NYC - East River Got Raw Sewage During Blackout

NYC - This is something about the 2003 Blackout that we didn't know about: The city dumped 30 million gallons of "untreated human waste" into the East River because the Department of Environmental Protection's backup generators didn't work, department officials admitted that backup power systems in some of the city's sewage treatment plants that should have kicked in immediately after the lights went out in August 2003 did not function properly.
Without electricity to run the pumps, thousands of gallons of wastewater were dumped into New York waterways, forcing the closing of city beaches and increasing the amount of fecal coliform, or human waste, in the water to unsafe levels.

A federal judge of the United States District Court has put the city agency under probation for three years, and this is the "latest embarrassment" for the DEP, joining the "mercury in drinking water reservoirs" and "employees who ignore laws" incidents in the DEP's recent history.

Officials now admit that employees knew that the diesel-powered generators at the wastewater treatment plant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, had not worked for two years.