Climate Central Report Released: Sewage Overflows from Hurricane Sandy

Recently, Climate Central, "[a]n independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting the facts about our changing climate and its impact on the American public," released a report titled Sewage Overflows from Hurricane Sandy (2013). According to the report summary for the 43-page report, available here,

[s]ix months after Sandy, data from the eight hardest hit states shows that 11 billion gallons of untreated and partially treated sewage flowed into rivers, bays, canals, and in some cases, city streets, largely as a result of record storm-surge flooding that swamped the region’s major sewage treatment facilities. To put that in perspective, 11 billion gallons is equal to New York’s Central Park stacked 41 feet high with sewage, or more than 50 times the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The vast majority of that sewage flowed into the waters of New York City and northern New Jersey in the days and weeks during and after the storm.

Our analysis of sewage-spill data provided by state agencies and individual treatment plant operators shows that: 

• One third of the overflow (3.45 billion gallons) was essentially untreated raw sewage. The remainder (7.45 billon gallons) was partially treated, meaning that it received at least some level of filtration and, perhaps, chlorination. 

• 94 percent of the spilled sewage, well over 10 billion gallons, was the result of some form of damage caused by coastal flooding. In some cases, Sandy’s storm surge simply flooded treatment plants and pumping stations, while in other cases a combination of power outages and flood conditions shuttered facilities or caused major diversions of sewage into receiving waters. 

• 93 percent of the volume of sewage overflows took place in New York (47 percent) and New Jersey (46 percent). Eighteen of the 20 largest spills ended up in New York and New Jersey waters, as did the four individual sewage overflows of more than 1 billion gallons each; two each from New York and New Jersey. 

• The notable exception to storm-surge related sewage discharges was in Washington D.C., where instead, rainfall was the main culprit. Sandy produced 5.1 inches of rain in 24 hours, leading to the sixth-largest Sandy-related sewage overflow at 475 million gallons of untreated sewage and contaminated runoff. That was the only rain-related sewage spill in the top 30 overflows. Overall, heavy rainfall caused a reported 776 million gallons of sewage spills to waters in Mid-Atlantic States.

ABA / NJ Bar Association: Recovery and Rebuilding After Superstorm Sandy

Legal Perspectives on What We Know and Where We Go

 

Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:30am—5PM

Earn up to 7.2 CLE credits!

The panelists will discuss how making our communities more resilient will require rethinking of physical changes to our environment and also a reconsideration of local federal and state land use and environmental laws and regulations. After an assessment of vul-nerabilities, the conference will take a hard look at how planning, infrastructure, and environmental laws and regulations will need to be changed to address the new paradigm.

 

Register Now!
Registration Fee:
$30 for breakfast, lunch & program (No CLE credits)
$100 for breakfast, lunch, program & CLE credits
Register Online
Download registration Form (PDF)

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Speakers include:
Tim Dillingham, Executive Director, American Littoral Society
Laurie J Sands, Counsel, Riker Danzig Scherer Hyland & Perretti LLP
Ed Lloyd, Professor, Director of Clinical Programs, Columbia University School of Law, Chris Len, Staff Attorney, NY/NJ Baykeeper
Joe Siegel, Attorney, EPA Region 2
Alexandra Dunn, Executive Director, Assoc. of Clean Water Administrators & Chair, ABA Section of Environment, Energy and Resources
Patricia Ruby, Executive Director, Hunterdon Land Trust
Neil Yoskin, Partner, Sokol Behot & Fiorenzo
Pam Esterman, Principal, Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C.
Sean Dixon, Coastal Policy Attorney, Clean Ocean Action
Hon. Bob Smith, New Jersey State Senator, Chair, Senate Environment and Energy Committee
 
For more information visit, http://www.njsba.com/meetings-events/recovery-and-rebuilding-after-superstorm-sandy.html.

Hofstra Conference: Recovery and Rebuilding After Superstorm Sandy - Legal Perspectives: What We Know and Where We Go

Thursday, April 4, 2013 | 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

Hofstra University Club

This conference will examine the significant flaws that Superstorm Sandy revealed in our housing, transit and electric power systems and infrastructure, and the legal implications of addressing those vulnerabilities and climate-change-related impacts. The panelists will discuss how making our communities more resilient will require a rethinking of physical changes to our environment and also a reconsideration of local, federal and state land use and environmental laws and regulations. Insurance and risk management have played and will continue to play a central role in response and recovery; those topics and sources of funding for rebuilding and mitigation will also be addressed.

Opening remarks by Edward P. Mangano, Nassau County Executive.

7.5 CLE credits are available.

Conference Co-Chairs:

Michael Bogin, Partner, Sive, Paget & Riesel, P.C.

Carol Casazza Herman, Visiting Practitioner-in-Residence in Environmental Law and Special Professor of Law, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University

 

For more information, please contact Professor Carol Casazza Herman at Carol.A.Casazza@hofstra.edu or 516-463-2797.

Co-Sponsors:



USGS Report Released: Monitoring Storm Tide and Flooding from Hurricane Sandy Along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, October 2012

Recently, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a report titled Monitoring Storm Tide and Flooding From Hurricane Sandy along the Atlantic Coast of the United States, October 2012 (USGS Open-File Rep. 2013-1043). The 48-page report available here, discusses the following:

[t]he U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) deployed a temporary monitoring network of water-level and barometric pressure sensors at 224 locations along the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Maine to continuously record the timing, areal extent, and magnitude of hurricane storm tide and coastal flooding generated by Hurricane Sandy. These records were greatly supplemented by an extensive post-flood high-water mark (HWM) flagging and surveying campaign from November to December 2012 involving more than 950 HWMs. Both efforts were undertaken as part of a coordinated federal emergency response as outlined by the Stafford Act under a directed mission assignment by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).