EPA Urban Water Program Grant to NYC Parks

EPA Provides Urban Waters Program Grant to NYC Parks.

All to Boost Citizen Science in City Parks along the Bronx and Harlem Rivers

(New York, N.Y. – July 17, 2014) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing a $60,000 grant to NYC Parks. That’s for work that’s improving the water quality in parks. That’ll be along the Bronx and Harlem Rivers. Moreover, the funding is part of the EPA’s Urban Waters program. This program supports community efforts to restore and revitalize many urban waterways. That’s from:

local canals
rivers
lakes
wetlands
aquifers
estuaries
bays
and ocean areas.

All to provide access to them. The goal of the EPA Urban Waters program is to fund research, investigations, experiments, training, surveys, studies and demonstrations. These efforts advance the restoration of urban watersheds. Clearly, that’s emphasizing underserved communities.

Residents of New York City deserve clean and accessible urban rivers. The Bronx River and the Harlem River are real community assets. That was said by EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. For this EPA support will help educate young people and others. Especially about the ecological resources in these rivers though hands-on citizen science.

NYC Parks Administers the EPA Urban Waters Program Grant

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NYC Parks will hire a Community Engagement Coordinator to create a volunteer monitoring program that engages local community groups and schools. The volunteers will collect important data on oyster reef restoration, alewife migration, and eel populations. Also, the program will expand awareness on the importance of improving water quality. Monitoring program volunteers will be sought from the Bronx, where 30 percent of residents live below the national poverty line. As a result, the project will help address water quality improvement, aquatic habitat restoration, and community engagement goals identified in multiple region-wide plans.

The EPA is awarding grants ranging from $40,000 to $60,000 for projects taking place in areas that align with the 18 designated Urban Waters Federal Partnership locations. The Urban Waters Federal Partnership is a partnership of 14 federal agencies working to reconnect urban communities with their waterways by improving coordination among federal agencies. In addition, it collaborates with community-led revitalization efforts. All funded projects work to advance environmental justice in their communities. They focus on one of the following three categories: community greening and green infrastructure, communities and water quality data, or integration of water quality and community development in planning.

EPA Urban Waterways Program Helps

Many urban waterways have been polluted for years by sewage, toxics, runoff from city streets and contamination from abandoned industrial facilities. As a result, healthy and accessible urban waters can help grow local businesses and enhance economic, educational, recreational and social opportunities in nearby communities. By reconnecting communities to their local urban waters, the EPA will help communities to actively participate in restoring urban waters. At the same time, this will improve their neighborhoods.

Conclusion

The EPA Urban Waters Program grant showed how collaboration can improve things. That’s both water quality and community engagement in New York City. Moreover, funding from the EPA Urban Waters Program helped NYC Parks. For they were able to essentially expand citizen science efforts along the Bronx and Harlem Rivers. As a result, local residents, schools, and volunteers gained opportunities. That’s to monitor ecosystems and support restoration projects firsthand.

In addition, the program strengthened awareness of urban waterways and their importance to neighborhood health. Consequently, more people became connected to the rivers that flow through their communities. At the same time, projects supported by NYC Parks stewardship initiatives encouraged habitat restoration and long-term environmental stewardship.

Ultimately, investments like this create cleaner waterways, stronger communities, and a more sustainable future. Therefore, continued support from organizations such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency remains essential. When residents participate, rivers recover. When communities engage, lasting environmental change follows.