Team designs filter for river pollutants

Most New Yorkers cringe at the thought of swimming in the noxious Hudson and East rivers.

But a design team hopes to change that by testing a pool that will filter pollutants through its walls like "a giant strainer dropped into the river," allowing swimmers to safely enjoy the water.

"When it's hot in the summer, swimming just seems like a good idea. The river was right there in front of us, so we thought, 'Why not swim there?' " said Dong-Ping Wong, of Family architectural firm in Manhattan's West Village.

Wong and his counterparts -- Archie Lee Coates IV and Jeffrey Franklin, of PlayLab design firm in Crown Heights, Brooklyn -- call their project + Pool. They have raised $25,000 through micro-donations for a preliminary round of testing of the pool's filter technology.

"It's really, really crazy, mind-blowing, encouraging, everything," Wong, 31, said of the nearly 600 people who donated through fundraising website kickstarter.com. "Testing the filtration material, from an engineering standpoint, is the most important thing we need to prove and prove materially."

The project, launched one year ago, is four pools assembled to form a plus shape. They can be used separately for children, sports, lap swimming and lounging; combined to create an Olympic-length lap pool; or opened up into a 9,000-square-foot recreational pool.

Engineers at the consulting group Arup last week declared the project feasible. Now, Wong, Coates and Franklin are testing materials to be layered in the filter, including geo-textiles and disinfection mechanisms.

Because the pool water must be kept circulating, water returned to the river will be cleaner than it was before the project, they said.

The team hopes to raise $500,000 to build a full-scale mock-up to test and present to the public. Their deadline is July 15.

"People are directly contributing to their own product. It's as much theirs as it is ours," said Coates, 27. "We want as many people as possible donating, so when it becomes reality, they feel entitled to it."

Wong, Coates and Franklin, 27, take pride in the project's grassroots aspect, comparing it to High Line Park in Manhattan.

Vickie Karp, spokeswoman for the city Department of Parks and Recreation, said the task is a "huge venture that requires a lot of budget and a lot of clearances."

New York City has 14 miles of beaches and dozens of pools with lifeguards, she added. "We want to help New Yorkers get in the water, but not necessarily in the rivers," she said.

Morty Berger, founder of NYC Swim, which oversees open-water events, said he was excited about the potential of + Pool but called it "a big uphill carry" that, as Karp noted, will be expensive to build and costly to maintain.

The pool will likely cost more than the $5-million Floating Pool Lady -- a pool on a barge docked this summer at Barretto Point Park in the Bronx, Wong said.

The + Pool creators have weighed placing it in such locations as the East River near Brooklyn Bridge Park or in the Hudson River near Battery Park. They hope New Yorkers can use it by the summer of 2012 or 2013, but recognize the many hurdles ahead, from obtaining city permits to meeting health codes.

Roland Lewis, president of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, said the project must be approved by the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. He said + Pool is among the more novel and noble attempts to better the rivers.

"An idea like this really deserves a chance. I applaud them for the dual purposes of cleaning the water and providing recreation," Lewis said.