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The New York City Department of Environmental Protection wants to improve ways to prevent sewage from polluting local waterways during heavy rainfalls through a long-term plan involving green infrastructure.

The Department of Environmental Protection said a nut linking a fuel injector and a pump may have led to a four-alarm fire at a Harlem wastewater treatment plant in July. The fire led to the dumping of millions of gallons of sewage into the Hudson River.

The sewage spill that for a time rendered the city's rivers unsafe for recreation this summer has prompted the City Council's Waterfront Committee to look for ways to improve the city's notifications to businesses directly affected.

A new report from the environmental group Riverkeeper confirmed what many New Yorkers long suspected: sewage pollution can make the Hudson River unsafe for swimming.

City officials have re-opened Sea Gate in Brooklyn, one of four city beaches that was closed following a raw sewage spill from water treatment plant.

The city has now closed four beaches — one in Brooklyn and three on Staten Island — after a wastewater treatment facility dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River following a four-alarm fire last week.

The Harlem sewage wastewater treatment plant dumped 200 million gallons of sewage into the Hudson last week — and over the course of a year, 30 billion gallons of combined rain and sewage overflow is released into the New York harbor, according to the captain of the Hudson Riverkeeper boat, John Lipscomb.

City health officials are telling New Yorkers to stay out of some area waterways after the sewage spill at a Harlem wastewater treatment plant last week.

Pumps are now working at the Harlem wastewater treatment plant that has spilled millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River, officials said. They're hopeful the discharges will end around 6 p.m. Friday.

Cas Holloway, NYC's Department of Environmental Preservation Commissioner, discusses the millions of gallons of sewage released into the Hudson after a fire at the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem this week.

New York City closed an underground water tunnel on Monday that's been used for the past 10 years to flush out the notorious Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The closure is supposed to pay off in the long-term by allowing $135 million worth of improvements to take place, though it also introduces some short-term risks while the tunnel is out of operation.

The city closed an underground water tunnel Monday morning that's been used for the past 10 years to flush out the notorious Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The closure is supposed to pay off in the long-term by allowing $135 million worth of improvements to take place, though it also introduces some short-term risks while the tunnel is out of operation.

When it comes to meeting federal clean water standards, New York and other older cities like Boston and Albany are decades behind. One reason is all the human waste that’s discharged every time a storm overwhelms the capacity of 19th century combined sewer systems, which collect rain and sewage in the same pipes. Now New York is looking to another old East Coast city, Philadelphia, for new ideas.