Well, not exactly. Maybe you can take advantage of this on your upcoming vacation!!!
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060627/NEWS02/606270364/1018
By KEN VALENTI
klvalent**lohud.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Stephen Schmitt/The Journal News
Soundkeeper operators Nicholas Smith, left, and Kevin Corti, both of Easton, Conn., pump waste from a yacht's holding tank Wednesday in Mamaroneck Harbor. The free service encourages boaters to pump out tanks at boat yards rather than dump waste into Long Island Sound. Soundkeeper hopes to raise funds to replace three of its boats.
On the Web
• For information or to receive the pump-out service, visit
www.soundkeeper.org
• Connecticut and New York also have Web sites with information on pump-out service.
For New York: www.dec.state.ny.us/website/ dfwmr/fish/pumpoutst.html
For Connecticut: www.dep.state.ct.us/olisp/cva/pumpdir.htm
Related news from the Web
Latest headlines by topic:
• Environmental Law
• Sailing News
• Law
Powered by Topix.net
(Original publication: June 27, 2006)
Kevin Corti jokes about putting a bell on the Soundkeeper boat he operates, just like one on an ice-cream truck, to announce the pump-out service boaters can use free of charge.
Sure, it's not dessert he and his counterparts are dealing in. It's waste. But the good news is, they're taking, not giving.
Corti, helping longtime friend Nicholas Smith set up the service in Westchester waters for the season, only wants more boaters to take advantage of it.
"Why wouldn't you want to help out an area that has children playing like this?" Corti, 23, said as they motored past youngsters swimming at the Hudson Park beach in New Rochelle.
In Mamaroneck, they pumped out the holding tanks of two boats whose owners arranged for the service in advance. Off New Rochelle, they floated around until they were waved down by the owner of the 38-foot sailboat Impromptu, headed for the pump at the New Rochelle marina.
"Ah, beautiful!" Sean Leary, 50, said when Corti told him what they do. Corti and Smith followed him back to his slip at the New York Athletic Club in Pelham Manor, where they pumped out his 7-gallon tank.
Boaters can empty their waste tanks at pump-out stations, such as the one to which Leary was headed in New Rochelle. But the Soundkeeper service makes it that much easier, and becomes necessary when nearby pumps don't work.
Some pumps require fees. Mamaroneck Harbor Master Jim Mancusi said a free pump in the harbor's east basin keeps breaking down and needs to be replaced at a cost of $10,000. He is applying for a grant. Another pump in the west basin is working.
The Soundkeeper service can stop boaters from illegally dumping waste where it can wash up on a beach or where people fish, said Terry Backer, head of the Soundkeeper environmental group.
Boaters are not allowed to dump untreated sewage anywhere in Long Island Sound or within a three-mile limit in the Atlantic. Currently the eastern Connecticut waters are designated no-dumping even with an onboard treatment system.
Rick Huntley, a program coordinator with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare all of Connecticut's waters no-discharge zones.
"We would certainly encourage the folks in New York to follow suit and designate the rest of Long Island Sound as a no-discharge area," Huntley said.
Currently, Mamaroneck Harbor is a no-dumping zone, but most of New York's Long Island Sound waters are not.
Soundkeeper serves the area from New Rochelle to Westport, Conn., usually with four boats, each one essentially a 350-gallon tank with a deck, engine and steering wheel. When the tank on the boat is filled, the operator pumps the waste into a dockside tank, such as the one in New Rochelle.
But with the boats aging - the Greenwich boat is out of service and the area is being covered by the Stamford boat - Soundkeeper is raising funds to replace them. Backer hopes to replace one this year and two next.
He will need to raise $19,000 for each of the boats, which cost about $77,000, he said. Connecticut covers 75 percent of the cost of the boats and operations, money that comes from a federal fund financed by taxes on boat fuel and fishing tackle and duties on imported tackle and yachts, Huntley said. New York state pays 75 percent of the cost of its boat, but not the maintenance, Backer said.
