The North River Sewage Treatment Plant, officially known as the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, is one of New York City’s 14 Wastewater Resource Recovery Facilities that collectively treat 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater daily. This plant was originally slated to be built in Chelsea, and then the Upper West Side, but residents in those neighborhoods complained to their elected officials. So, the City decided to build it in West Harlem.
It was a decision that made little sense – economically or practically. The section along the Hudson River bank of West Harlem where it was built is among the highest elevations in all of Manhattan, meaning that building a sewage treatment plant there would requiring pumping all that wastewater uphill, whereas locations in Chelsea or even the Upper West Side were closer to sea level.
The community was kept in the dark about the plan to build the facility, and the architect decided to top it with a park – Riverbank State Park, now known as the Denny Farrell Riverbank State Park – in hopes of placating the community, along with the promise of local jobs. In fact, the promise of jobs is how Peggy Shepard, our Co-Founder & Executive Director, first found out about the plant. She and fellow WE ACT Co-Founder Chuck Sutton were Democrat District Leaders in West Harlem at the time, and their constituents came asking for jobs at this plant.
The community jumped on the job opportunities, but once the plant started operating, they realized what a mistake they had made. The plant was built with open sewage tanks, so the wind coming across the river picked up the stench of raw sewage and carried it into everyone’s homes, businesses, and backyards.
As if that weren’t bad enough, some of the residue was being incinerated as part of the treatment process. This meant that the plant was also pumping out toxic emissions into the community because the facility was built in a rush to comply with the Clean Water Act, which forced the City to stop dumping raw sewage into the Hudson River as it has been doing for decades.
The community was outraged, but no one was sure what to do. City Hall wasn’t listening, and the media only seemed interested in reporting every crime that happened uptown other than this one.
Peggy Shepard and Chuck Sutton, along with future Governor David Patterson and four other local activists, decided to get into some good trouble. On MLK Day in 1988, they marched out onto the West Side highway and stopped traffic to protest the plant and its emissions. They were arrested and the media dubbed them the “Sewage Seven.”
Fresh off that publicity, our three co-founders – Peggy Shepard, Vernice Miller-Travis, and the late Chuck Sutton – sued the City to have the plant fixed. Eventually we achieved a settlement, with $55 million set aside to fix the brand-new facility along with a $1.1 million environmental health fund for the community, that latter of which led to the formation of West Harlem Environmental Action, which we know today as WE ACT for Environmental Justice.