrete Plant Park as a part of the Oyster Research Station Program, an initiative meant to engage students from the city in hands-on science education.
Gevonne Kennett smells a bunch of Sweet Annie (Artemisia annua), that she harvested at the Bronx River Foodway in Concrete Plant Park, July 2023. Sweet Annie is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine and contains the compound artemisinin, an ingredient in antimalarial drugs.
Siddhartha Sanchez, Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance paddles through the West Farms Rapids in the Bronx during the 24th Annual 'Amazing Bronx River Flotilla'. 2024 is the 50th Anniversary of the Bronx River Restoration, the initial a community-led initiative to restore the Bronx River which begun at the West Farms Rapids in 1974.