Can a Contaminated Creek Come Clean?

By | Published Feb 14, 2024 | THE CITY

A sign warns about sewage discharge in the Newtown Creek Superfund site.

Newtown Creek is one of the country’s most polluted waterways. Flooding from sea level rise and storms threatens to spread the creek’s contamination and bring pollution from outside the water into it. The feds are figuring out how to include climate change into the clean-up plan they’re developing.

THE CITY’s senior reporter Samantha Maldonado and independent journalist Jordan Gass-Pooré dive in on episode one of Hazard NYC, a four-part FAQ NYC Presents limited series exploring the city’s Superfund sites.

As one scientist puts it, “We cannot accept that there are regions of our city that are so contaminated that we would say, ‘I wouldn’t want to touch it.’ Because guess what? It comes for you. That’s the reality of climate change and our coastal waterways.”

See and read more about Newtown Creek on Newtown Creek: Four Miles of Polluted Waters at Risk of Flooding.

If you like what you’re hearing, please spread the word, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever podcasts are found.

This series is produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York, and supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

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