New York City will receive $26.85 million from the state to manage stormwater, cut down on pollution and reduce flooding during heavy rains, officials announced Wednesday in The Bronx — marking a breakthrough for state environmental funding that until now has been heavily skewed outside the city.
The grant follows reporting by THE CITY that found that less than 2% of the Clean Water, Clean Air and Green Jobs Environmental Bond Act program funds have so far gone to projects in the five boroughs, even though the city is home to more than 40% of the state’s population.
The new city projects, to be spearheaded by the city Department of Environmental Protection, will be backed by the state’s $60 million Green Resiliency Grant Program, which is partly paid for by bond funds.
“This kind of money, any kind of money, is really important to us,” said DEP Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala at an event in Van Cortlandt Park. “New Yorkers voted for this Bond Act in droves, and we are really excited to see that we are beginning to see the first fruits of this Bond Act come to New York City.”
The Bond Act, approved by voters in 2022, allows the state to borrow $4.2 billion to pay for sustainability and resiliency projects, such as water systems, green buildings, coastal protections and electric school buses.
Yet as of early September New York City had received just $6 million of the $313 million allocated, THE CITY revealed.
“New York City certainly hasn’t gotten nearly as much as it deserves, but hopefully over time, we will, and certainly this announcement is a very important piece of that,” said Assemblymember Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-The Bronx).
Including the latest award, the state has so far distributed about 11% of the full $4.2 billion of the Bond Act funding, totaling just under half a billion dollars. New York City has now received about 7% of the total funding for wastewater equipment upgrades and electric school buses, among other projects, according to data from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
According to state officials, New York City’s funding award had to do with it beating the competition from other municipalities rather than any special considerations for its size.
The state official in charge of environmental investments said his agency is working with the city to make sure proposed projects align with state goals — including emphasizing “disadvantaged communities” that must receive about a third of state environmental spending at minimum.
‘We’re really looking most to make sure we’re achieving the goals of the Bond Act, which is making sure that New York State as a whole is more resilient to climate change,” Acting DEC Commissioner Sean Mahar told THE CITY on Wednesday. “With New York City, we are continuing to work directly with them on the way in which they’re designing their projects and applying and how they’re going to be invested in [disadvantaged communities] and to make sure they’re helping us advance that criteria.”
‘A Major Victory’
The state’s turnaround comes after THE CITY’s Sept. 3 reporting prompted local officials to press the state to step up.
Among them was Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), who sent a letter to the state on Sept. 16 citing the “shocking” disparities in funding allocations and requesting funding formulas that treat New York City fairly.
The state’s funding formulas have long been a source of frustration for New York City officials, who charge that the state shortchanges the city. Separate from the new Bond Act money, in both 2022 and 2023, New York City received about 2% of funding from the state water infrastructure grant program. Aggarwala had for over a year pushed the state to distribute more of those funds to New York City.
The total grant funding New York City received Wednesday will go to three projects.
One is the effort to unearth Tibbetts Brook, an ambitious, $133 million project that will reroute the subterranean waterway above ground as it was naturally over a century ago. Doing so will allow the brook to channel water before it hits the sewer system, thereby reducing the raw sewage that flows into the Harlem River during heavy rains that overwhelm the system.
The project, with construction expected to start in late 2025, will also create more space in Van Cortlandt Park and connect the Putnam Greenway with the Empire State Trail, which spans the state.
Department of Parks and Recreation Commissioner Sue Donoghue called the project “a major victory for the city’s environmental infrastructure.”
The second project will turn bodies of water in northern Central Park into a system for managing stormwater.
A third project, to be installed at the Jefferson Houses, a public housing complex in East Harlem, will be able to capture water during sudden, heavy downpours.
The DEP has calculated that it would cost $30 billion and about three decades to improve resiliency to heavy rains across the five boroughs.
