A tiny new park in Brooklyn has a big job: absorbing and filtering a million gallons of stormwater each year that flows into one of the most putrid waterways in the United States. Located at the end of Second Street on the western side of the Gowanus Canal, the Sponge Park, as it is called, was designed to address decades of environmental degradation of the Gowanus and serve as a prototype for other green infrastructure projects.
Like many older cities in the U.S., New York has a combined stormwater and sewer system. During major storms, the system becomes overwhelmed and untreated water—including sewage—runs into the city’s rivers and water passages, like the Gowanus. These overflows and decades of industrial pollution have helped make the canal one of the nation’s most toxic. Under an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency, New York is bound to drastically reduce the combined sewage overflows, which will improve water quality in the region and beyond.
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