Friday, November 20, 2009

Poor Bronx River...

It seems the latest challenge facing the ecology of the Bronx River is what the Journal News has referred to as a "massive oil-spill cleanup." An explosion at a ConEd substation earlier this month has led to a "light, clear oil similar to mineral oil" being leaked into the river. Click here to view the Journal News' piece.

A few weeks ago as I drove down the Bronx River Parkway I saw a few ConEd workers along with an emergency oil spill cleanup truck working along the banks of the river. I saw the crews out again along the Bronx River in the New York Botanical Garden last week (pictured above). Apparently much of the cleanup efforts are taking place within the Garden and the Bronx Zoo because the river flows at a slower pace in those spots. According to the Journal News article, no wildlife has been found injured as of yet.

Have we missed this story in the NYC local media, or has nobody yet reported on it? It seems like it should warrant some coverage, no?

~ErLu

2 comments:

Greg said...

Thanks for the posting. I just rode by the Gardens on the bus yesterday and saw the work being done. I was wondering if it was a clean-up, or if scientist were conducting research on the river ecology. I agree that coverage of the matter seems unreasonably light.

Anonymous said...

Nope. It's largely escaped the local media. LoHud (Rockland and Westchester papers) mentioned it:

http://tiny.cc/8wUSs

The Bronx River Alliance is keeping people updated:

www.bronxriver.org