About NYCWTA
Our Mission
To support safe use of the New York City Water Trail, expand public access to all of the harbor’s urban waterways, and promote environmental stewardship of the harbor and estuary.
Our History
The idea of a New York City water trail–a harbor-wide network of launches and landings for human-powered boats–was first proposed in 2007, by Dottie Lewandowski, then the Queens Parks Commissioner and an avid kayaker and outdoorswoman. It was enthusiastically received by the Bloomberg administration, which saw it as aligning with the mayor’s other sustainability and public health initiatives.
At Lewandowski’s suggestion, a small “steering committee” of veteran paddlers formed the New York City Water Trail Association to support safe use of the Water Trail and advocate for the common interests of the harbor’s community boathouses and independent paddlers. Committee members built an informational website, formed an online discussion group, and worked with the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (now the Waterfront Alliance) and Going Coastal to create a paper map of the Parks Department existing kayak and canoe launches, 28 in all.
On March 27, 2008, at Valentino Pier Park in Redhook, a group of 20-odd paddlers and public access advocates joined with Lewandowski and her boss, Parks Commissioner Adrien Benepe, to launch the map and officially open the Water Trail.
A half-dozen updated maps followed in succeeding years, as new waterfront parks were built and new launches came online. Meanwhile, cognizant of the potential for conflict between the harbor’s commercial and recreational mariners, and of the need for more training and education on all sides, the Water Trail Association began working with the Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations Committee (aka “Harbor Ops”), a Coast Guard-convened group of harbor stakeholders. The result was a series of well-attended ‘Captains and Paddlers Days’ where professional mariners and human-powered boaters met to exchange views and information, and even offer one another rides in their respective vessels–events which continue today under the aegis of Harbor Ops’ Education Subcommittee.
On a hot July weekend in the summer of 2011, a major fire broke out in the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Harlem. After operators shut the plant intake, millions of gallons of untreated sewage began draining directly into the harbor from outfalls on both the Hudson and the Harlem River. The city agency responsible for wastewater, the Department of Environmental Protection, was initially unable to determine the size and location of the discharges, and though they were testing the harbor’s waters for contamination, bureaucratic obstacles prevented them from sharing the results. With no clear information or guidance to rely on, Water Trail launches were closed for almost two weeks by the Parks Department and other site managers out of an “abundance of caution.”
Frustrated by the DEP’s opaque testing and notification system, the Water Trail Association and The River Project (now Hudson River Park’s River Project), with support and encouragement from Riverkeeper, launched an independent sewage pollution monitoring campaign–the Citizens Water Quality Testing (CWQT) Program. What started as a pilot study in the fall of 2011, with volunteers collecting samples at a half-dozen sites in Manhattan, quickly grew into one of region’s biggest citizen science initiatives, with volunteers sampling weekly from May to October at over 70 sites around the harbor.
The initial goal of the program was to assemble a long-term record of near-shore sewage pollution that boaters, swimmers and fishermen could use to predict likely water quality at their preferred access points. It quickly became apparent, though, that the data were also very useful for education and advocacy purposes. And in two particularly gratifying cases, at Halletts Cove in 2014 and again in Coney Island Creek in 2016, CWQT data and activism contributed to the discovery and response to illicit sewage discharges that were fouling the harbor.
In 2022, the Water Trail Association passed stewardship of the CWQT program to the Billion Oyster Project’s Community Engagement department (it’s now officially known as the Community Water Quality Testing Program). More info and weekly results are available here.
In 2016, noting the increasingly crowded waters around the Statue of Liberty, a coalition of recreational and commercial mariners led by the Water Trail Association launched a petition to reopen the passage beneath the Ellis Island Bridge, which links the island to Liberty State Park in Jersey City and which had been shut to all navigational traffic since the attacks of September 11, 2001. The idea was to provide small boats with the option of traveling to and from the Statue along the edge of Liberty State Park rather than out in the main shipping channel. In 2018, after a two-year rulemaking process, the Coast Guard announced a new policy: human-powered boaters can now cross under the bridge on weekends and holidays from Memorial Day Weekend through October 1.
In the 15 years since the Water Trail Association was founded, one of the most visible changes in the harbor has been the proliferation of high-speed commuter ferries. Designed in large part to serve those living in the new wave of residential waterfront towers, and benefitting from substantial public subsidies, they offer commuters and tourists an appealing alternative to cars, buses and subways.
Although NYCWTA is not by any means opposed to ferries–we believe there’s room in the harbor for every kind of vessel, and appreciate the bustle and excitement of a busy working port–our biggest fear has always been a major ferry-kayak accident. Nevertheless when it actually happened, one afternoon in August, 2016, we were shocked–and doubly dismayed when the year-long Coast Guard investigation somehow concluded that the kayakers “shared responsibility” for the accident with the skipper who had run them over.
Ultimately, the accident reinforced our determination to become full partners in the larger harbor community. For the past several years we have attended monthly meetings of the Harbor Safety, Navigation and Operations (Harbor Ops) Committee. Aside from helping to run many of the city’s community boathouses, our steering committee members are part of many other waterfront organizations and interest groups, including the Hudson River Park Advisory Committee and the Public Access and Water Quality Working Groups of the New York-New Jersey Harbor and Estuary Program. Going forward, we hope to continue to push out new communication and education initiatives, like our Shared Waters Map and the recent series of wheelhouse visits for paddlers on board both NYC Ferries and the Staten Island Ferry, produced in partnership with the Harbor Ops Education Subcommittee.
Who we are
Our “Steering Committee” is essentially an email circle coordinated by Rob Buchanan, a board member at the Village Community Boathouse, the North Brooklyn Community Boathouse, and Sebago Canoe Club, and comprised of several other boathouse leaders and organizers including Willis Elkins, Ray Fusco, Phil Giller, Dottie Lewandowski, Bill Orme, and Dewey Thompson. If you are a boathouse leader or experienced paddler who would like to join us in working to advance the common interests of the harbor’s community boathouses and independent paddlers, please get in touch.
We also host a harborwide Google Group (NYCWaterTrail) to share news of interest to the human-powered boating community, and to promote discussion about related waterways and waterfront issues; email us at info@nycwatertrail.org if you’d like to join.
In Memoriam: Nancy Brous, 1969-2022
Nancy was an expert kayaker and legendary in the New York City paddling community not only for her speed and style on the water, but also her tireless advocacy for human-powered boating, sensible waterfront design, and clean, safe waterways. She served as Vice President of the Hudson River Watertrail Association and co-chair of Paddle for the Cure NYC. She was an early member of the Downtown Boathouse, a founding member of New York Kayak Polo, and a co-founder of both the New York City Water Trail Association and the Citizens Water Quality Testing Program. Her legacy lives on in all those she worked and paddled with.
Support the Water Trail Association
The Water Trail Association is a collective effort to increase and protect free public access to our waterways for all New Yorkers, to promote safe human-powered boat use through communication, education and outreach, and to make sure the voice of the non-motorized boating community is heard by policy-makers. We don’t have boats, offices or any other major physical assets, but it does cost money to keep our website up and running, print promotional materials, and produce educational events. If you’d like to make donation, you can click the button below or send us a check in the mail (click the ‘Contact Us’ button at the bottom of the page for our mailing address).