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Art installation used to test East River water
A fifty-foot plus sign illuminating the East River isn’t hard to miss. The art installation— and floating sensor— analyzes the river’s water quality in real time, sending the data, via satellite, back to scientists.
A fifty-foot plus sign illuminating the East River isn’t hard to miss.
The art installation— and floating sensor— analyzes the river’s water quality in real time, sending the data, via satellite, back to scientists.
“We have a scale of blue to pink. Blue, as you can see right now, means the water quality is pretty good,” says Shawnee Traylor, one of the project advisors.
The floating sculpture was commissioned by Friends of + POOL, and designed by local community groups who are all aiming to educate New Yorkers about water quality and clean up the East River.
“We’re not swimming in the East River right now because there are a bit of contaminants in the water. We have combined sewer overflows that put about twenty-seven billion gallons of raw sewage in the water every single year,” Archie Lee Coates IV, Executive Director of + POOL explains.
Friends of + POOL hopes to change that in the near future.
The non-profit first expressed interest in bringing a self-filtering pool to the East River back in 2010.
In September, the city’s Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) posted a notice asking would-be pool operators to submit their plans for development.
“Having grown up in New York City, and seeing the east river for many years, it’s amazing to see this floating and the color— which means the water is clear and it’s swimmable,” said Saul Scherl, President of the New York Tri-state Region of The Howard Hughes Corporation.
While those proposals pour in, project advocates say they’ll continue to call attention to the ever-important issue.
“I hope the takeaway is a better understanding of the heartbeat of a water body. It’s not always the same. There’s a real fluctuation with the tides and the currents. It’s alive,” Traylor says.
The colorful art installation will remain floating in the East River through January.