The benefit comes in keeping people from either illegally dumping their untreated waste into the Sound or emptying a tank through an onboard treatment system.
"You do what you have to do to save the Sound," said Alice Bruno as Corti and Smith worked on her sailboat.
Boat owners may maintain their systems improperly, if at all, ejecting sewage with more bacteria than it is supposed to have, Huntley said.
The pump-out work also raises Soundkeeper's profile to let people know about the other work it does, such as restoring marshes, Backer said. "We saw this as an opportunity to do floating educational platforms."
Last year, the four Soundkeeper boats collected an estimated 57,000 gallons of waste during the summer, Backer said. That seems like nothing next to, for example, the 15.5 million gallons of waste treated each day by Westchester's sewage treatment plant in New Rochelle, one of four county-owned plants that empty into the Sound.
But it is important because if a boater dumps waste illegally, or from an onboard system that isn't working well, no one knows where the pollution will go.
"You don't really know where the discharge occurs, so you really can't tell people, 'Don't swim here,' or, 'Don't take shellfish here,' " Huntley said.
When the state began its awareness program eight years ago, Backer volunteered to handle it, even if it did cost money. Since then, several communities have started their own pump-out boats, Huntley said.
With the program up and running for the season, Smith will operate the Mamaroneck boat serving all of Westchester while Corti runs the boat from Stamford. A boat owner doesn't have to be present to take advantage of the service. Owners may call for the pump-out boat, which runs Thursday through Sunday, or sign up online at www.Soundkeeper.org.
On a recent round in Stamford, Corti pumped out the boat of Bick Henchey, a Rye Brook resident who docks his 32-foot Beneteau sailboat in Connecticut. Henchey, who has been sailing most of his 77 years, said the pump-out station at the end of the pier was broken.
He said the service is essential; he docks in a section of Stamford Harbor full of wildlife that is important to preserve.
"We've got swan families, we've got egrets," he said. "It's a very attractive area here."
http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060627/NEWS02/606270364/1018
By KEN VALENTI
klvalent**lohud.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Stephen Schmitt/The Journal News
Soundkeeper operators Nicholas Smith, left, and Kevin Corti, both of Easton, Conn., pump waste from a yacht's holding tank Wednesday in Mamaroneck Harbor. The free service encourages boaters to pump out tanks at boat yards rather than dump waste into Long Island Sound. Soundkeeper hopes to raise funds to replace three of its boats.
On the Web
• For information or to receive the pump-out service, visit
www.soundkeeper.org
• Connecticut and New York also have Web sites with information on pump-out service.
For New York: www.dec.state.ny.us/website/ dfwmr/fish/pumpoutst.html
For Connecticut: www.dep.state.ct.us/olisp/cva/pumpdir.htm
Related news from the Web
Latest headlines by topic:
• Environmental Law
• Sailing News
• Law
Powered by Topix.net
(Original publication: June 27, 2006)
Kevin Corti jokes about putting a bell on the Soundkeeper boat he operates, just like one on an ice-cream truck, to announce the pump-out service boaters can use free of charge.
Sure, it's not dessert he and his counterparts are dealing in. It's waste. But the good news is, they're taking, not giving.
Corti, helping longtime friend Nicholas Smith set up the service in Westchester waters for the season, only wants more boaters to take advantage of it.
"Why wouldn't you want to help out an area that has children playing like this?" Corti, 23, said as they motored past youngsters swimming at the Hudson Park beach in New Rochelle.
In Mamaroneck, they pumped out the holding tanks of two boats whose owners arranged for the service in advance. Off New Rochelle, they floated around until they were waved down by the owner of the 38-foot sailboat Impromptu, headed for the pump at the New Rochelle marina.
"Ah, beautiful!" Sean Leary, 50, said when Corti told him what they do. Corti and Smith followed him back to his slip at the New York Athletic Club in Pelham Manor, where they pumped out his 7-gallon tank.
