After my tour of the Solaire and Battery Park City, I had an optimistic view of a future, more sustainable New York City. The Solaire building is famous for its Integrated Water System that combines storm water, groundwater and sewer water. The grey and black water is recycled and reused for toilets, showers and everyday water use for the building’s inhabitants. This minimizes the possibility of combined sewer overflow. Additionally, the solar panels on the face of the building allow for a more environmentally friendly power source. The building is surrounding by green space including Roosevelt Field Park and Teardrop Park that allow for more porous ground that minimizes storm water runoff. Teardrop Park, specifically, is famous for its sustainable efforts. For instance, all the water that is used to irrigate the park’s needs is from the recycled water coming from the Solaire building. The restrooms in the park also reuse black and grey water to prevent excess wastewater. No fertilizers are used in the park itself. Even the parks kid-friendly features like the sprinkler system recycles water and releases water for only 15 minutes at a time.
As I continued walking near the 9/11 Memorial Fountain, I realized how this integrated water system can further minimize storm water runoff that pollutes our open oceans. The 9/11 Memorial Fountain releases 52,000 gallons of water per minute. However, the water does circulate throughout the system every two minutes. If the water used could be rainwater and treated black water, this can further limit runoff. This powerful art display can be a voice to educate people about the importance of water conservation. One of the sustainable features surrounding the 9/11 Memorial is 400 trees that have planted that can absorb storm water. If the trees could have pipes that cycle and reuse the storm water like Teardrop Park this would boost the benefit of the excess green infrastructure. Similarly, the water surrounding the balloon flower can be recycled like the fountains in Teardrop Park. Even though it is not realistic to incorporate an Integrated Water System into every building in NYC, even if 15% of the buildings adapted this sustainable system, runoff would decrease substantially and the effects of combined sewer overflow would lesson dramatically in NYC and in our respective sewer sheds.
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