As flat as a pool table and barely a mile wide at its narrowest, the Rockaway Peninsula — a tongue of land that sticks into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City's southeastern corner — is already vulnerable to storm surges and floods. Global warming, with its rising seas and harder rain, will only intensify those threats. That's what has Vincent Sapienza, the city's assistant commissioner for wastewater treatment, so worried. The Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant, which processes 25 million gal. (95,000 cu m) of sewage a day, sits next to the beach, and its pumps are below sea level. In a major flood, parts of the plant could be submerged, shutting down sewage treatment. "If you lose these pumps, you're done," says Sapienza, standing in the plant's churning basement. "This is a really vulnerable place."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889165,00.html
No comments:
Post a Comment