NEW YORK - The New York League of Conservation Voters, the nonpartisan voice for New York's environmental community, welcomed today's passage of legislation in the New York City Council that calls for the creation of a storm water management plan by Dec. 1, 2008. Storm water - which contains heavy amounts of nitrogen, bacteria and other pollutants - compromises the health of New York City's waterways and ecosystems.

"This legislation is a vital building block in the city's efforts to improve water quality and make our extensive waterfront the recreational resource that it should be," said Marcia Bystryn, executive director of the New York League of Conservation Voters. "This bill commits the city to studying the sort of innovative and cost-effective solutions that are our best hope of addressing the monumental pollution of our waterways."

Intro 630-A requires the creation of a storm water management plan that will set out a proactive strategy for managing storm water runoff, focusing on source-point control solutions. The plan will cover both public and private property, and will be required to review the feasibility of - and recommend policies to implement - innovative control strategies ranging from rain barrels to street trees and green roofs.

New York City receives an average of 44 inches of precipitation a year, more than most other major U.S. cities. During heavy rains, New York's combined sanitary and storm water systems are designed to overflow into waterways, rather than inundate wastewater treatment plants. However, these discharges - through a network of combined sewer overflows - result in the release of 27 billion gallons of untreated sewage and storm water each year. This colossal quantity of pollution leads to beach closures even after modest rains, and deprives fish and other marine life of the oxygen they need to survive.

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