This summer, before you cry foul at Olafur Eliasson‘s waterfalls art project in the East River in Manhattan, tsk tsk tsking about how wasteful it must be, know that the city is trying their best to keep it as environmentally friendly as possible. Found by way of Eyebeam, we ran across this story in the NY Sun about, in brief, that the city bought into this cool Eliasson project but then realized they were going to have to answer to a green-hungry world. Here’s a bit:

“The city recognized that to make this project work they needed to conduct outreach to some of the environmental organizations early on,” Basil Seggos, an environmental lawyer at Riverkeeper, an advocacy group dedicated to protecting the Hudson River and its tributaries, said. “We aired some of our preliminary concerns, and for the most part they’ve been addressed.”

Mr. Seggos said the waterfalls would not harm fish habitats in the river. “The amount of water being withdrawn is fairly minimal, and even considering the low levels of withdrawal, they’ve taken a fairly aggressive approach to mitigate the impact,” he said.