Nature might be healing alongside New York City’s East River. For the first time ever, people have observed a group of rays swimming in one of NYC’s most polluted waterways: the Newtown Creek.
The Newtown Creek Alliance announced the sighting last week, while also sharing an accompanying video on its Instagram account. Though it’s not clear why these fish visited the area, it may be a sign that ongoing efforts to cleanup and curb further pollution of the creek are indeed working.
A history of muck and renewed life
The Newtown Creek is an estuary sandwiched between Brooklyn and Queens. Its waters flow west for about 3.8 miles long before emptying out into the East River. And it’s infamous for being one of the most polluted industrial sites in the whole country.
Starting in the mid-1800s, refineries and other businesses along the creek used it as a dumping ground for their waste products, while oil leaks and spills added even more toxic muck. One spill in particular, the Greenpoint oil spill, is believed to have left behind more oil than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Though these major pollution sources are no longer around and the creek now has a waste treatment center to handle sewage sent its way, rain storms that overwhelm the system still routinely help dump substantial amounts of raw sewage into the creek…