Boaters can empty their waste tanks at pump-out stations, such as the one to which Leary was headed in New Rochelle. But the Soundkeeper service makes it that much easier, and becomes necessary when nearby pumps don't work.
Some pumps require fees. Mamaroneck Harbor Master Jim Mancusi said a free pump in the harbor's east basin keeps breaking down and needs to be replaced at a cost of $10,000. He is applying for a grant. Another pump in the west basin is working.
The Soundkeeper service can stop boaters from illegally dumping waste where it can wash up on a beach or where people fish, said Terry Backer, head of the Soundkeeper environmental group.
Boaters are not allowed to dump untreated sewage anywhere in Long Island Sound or within a three-mile limit in the Atlantic. Currently the eastern Connecticut waters are designated no-dumping even with an onboard treatment system.
Rick Huntley, a program coordinator with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to declare all of Connecticut's waters no-discharge zones.
"We would certainly encourage the folks in New York to follow suit and designate the rest of Long Island Sound as a no-discharge area," Huntley said.
Currently, Mamaroneck Harbor is a no-dumping zone, but most of New York's Long Island Sound waters are not.
Soundkeeper serves the area from New Rochelle to Westport, Conn., usually with four boats, each one essentially a 350-gallon tank with a deck, engine and steering wheel. When the tank on the boat is filled, the operator pumps the waste into a dockside tank, such as the one in New Rochelle.
But with the boats aging - the Greenwich boat is out of service and the area is being covered by the Stamford boat - Soundkeeper is raising funds to replace them. Backer hopes to replace one this year and two next.
He will need to raise $19,000 for each of the boats, which cost about $77,000, he said. Connecticut covers 75 percent of the cost of the boats and operations, money that comes from a federal fund financed by taxes on boat fuel and fishing tackle and duties on imported tackle and yachts, Huntley said. New York state pays 75 percent of the cost of its boat, but not the maintenance, Backer said.
The benefit comes in keeping people from either illegally dumping their untreated waste into the Sound or emptying a tank through an onboard treatment system.
"You do what you have to do to save the Sound," said Alice Bruno as Corti and Smith worked on her sailboat.
Boat owners may maintain their systems improperly, if at all, ejecting sewage with more bacteria than it is supposed to have, Huntley said.
The pump-out work also raises Soundkeeper's profile to let people know about the other work it does, such as restoring marshes, Backer said. "We saw this as an opportunity to do floating educational platforms."
Last year, the four Soundkeeper boats collected an estimated 57,000 gallons of waste during the summer, Backer said. That seems like nothing next to, for example, the 15.5 million gallons of waste treated each day by Westchester's sewage treatment plant in New Rochelle, one of four county-owned plants that empty into the Sound.
But it is important because if a boater dumps waste illegally, or from an onboard system that isn't working well, no one knows where the pollution will go.
"You don't really know where the discharge occurs, so you really can't tell people, 'Don't swim here,' or, 'Don't take shellfish here,' " Huntley said.
When the state began its awareness program eight years ago, Backer volunteered to handle it, even if it did cost money. Since then, several communities have started their own pump-out boats, Huntley said.
With the program up and running for the season, Smith will operate the Mamaroneck boat serving all of Westchester while Corti runs the boat from Stamford. A boat owner doesn't have to be present to take advantage of the service. Owners may call for the pump-out boat, which runs Thursday through Sunday, or sign up online at www.Soundkeeper.org.
On a recent round in Stamford, Corti pumped out the boat of Bick Henchey, a Rye Brook resident who docks his 32-foot Beneteau sailboat in Connecticut. Henchey, who has been sailing most of his 77 years, said the pump-out station at the end of the pier was broken.
He said the service is essential; he docks in a section of Stamford Harbor full of wildlife that is important to preserve.
"We've got swan families, we've got egrets," he said. "It's a very attractive area here."