Work starts on a $35.7M stormwater system in Central Park

Today the three water bodies are topped up with city drinking water. Once built, the North End Recirculation System is to pump water from Harlem Meer south toward the Pool, filter it there and let gravity carry it back through the Loch to the Meer, according to ENR. Ahead of big storms, operators will be able to draw the Meer down so it can hold runoff from a 204-acre section of the park instead of sending it into the combined sewers that serve Harlem and East Harlem.

Most of the work will be buried. Plans call for filtration vaults by the Pool and at the south end of the Meer, recirculation pipe about 5 ft deep across the North Meadow, a filtration vault and wet well about 15 ft below grade at the Meer, and a new drain tying the Pool into a sewer main at West 98th Street and Eighth Avenue. Crews will also dig out built-up sediment from the Meer and rebuild shorelines with gabion bases and coir logs. Because Central Park carries National Historic Landmark status, archaeologists recommended monitoring along parts of the pipe route.

eDesign Dynamics designed the system. ConstructConnect reported that the announcement did not name a general contractor. The city is putting in more than $19.6 million in capital funds, $14.2 million of it from DEP; the state adds a $10 million Green Resiliency Grant, and Conservancy donors $3.5 million. City officials expect the system to divert about 132 million gallons a year from the sewers, reduce drinking-water use by 175 million gallons and cut stormwater flows from that part of the park by 90%. Those numbers are projections, not measurements.