

The city has about two miles of frontage

on the Hudson River NEWBURGH – The City of Newburgh will spend some $39 million over the next 15 years to improve local water quality and better protect public health from discharges of storm water and untreated sewage during heavy rain. The agreement will reduce almost 100 million gallons of pollution into the river every year, eliminating more than half of Newburgh’s combined sewage overflow, said Dan Shapley, the Riverkeeper environmental organization’s water quality program manager. The approved agreement will see the work accomplished in phases that focuses on improving the performance of the combined sewer system and capacity of the sewer treatment plant. If the overflows were not discharged, the city’s wastewater treatment plan would be flooded and unable to treat wastewater. Mayor Judy Kennedy said many riverfront communities face similar situations because of the way sewer systems were constructed 30 to 50 years ago. “Politicians have been kicking the can down the road for decades and now we are faced with biting the bullet and finding a way to pay for this,” Kennedy said. The mayor believes the state and federal government will help fund the work because one piece of the project is a sewer that runs along the waterfront green space that has prevented the city from doing economic development along Water Street for 60 years. Newburgh has already started with implementation of the Long-Term Control Plan. The city has secured over $2.4 million from the Environmental Facilities Corporation where 25 percent is a grant and 75 percent is a no-interest loan. The city also qualifies for a “hardship” designation that allows it to receive the zero-interest loans and makes it eligible for future grants. “The City of Newburgh recognizes the economic, social and environmental impacts from combined sewer overflows and has been working diligently to usher in a new era of upgraded wastewater infrastructure to protect public health and safety, facilitate economic development through wastewater capacity, and to protect the water quality of the Quassaick Creek and Hudson River.”