The Adams administration is adamant it’s not on track to close Rikers Island jails by a legally mandated 2027 deadline — but meanwhile it’s detailing how to turn the island into a hub for renewable energy and greener public works.
On Monday, the same day Mayor Eric Adams’ budget director, Jacques Jiha, declared to the City Council that “We know it’s not going to happen by 2027,” two city entities delivered reports ordered up by the Council declaring it feasible to build a new wastewater treatment plant on the island, along with solar, battery storage and new equipment to feed offshore wind power into the electric grid.
The reports came as a result of the Renewable Rikers Act, signed into law by former Mayor Bill de Blasio, which seeks to reinvent Rikers as a hub for renewable energy.
But for the city to realize the multi-billion-dollar green vision for Rikers Island, the jail complex on Rikers Island must shutter. That rests on the completion of four borough-based jails, at a cost that Jiha testified has now reached $12 billion.
Another impediment to closing: the current Rikers population of more than 6,200 is significantly higher than the planned 4,160 capacity of the borough jails. Outside criminal justice experts say the Adams administration can and should do more to divert people from jails while awaiting trial.
But Adams continues to cite the size of the jail population as a reason to be skeptical Rikers will close by 2027 and has called for a “Plan B.”
For backers of Renewable Rikers, the reports are a bright spot at a difficult time for those pressing to close the notorious jails.
The reports “reaffirm we can move forward with Renewable Rikers,” said Councilmember Sandy Nurse (D-Brooklyn), chair of the Council Committee on Criminal Justice. “Given the deplorable conditions on Rikers, the cuts to programs that get people out of Rikers and now more announced delays, it is a good thing there was something to show.”
Darren Mack, co-director of Freedom Agenda at the Urban Justice Center and an organizer of the campaign to close Rikers, described frustration at a climate of disinvestment in city communities that rely on government for services and opportunities.
He says he would like to see the Adams administration “restoring all these proposed cuts to all the city programs and agencies that vulnerable people and marginalized communities rely upon,” in addition to “making investments on top of that…with the construction of these facilities.”
Cleaner Water
Renewable Rikers has appeared to be at a near standstill since it was enacted into law more than three years ago by de Blasio. Under Adams, the Department of Correction has not turned over unused facilities to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, as required under the law, and an advisory group meant to plan for the post-jail future of the island skipped required meetings.
But the two reports detailing possible clean-energy plans mark the most significant step so far adhering to the law and show the Adams administration on board with a greener future for Rikers.
“The city has an opportunity to reimagine how Rikers Island can serve New Yorkers,” said city Chief Climate Officer and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rit Aggarwala in a statement. He touted how Rikers could become “a center of state-of-the-art green technologies that would help us achieve our energy, air quality and water quality improvement goals.”
DEP’s report details how a new wastewater treatment plant on Rikers could replace — or augment — four existing treatment plants nearby: Hunts Point in that Bronx neighborhood, Tallman Island in College Point, Bowery Bay in Astoria and Wards Island on Randall’s Island.
Compared to those four existing plants, a new one on Rikers “would improve environmental quality, produce more renewable energy, maximize stormwater management, and grow the circular economy,” according to the report.
Wastewater treatment plants take in and clean the water from toilets, sinks, and other sources, then release the water back into waterways. Building a new treatment plant on Rikers would cost about $34 billion, DEP estimates, which is the same as performing necessary upgrades for the four plants in the area.
A new plant could result in lower operating costs over time, cleaner water and more waste products — along with organic materials — transformed into energy, much like already happens at the Newtown Creek treatment plant, the report details. It also raises the possibility of creating an expanded composting facility on Rikers next to the new treatment plant to turn organic material into nutrient-rich fertilizer.
“We’re glad that…the city found there’s such a great benefit to Renewable Rikers,” said Mike Dulong, legal program director for the environmental group Riverkeeper. “This would be a game changer for New York City’s water quality. There’s no doubt about it.”
Construction of the plant could take place as early as 2035, with the facility beginning to come online in 2045 and fully completed by 2060. But that decades-long timeline, to some environmental advocates, is “incredibly concerning and frankly unacceptable,” said Shravanthi Kanekal, resiliency planner at the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance.
In a separate report, the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice backed an option — among five possibilities assessed — to build the new wastewater treatment plant along with an offshore wind converter station, battery storage and solar power.
That option, not including the cost of the wastewater facility, would cost about $2 billion to build and about $168 million to operate per year, resulting in over $52 million of economic benefits per year (plus $176 million from construction up front), according to the study.
The city’s support for that option came from the “potential to export clean energy at scales large enough to make significant contributions” to climate and renewable energy goals, as well as the potential to transform wastewater management, the report states.
The close Rikers campaign was fueled by years of violence between detainees and guards inside aging facilities. Four court-appointed federal monitors overseeing everything from the building safety to how officers should respond to fights.
The new buildings will be closer to courthouses and eliminate the grueling transportation process known to jail insiders as “bullpen therapy” in which detainees are shuttled to and from courts, starting as early as 3 a.m.
Inmate advocates and public defenders contend the exhausting commute and long waits are used by prosecutors to force people into pleading guilty and avoiding further trips.
Two people have died on Rikers in 2024, following nine in 2023, and 19 in 2022.