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SUMMER 2018

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Executive DirectorIda Sanoff

CAWD

DirectorAssistant Secretary

Tony RoseStaten Island Sport Divers

DirectorTreasurer

MembershipNewsletter

Richard ChanNRPA

PresidentJim Scarcella

NRPAFriends of Clearwater

Vice PresidentCharles Perry

Protectors of Pine OakWoods

SecretaryDaniel Ingellis

NRPA

Assistant TreasurerJohn Malizia

S. I. Yacht Club,S. I. Tuna Club, FCA

TRUSTEES

Dr. Martin SchreibmanBrooklyn College AREAC

Dr. John T. TancrediMolloy College

Cindy ZipfClean Ocean Action

AMAZING MUTANT CRAYFISHPage 2 BOOK CORNERPage 3 THE BEAUTY OF NATUREPage 4 OAKWOOD BEACH CLEANUPPage 5 SHARROTT AVENUE PIER CLEANUP

In Memory of Edward “Kerry” Sullivan

Page 5 HAPPY EARTH DAY!Page 5 THE STORIES OF PENN AND FOUNTAINPage 7 BEACH GRASS COMES TO BROOKLYN!Page 8 UPCOMING EVENTSPage 8 JOIN NRPA TODAY

By 2003, there was a lot of interest about themarbled crayfish and genetic testing showedthat it was similar to the slough crayfish thatwas native to Central America and NorthAmerica. But scientists concluded that sincemarbled crayfish are not found in these areas,it had to be a new species that had somehowarose from a mutant crayfish in a home aquar-ium somewhere in Germany. After severalyears, scientists were able to fully map themarbled crayfish’s genetic material and theywere shocked at what they discovered. Nor-mally, a crayfish would have two sets of chro-mosomes, one from its male parent and onefrom its female parent. But these marbledcrayfish had three sets of chromosomes, indi-cating that something had gone awry in acrayfish embryo, many generations ago. Nor-mally, an embryo with three sets of chromo-somes would be so deformed and malfunc-tioning that it would never develop into anadult crayfish. But somehow, this mutant notonly survived, but thrived and grew up to be afemale crayfish whose eggs could developinto adults without a male parent. The off-spring were only females and they were allidentical clones of the female parent crayfish.

A population of clones is not really a goodthing for the long term survival of a population.Since all of the individuals have the same ge-netic makeup, something that affects one ofthem will ultimately affect all of them. For ex-ample, if the crayfish is susceptible to a dis-ease, all members of the population will alsobe susceptible since they are genetically iden-tical. When there are both male and femalemembers in a population, genes can combinein random ways in their offspring, so at leastsome will likely survive a disease.

It will be interesting to see what happens tothe marbled crayfish in the future. Will therebe a mass die off from some unknown dis-ease or will it continue to thrive for millennia?

AMAZING MUTANT CRAYFISHBy Ida Sanoff

It sounds like science fiction but it’s real: Amutant crayfish that can clone itself withoutbenefit of a mate, is spreading around theworld.

A February 5, 2018 article in the New YorkTimes by Carl Zimmer, “This Mutant CrayfishClones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe”,provides fascinating detail about the life ofthis interesting critter. You can find the articlehere: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/science/mutant-crayfish-clones-europe.html

It appears that the marbled crayfish didn’texist before 1995. Around that time, a Ger-man aquarium enthusiast purchased a crus-tacean that was sold as a “Texas Crayfish”.And it was a very, very, very prolific breeder!The large crayfish laid hundreds of eggs at atime and people soon had so many that theygave them to friends and pet shops. Thenthey noticed something interesting: The cray-fish were able to reproduce without a mateand all of the offspring were female. Andonce they matured, they too were able to re-produce without a mate. People who had asingle crayfish ended up with more than theycould handle, so they ended up dumpingthem into the nearest lake and stream. Thecrayfish could survive almost anywhere andwere also able to walk from one area to an-other. Soon they were found all over EasternEurope and even made their way to Japanand Madagascar. And of course, becausethey were such prolific breeders, there wereconcerns that they would push out nativespecies.

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SUMMER 2018NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

(continued next page)

Another spin on the same topic isGotham Unbound. I first learnedabout this book during a talk by itsauthor, Ted Steinberg. He was thekey speaker at a presentation spon-sored by the environmental group,NYCH2O. The topic was “Can NYCSurvive the Sea.” The speaker not-ed that Post-Sandy New York has147 square miles of city included inits hurricane evacuation zone.

