Free way to +POOL, the first self-cleaning floating pool that will be built on the waters of the East River allowing residents to re-appropriate the river
For more than 10 years we have been studying the project for the self-filtering basin that will allow to cleaning the New York river
Never was there a more appropriate time to launch the project that will allow residents of Manhattan’s Lower East Side to dive into the waters of the East River. Even the recent controversy over the competitions held in the Seine during the Olympic Games in Paris has prompted New York City to approve the +POLL project. This water-filtering floating pool will clean the New York river and make it suitable for swimming.
Over 3.7 million litres of water filtered per day
Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams announce the upcoming installation of the +POOL self-filtered floating pool, which, after 10 years of planning, will be located at Pier 35 along the banks of Manhattan’s East River.
The three-month water filtration demonstration project will start this month to ensure that the pool meets safety and health standards. Following the final test, an 186 sqm pool ready for 2025 will be constructed.
A small team of engineers led by Dong-Ping Wong and architects Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeffrey Franklin and Oana Stanescu created the project in 2010. Initially launched on Kickstarter, + POOL raised in a few days over $40.00 then intended to test the feasibility of the project. The subsequent crowdfunding campaign earned over $300,000, leading him into the project team of Arup, a leader in environmental sustainability consulting in architecture and design.
The figures speak of about 3.7 million litres of water (1 million gallons) of the East River filtered every day, inside the pool in the form of “more” and all without the use of chemicals.
A social as well as environmental purpose
The initiative is part of a broader project to provide access to urban waters by encouraging the local population, even the most disadvantaged, to take over these areas. According to the “Friends of +POLL” team, New York’s rivers and pores are “among the cleanest of recent years” with a significant reduction in the average levels of fecal coliforms and Enterococcus. The water-filtering floating pool will add to the efforts made to reduce the number of unlawful spills of raw dirt into the river, promoting safe access to the water stream.
Also read New York completes the first part of the East Side’s maxi climate resilience project
How to clean up the river without chemical agents
In 2017, Friends of + POOL filed a provisional patent application on this filtering system, followed by an international patent in 2018. The technology involves using a single system consisting of three layers and a final disinfection certified according to bathing water standards. The East River water is first pumped into a feeding basin equipped with a filtering system to prevent fish or large debris from entering the system. The liquid is then pumped through a 200-micron automatic wash filter to be inserted into the polymer filtration membranes that will treat the water for turbidity, bacteria, organic particulates and some viruses. Finally, we proceed to the final phase with ultraviolet irradiation to ensure the proper disinfection of water-filtering floating pool.
