NEW YORK — They are everywhere you look: dead fish, on the rocks and tangled in trash bags. Their bodies are lifeless and limp. It's just the latest school of fish to meet its demise in a Mount Vernon stream.

"So you would have like a plume of polluted water, which would have a lot of sewage and would have very little oxygen. That’s would create a fish die-off lie this,” said environmental activist Tracy Brown. 

What You Need To Know

  • Environmental groups, scientists say sewage water from Mount Vernon is polluting NYC waters

  • Mount Vernon has ignored several state and federal court orders to fix its broken sewage system

  • In September, a federal judge issued a court order requiring it comply with the federal Clean Water Act

  • The latest court ruling follows investigation from US EPA, Department of Justice

Brown is the regional director for Save the Sound, an advocacy group that researches the water quality of the Long Island Sound. She says the sewage pipes in the Westchester County city of Mount Vernon are in such a state of disrepair, sewage spills into the Hutchinson River.

“Creating unhealthy conditions for the wildlife clearly and also for people,” said Brown. 

Scientists with Save the Sound say the sewage starts in Mount Vernon, then makes its way downstream to the Bronx. Polluted water spills into the Eastchester Bay and the Bronx River. The East River and Long Island Sound are also impacted. 

Mount Vernon has ignored several state and federal court orders to fix its broken system. Last month, a federal judge issued a court order requiring it comply with the federal Clean Water Act.

According to New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection, the New York Harbor is cleaner today than it has been since the Civil War. Still, there are smaller rivers and streams like those in the Bronx that do not meet federal water quality standards.

“As a parent and as a human, just worried about the future of our waterways and knowing how important marine life,” said Brown. 

For their sake, she’s hoping the court ruling is the watershed moment that she’s been working so hard for. 

The communications director for the mayor of Mount Vernon, Shawn Patterson-Howard, told NY1 that COVID has "seriously impacted City operations and services overall,” adding that, despite the shortfall, the Department of Public Works has completed six of the seven mandatory repairs in the past three months. 

The City also says it has increased its enforcement to bring business and landlords into the city in compliance.

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