The outline of his talk mirrored thefour salient points covered in hisbook; the sale of land under water,the 1811 grid plan for developingNew York, the 19th century calm afterthe storm and 20th century marsh-land loss.

This is a more academic book. It isfact-driven and filled with graphs,maps and tables but it is never a dryread. The reader is engaged andoutraged by the underlying premiseof this book; that development inNew York is relentless and has nev-er had a recognizable endpoint. Oneconcept offered up as recently as2013 was to connect Governors Is-land to Manhattan by landfill to cre-ate LoLo, or Lower Lower Manhat-tan.

Steinberg starts, like Mark Kurlan-sky, with Henry Hudson. His story isfilled with off-hand ‘Aha!” comments,like noting that the Dutch, unlike theearly English settlers who clearedthe forests to set up shop, gravitatedto marshy meadows more like their

BOOK CORNERBy Tony Rose

Members of the NRPA are seriouslyinterested in the City of New Yorkand the waters that surround it.Some of them are avid historians.We have books for both of them. Infact, most people with any interest inthe subject would be well served byboth books.

What have we been reading lately?One of the books that has served asa primer for new environmentalists inour area is The Big Oyster. Thistome by food author Mark Kurlanskyhas been described as ‘a mulluscularhistory of New York.’ Kurlansky hasalso authored food-related historybooks such as Cod, in which he de-scribes man’s exploitation of thisfood source since the discovery ofthe new world and Salt, a book thatrelates man’s reliance on this miner-al and the ways it has affected poli-tics and finance throughout history.

Kurlansky begins his oyster storywith Henry Hudson entering NewYork harbor. He finds middens, ormounds of oyster shells as high as aman and ten feet across at the base.The shells were the size of a dinnerplate. They were reported to be themost delicious specimens reportershad ever had.

Oysters only grow in an estuary, thatspace where fresh and salt waterinterface. Geography has alwaysplayed a major role in the destiny ofthe harbor, from the days of indige-nous people to present day resi-dents. New York Bay is often seenas the mouth of the Hudson River orNorth River as it was originallyknown. It is also the repository offlows from the Hackensack and Pas-saic rivers as well as the Raritan andRahway rivers that feed the ArthurKill and Kill Van Kull and go to thesea past Sandy Hook. Staten Islandseparates the Upper Bay from theLower Bay. The author states thatone reported origin of the namePrince’s Bay (listed in some placesas Princess Bay) stems from thenarrative that the Prince of Norwaywould only eat oysters harvestedfrom Raritan Bay. Much of the har-bor was (and still is) shallow waterand oyster used to be wall-to-wall.New York was renowned the worldover for the abundance and flavor of

its native citizen. Every street in NewYork had multiple street level oysterbars. If you went to Coney Island in1900, you didn’t get a hot dog, youfrequented a vendor on the board-walk with an oyster cart and had ahalf-dozen shelled oysters or a cupof chowder cooked on an alcoholburner from the lower shelf of hiscart.

The Big Oyster is an easy and en-gaging read. Kurlansky effortlesslyunspools his narrative from Petr Min-uet through the community of freeblacks in Sandy Ground on the Ar-thur Kill to the more current, ominousgrowth of population in The Apple.He ends with a discussion of activi-ties in the city related to a burgeon-ing environmental movement. Henotes that progress is being made,but it is grudging and slow.

The Big Oyster: History on the HalfShell was published in 2006 by Bal-lantine Books. It is 307 pages andcurrently out of print, but very acces-sible on EBay and Amazon. I recent-ly bought a copy on EBay for fivedollars (with Free Shipping!). I usual-ly buy multiple copies. I like to havecopies at home or at work so when aconversation turns to the environ-ment, I can turn another person on toone of my favorite books. I tell themI don’t want the book back, I wantthem to pass it on to the next lover ofnature who they think will enjoy thebook and engage with their environ-ment. I urge you to do the same.

SUMMER 2018 NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION

On a good note, the exhibit's expertshave trained falcons, kites andhawks which all put on a perfor-mance for me and approximately 40visitors. These birds are clever,have acute sight and move withspeed. These birds were at one timeinjured and brought back to goodhealth and free to leave for the wild.

Two things occurred, one, trainersdecided to train these birds who arewell taken care of and fed better thenif they were in the wild and two, thebirds are pretty intelligent and realizethey are better off being on displaythen free. Folks, these birds have nowires, ropes, etc. on them, they canfly away and never return to thesanctuary which one or two did aboutfive years ago. As I stated there areadult owls at the sanctuary who wereinjured and unable to be returned tothe wild.

