Watershed Planning in New York City

Urban areas offer unique challenges and opportunities for conserving natural resources and connecting people with nature. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) strives to create and sustain thriving parks and public spaces for all New Yorkers — no small task considering NYC Parks is responsible for stewardship of more than 5,000 individual properties in one of the most densely urban cities in the United States. NYC Parks’ 30,000 acres of parkland amounts to 14 percent of New York City!

Perhaps surprisingly, more than 10,000 acres of NYC parkland are natural areas — forests, woodlands, freshwater and estuarine salt marsh ecosystems. One way that NYC Parks has approached its mission is by taking a watershed-scale approach to planning for natural resource management and restoration, green-space access and connectivity, and community engagement.

The Bronx, one of the city’s five boroughs, presents an interesting case study of NYC Parks’ watershed planning efforts. Over the past 10 years, NYC Parks has participated in the development of two watershed plans for Bronx waterways — the Bronx River and the Harlem River.

The Bronx River

From its headwaters in Westchester County, the Bronx River flows for 23 miles before emptying into the East River. Encompassing more than 56 square miles, its watershed spans two states, three counties and 15 municipalities and is the city’s largest freshwater river.

Historically, the river was forest-lined and fed into a vast tidal marsh system. Over the past two centuries, human activities have significantly altered the river and its watershed — much of its length has been hardened, dammed, piped and/or systematically incorporated into the city’s combined sewer system. Its tributaries and floodplains have been filled, and the forests replaced with dense urban development. These alterations have degraded the river’s ecological health and biological diversity, reduced recreational opportunities and other social benefits to the surrounding communities and, in some places, have cut off the local community from the river entirely. Despite these pressures from a growing metropolis, the Bronx River watershed still contains the largest extent of the city’s original forest and is home to more than 35 species of fish, 40-plus species of birds and numerous mammals, including beavers and coyote.

In 1974, community activists began the process of cleaning up and restoring access to the river. In 1997, a Bronx River Working Group was convened, composed of more than 60 community organizations, public agencies and businesses committed to restoring the river and improving access to it throughout the Bronx. Together, they rallied support to remove more than 640 tons of garbage, 89 cars and 30,000 tires, appliances, bicycles and pieces of furniture. In 2001, with support from NYC Parks, this working group developed into the Bronx River Alliance, a permanent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to continue restoration and advocacy work for the long term.

Through a public-private partnership with NYC Parks, the Bronx River Alliance works collaboratively with a wide range of partners to improve, protect and restore the Bronx River watershed. Since 2001, the Alliance has developed innovative pollution abatement and restoration programs, hosted on-water recreation and education opportunities for thousands of people and engaged community stakeholders in development of multiple watershed plans.

In 2010, building on prior separate planning efforts, NYC Parks, the Bronx River Alliance, Westchester County Department of Planning and the New York Department of State worked together to develop and release the Bronx River Intermunicipal Watershed Management Plan (IWMP) — the first comprehensive plan for the entire Bronx River watershed.

This IWMP was developed with input from more than 100 stakeholders and identifies 10 strategies to achieve an agreed-upon vision for the Bronx River. The plan identified priority projects and management activities and acknowledged that effective watershed protection requires a collaborative, multifaceted approach. Nearly 10 years in, NYC Parks, the Bronx River Alliance and Westchester County have completed most of the restoration projects set out in the IWMP. They are currently seeking funding to update the plan to reflect the progress made and identify opportunities for future additional cooperative restoration work.

This collaborative approach to urban river restoration and protection, driven by community advocacy, is also evident in the other watershed plan that NYC Parks is currently developing — the Harlem River Watershed and Natural Resources Management Plan for the Bronx.

The Harlem River

The Harlem River, a 9.3-mile tidal strait forming the boundary between the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, is a very different waterway from the Bronx River. It was once a meandering, estuarine complex of tidal creeks and marshes that was drastically altered to support shipping and industrial development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These alterations degraded water quality, reduced aquatic habitat and decreased public access to the waterfront. Over the past decade, the city of New York has started to transform the Harlem River’s Bronx shoreline through rezoning, land acquisition and construction of new waterfront parks and greenways, but poor water quality and lack of public access to the waterfront continue to be major concerns of the local community.

The Harlem River Watershed Plan, once published in mid-2019, will serve as a guiding document for agencies, community groups and other stakeholders to implement actions to protect and restore watershed resources. Specifically, the plan will identify opportunities for stormwater management, habitat restoration, improved open space and waterfront connectivity, and public engagement. Comparable to the IMWP, this plan builds on multiple community-led planning efforts and is incorporating community and stakeholder feedback throughout the process to gain consensus and buy-in on goals. Funding for the Harlem River Plan was also provided by the New York State Department of State Local Waterfront Revitalization Program.

The remaining natural ecosystems present in the Bronx and Harlem River watersheds deserve celebration and preservation as an enriching element of what makes NYC unique. Only through collaborative planning efforts that engage residents in the protection and restoration of our urban waterways at the watershed scale will we be able to realize the integral role that parks and public open spaces play in benefiting communities in densely urban areas.

Learn more about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Urban Waters Federal Partnership.

Sara Powell is the Ambassador for the Bronx & Harlem Rivers Urban Waters Federal Partnership. Michelle Luebke is the Director of Environmental Stewardship for the Bronx River Alliance. Jamie Ong is the Environmental Protection Project Manager for New York City Parks.