Tibbetts Brook was dammed in the 18th century to create a pond that still exists in Van Cortlandt Park. Part of the brook was buried underground around 1912. Photo credit: Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
Tibbetts Brook was dammed in the 18th century to create a pond that still exists in Van Cortlandt Park. Part of the brook was buried underground around 1912. Photo credit: Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times

‘Daylighting’ NYC's Tibbetts Brook: MLA Alumna Helps Unearth Stream from 1912 to Combat Stormwater Overflow

By Lori Atherton

Tibbetts Brook, a long-buried stream in New York City that flows from Yonkers to the Bronx, soon will be resurfaced above ground as part of an ambitious daylighting project that will reduce the city’s combined sewer overflow (CSO) into the Harlem River.

Daylighting is the process of restoring a stream to its natural state by removing any obstructions covering it, such as concrete or pavement, according to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is responsible for managing New York City’s water supply. It is spearheading the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting Project at a cost of $130 million.

“New York City is an island, surrounded by water and most of it former salt marsh that was once fed by tidally influenced streams and tributaries. Much of the city wants to be wet,” says University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) landscape architecture graduate Amy Motzny (MLA ’15), section lead in climate and equity at DEP who is serving as the Tibbetts Brook project manager. “The area was originally long inhabited by the Lenape people, who cultivated the fertile marshland for food production. When European settlers began to colonize the region, the land was manipulated—for trade, manufacturing and urbanization as we know it today.”

During urbanization, Motzny says, many of New York City’s historic waterways were channelized and put underground in pipe systems, becoming part of the combined sewer system, including Tibbetts Brook. Through this system, Tibbetts Brook currently discharges into the Harlem River, one of the waterways in the city that is most impacted by CSO.

DEP has implemented more than 11,000 green infrastructure projects, including bioswales and rain gardens, throughout the city that are designed to intercept stormwater and reduce CSO, Motzny notes, but Tibbetts Brook is considered our “largest and most ambitious project to date.”

It’s an opportunity to expand the way in which New York City has been pursuing green infrastructure over the last 10 years.”

Combined sewer overflow occurs when stormwater overwhelms the sewer system during wet weather events. Most major cities, including New York City and Detroit, use a combined sewer system that collects rainwater runoff, sewage and industrial wastewater into one pipe that is designed to flow to a wastewater treatment plant, where it is treated and safely discharged back into nearby waterbodies, according to Motzny.

“Within NYC, there are approximately 1.4 billion gallons of flow per day to wastewater recovery facilities,” Motzny notes, “and there are 14 wastewater treatment plants that take wastewater, treat it and safely discharge it to the local waterways. Our sewer network includes 7,400 miles of pipes.”

Amy Motzny
Amy Motzny

During heavy rainstorms, which are occurring with more frequency and severity because of climate change, combined sewers receive a higher-than-normal amount of stormwater, which overtaxes the sewer system and causes a mix of stormwater and untreated sewage to flow directly into rivers, streams or other bodies of water. 

The Tibbetts Brook project is estimated to reduce CSO into the Harlem River by about 220 million gallons per year, says Motzny.

Daylighting Tibbetts Brook—part of which was buried underground in 1912—involves removing the pipe and opening the stream, which will become an open channel that will collect and hold stormwater flow, Motzny says. The project will begin in the Bronx in Van Cortlandt Park, then move south for more than a mile before connecting to a larger greenway system that crosses a former railroad corridor owned by CSX Transportation.

The greenway is a major piece of the project, Motzny says, and will be a rails-to-trails park like The High Line, a public space built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side where visitors can experience nature, art and design.

A rendering of W. 234th Street in the Bronx looking north. Image credits: New York City Department of Environmental Protection
A rendering of W. 234th Street in the Bronx looking north, as it will appear after completion of the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project. Image credit: New York City Department of Environmental Protection

“Tibbetts Brook is such an exciting project because it’s so innovative,” enthuses Motzny, who was introduced to the concept of daylighting at SEAS. “It’s an opportunity to really expand the way in which New York City has been pursuing green infrastructure over the last 10 years, and that’s what I find most inspiring about it: It has an amazing benefit of reducing combined sewer overflow while serving as a beautiful park—providing numerous co-benefits that people will enjoy.

“And while we have a lot of amazing parks in New York City,” she adds, “we still don’t have enough parkland to serve the population of the city, particularly in environmental justice areas, which includes much of the Bronx.”

The daylighting project is set to begin construction in 2025 and will be completed by 2028. It’s an ambitious timeline, Motzny concedes, and one that is being driven by state and federal government regulatory requirements to be compliant with the Clean Water Act.

A rendering of Van Cortlandt Park looking north, as they will appear after completion of the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project. Image credit: New York City Department of Environmental Protection
A rendering of Van Cortlandt Park looking north, as it will appear after completion of the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project. Image credit: New York City Department of Environmental Protection

A large part of Motzny’s role as project manager involves coordinating with engineers and other landscape architects at DEP, an agency that employs more than 6,000 people, as well as outside entities, including the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, the New York city and state Department of Transportation, and CSX, the railroad company that owns the property that will become the Tibbetts Brook greenway.

A map highlights the scope of work for the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project. Image credit: New York City Department of Environmental Protection
A map highlights the scope of work for the Tibbetts Brook Daylighting project. Image credit: New York City Department of Environmental Protection

Since graduating from SEAS, Motzny has devoted her career to stormwater management in New York City. Much of her work at DEP builds upon her previous experience at Gowanus Canal Conservancy, a grassroots organization in Brooklyn that fosters community stewardship of the Gowanus Watershed.

Motzny was a watershed senior planner at Gowanus, where she led the creation of a master plan to rezone the neighborhood surrounding the Gowanus Canal, a Superfund site, from industrial manufacturing to residential mixeduse. Motzny worked closely on one of the rezoning conditions that involved net-zero combined sewer overflow, which meant that any new development would not contribute additional sewage into the Gowanus Canal and surrounding waterways.

SEAS, says Motzny, was instrumental in giving her a strong foundation in place-based work and regional watershed planning. “So much of my coursework was directly set in Detroit, a city facing water challenges, and it gave me the opportunity to not only connect with the land, but with the people and the communities,” says Motzny, who brings those same place-based experiences into her assistant professorship at the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment, where she teaches a Sustainable Communities course and a Green Infrastructure Studio.

“My time at SEAS really gave me the tools to be able to participate in different types of conversations and solve multifaceted problems,” Motzny says. “My advice for students would be to gain a little exposure to everything, because you will use it.”

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