But the biggest attraction on my visit

lands.

Steinberg’s book describes thegreater New York region so he in-cludes the loss of marshland in theBergen peninsula that became Ba-yonne and Jersey City. Hobokenwas an island (and became oneagain, briefly, in the aftermath of Su-perstorm Sandy). He spends a lot oftime outlining the loss of an areaequivalent to the island of Manhattanin the Hackensack Meadows beforeit became the Meadowlands, a realestate development maneuver

Gotham Unbound, Simon andSchuster, was published in 2014 andis 608 pages (Don’t worry, over ahundred pages is appendices andglossary. They are interesting andenlightening, too). It, too, is availa-ble on EBay and Amazon. I gotmine for less than ten dollars. Becareful! There are two Gotham Un-bounds. Our book is the ‘Ecologicalhistory of Greater New York.’ Theother GU is a story about the city’sstruggle against organized crime.I’m sure it is a lovely book, but it isnot germane to our studies and it is alot more expensive.

I hope you get both books and passthem along. I know you will enjoythem.

THE BEAUTY OF NATUREBy Danny Ingellis

During a recent visit to our daughterand family who reside in MountPleasant, South Carolina, I decidedto visit a bird sanctuary called “Birdsof Prey” located in Awendaw, SouthCarolina which is approximately 12miles from Mount Pleasant. As youcan safely assume, most of the birdsat the sanctuary are eagles, hawks,falcons, kites and vultures but thereare other birds there as well such asowls. All if these birds of prey resideat the sanctuary because they wereinjured by motor vehicles or ingestedlead from other animals killed andleft to rot by hunters. This resulted inpermanent injuries and lead poison-ing. They became permanent resi-dents of the sanctuary never to bereturned to the wild. Such is thecase of two beautiful bald eagleswho were struck by vehicles and hadbroken wings unable to be healedproperly.

native Holland when looking for habi-tat. New Yorkers filled in land earlyand often.

As the city grew, permits wereawarded to developers who wishedto fill in the shoreline and makepiers. As silt, along with trash andanimal carcasses caused the waterto become shallower, they movedfurther out in to the bay. Landfill onthe Manhattan and Brooklyn shore-lines caused a change in the under-water topography which openedmore harbor to development. Butter-milk Channel, which separates Man-hattan from Brooklyn, was historical-ly a shallow reach. Cows couldcross at low tide to graze in theBrooklyn pastureland as Manhattanbecame more urban. Peoplecrossed the channel in a canoe with-out a paddle by pushing off with theirfeet. As the passage became moreand more narrow, the velocity of theflow increased. By the mid 18th cen-tury the depth of this passage wasfound to have deepened to 27 feet.More shipping, more piers, more de-velopment, more money. Also, asthe population expanded, a fifth riverwas added to the mix. Water tunnelsbrought one hundred gallons perperson per day to the city and in-creased sewage flow.

In 1811, the grid plan was approvedby the Common Council in NewYork. This concept demanded uni-formity. Hills were leveled, creeksand marshes filled-in. The popula-tion continued to march northward.The city was nearly leveled by a hur-ricane in 1823, but people have shortmemories, they recovered and con-tinued to expand.

Steinberg describes a cyclical weath-er pattern; the Atlantic MultidecadalOscillation where the water tempera-ture changed and storms becameless strong and less frequent. NewYork grew with impunity till stormsreturned in the late 20th century lead-ing to Irene and Sandy.

One defense New York possessedwas its ring of wetlands which buff-ered storm surges and preventedloss of life and property by the sim-ple fact that they were uninhabited.Post World War Two prosperity ac-celerated a long-standing practiceand by the ‘60’s New York had lostabout 80 per cent of its historic wet-


after a few days, they began to makea ground nest. This was amazingand never seen before at the sanctu-ary.

The eggs will hatch about two weeksafter my visit. Folks, if you are everin the Charleston, S.C. area I highlysuggest you take a trip to visit TheBirds of Prey Sanctuary, you will notbe disappointed.

