The city has banned all recreational activities in the waters north of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, as raw sewage continues to be dumped into the Hudson River following a four-alarm fire yesterday at the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem.

A vital piece of machinery inside the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Harlem was destroyed during the four-alarm blaze.

Officials say they are working on repairs, but they are not sure when they'll be able to get the plant back online.

Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway says the plant is discharging up to 130 million gallons of wastewater a day that could end up affecting area beaches.

"If you were planning recreation activity in Hudson where you could come in contact with the water, which is certainly the case for kayaking or canoeing, then you shouldn't do that on the Hudson right now," Holloway said. "Based on the modeling it could be anywhere from 48 hours or beyond where there could be an impact on public beaches if we're not able to get the plant up and running and deal with the backlog of waste water that's there. There aren't any impacts right now and our goal is to try to get this operation completed without having those impacts."

An exact cause for the fire has not yet been determined.

Meanwhile, some charge that the city is not doing enough to notify the public about the sewage discharge and the risks.

DEP and health officials say they've posted the information on their websites and that they have sent out a Notify NYC alert. A spokesperson said 311 has information on what people should or should not do in response to the sewage dump.