Albany and Troy have reportedly been dumping sewage into the Hudson River and not reporting it in a timely manner.
In the last two weeks, Albany has spilled 4 million gallons of sewage into the Hudson River, while Troy has spilled a lesser amount — and failed to comply with state requirements for reporting the incident.
So, new state funding is on the way, but it needs to arrive rapidly and we need even more of it, and unfortunately it comes at a time when the Trump administration is dismantling the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
DEC spokeswoman Erica Ringewald: "DEC reserves the right to pursue actions against municipalities for failure to comply with incident reporting requirements, and as a result of recent wet weather with limited discharge reporting, DEC will continue to investigate the potential for unreported combined sewer overflows."
Albany Water Commissioner Joe Coffey told the Times Union the lack of reporting was due to "human error … our foreman was off and the hand-off for reporting did not get made properly."
"This was not reported by the city of Troy.
The council was not aware, the public was not aware.
It’s a troubling pattern with this present administration, not revealing and contacting the public on major issues such as this or contacting the council."
As of Friday, Troy had not filed notice with the DEC. Riverkeeper Water Quality Program Director Dan Shapley says it’s critical that spills are reported publicly and promptly.
"Communities have done a very good job of creating a website at albanypool.org which provides real time predictions about when overflows are going to be occurring, so people should know that they can check that site and be aware of overflows in the Capital District."