During my visit I also visited a naturecenter in Awendaw, which is muchlike Blue Heron Nature Park. It hasa wonderful and informative centerfilled with stuffed wildlife from thesea, land and air all on display withvideos, etc. explaining everythingabout their lives. I then took a “Walkinto The Wild”, going outside to walkin the park. My first stop was at abeautiful pond where I observed afemale alligator guarding two new-borns. I didn’t see daddy alligator inthe pond so I thought best to leaveafter taking these photos as he mightreturn via the woods.

was observing two owls (Barn &Horned) who were both recently bornat the sanctuary. We were informedthese owls are hand held, hand fedfor approximately 4-6 months andwill never be able to be set free. Butdon’t be alarmed, they are tradedwith a zoo in South Carolina thatspecializes in breeding all types ofbirds.

My visit was enjoyable, informative,a photographer’s paradise and ajourney into the lives of these mag-nificent birds of prey.

During my visit we observed two vul-tures (male & female) fly into thesanctuary from the wilderness and



Folks, my thoughts at the end of myvisit to both areas is in the title of thisarticle, “The Beauty of Nature”. Asmembers of NRPA with our help andguidance, we can protect our envi-ronment so that it can be enjoyed byall, including the wildlife.

OAKWOOD BEACHCLEANUP

By Jim Scarcella

On March 31, NRPA and friendscleaned a one half mile stretch ofOakwood Beach, Oakwood. Thisarea was totally decimated by Hurri-cane Sandy six years ago. Sincethat time, Senator Lanza, SenatorSavino and Assembly persons Mali-

otakis and Cusick worked to haveNY State purchase the parcels.However, six families, for variousreasons, can’t move. The area isslated for a new sea wall at elevation17, but this is four or five yearsaway.

So for now Oakwood Beach hasbeen reclaimed by nature, exceptwhere ruined by litter jerks. We had22 volunteers cleaning up all kindsof debris.

NRPA does not give up on our parks

and beaches, we have anotherOakwood Beach cleanup in June2018.

additional 12 lbs. of aluminum andglass.

NRPA thanks Baykeeper and RoseFoundation for tools and equipmentto clean our beaches and shorelines.

THE STORIES OF PENNAND FOUNTAIN

By Ida Sanoff

You’ve probably noticed two tremen-dous green hills along the shoreline,between the Pennsylvania Avenueand Erskine Street exits on the BeltParkway in Brooklyn. In 2019, thisarea near the Brooklyn/Queens bor-der will open to the public as thePenn and Fountain Parks. Eventhough they are located on the shoreof Jamaica Bay, which is part of theNational Park Service’s Gateway

HAPPY EARTH DAY!By NYC H2O

Thank you to all 130 volunteers whohelped cleanup Conference HousePark beach on Saturday. You werean incredible crew! Together weremoved 1.5 tons of debris and recy-cled 30 pounds of bottles,

Thank you to City Council MemberJoe Borelli for helping to support thecleanup.

A big thank you to our partners: NRPA - Natural Resources Pro-

tection Association Partnership for Parks NY Cares A special thank you to the

NRPA's, Jim Scarcella, TonyRose, Howie Fishbein and JohnMalizia!

St. Joes by the Sea footballteam

Staten Island Tech I.S. 34 I.S. 51 P.S. 23


P.S. 3 Wagner High School Girl Scout troop 5499 Boy Scouts Troop 41 St. Clare School Stuyvesant High School

SHARROTT AVENUE PIERCLEANUP

By Jim Scarcella

On April 28, NRPA cleaned the Lem-on Creek Park at Sharrot Avenue,Princes Bay. The morning startedout a bit foggy, there was an onshorewind, but it was seasonal. The parkneeds some help, because therewere trash cans that had not beenfully emptied in several weeks. Inaddition there are litter jerk personscarelessly tossing garbage around.

In all, 13 persons removed about 22bags of debris, and we recycled and


were opened and closed with acrank, instead of the press of a but-ton. On summer days as cars on theBelt Parkway neared the landfills,drivers would warn passengers to“roll up the windows, we’re gettingclose to the dump!”

The now closed landfills sat andstunk. Underground and above-ground fires were common. Thou-sands of gallons of toxins leachedinto Jamaica Bay when rain percolat-ed through them.

The next story begins in the early2000’s, when NRPA became in-volved in the landfills. Out of no-where, we received a call from amember of a Citizens Advisory Com-mittee. It had been formed to workwith governmental agencies thatwere trying to remediate the closedPennsylvania and Fountain Avenuelandfills, which were now a federalSuperfund site. Why NRPA? Well,we were known for our involvementin the problems associated withdredge materials management. In anutshell, harbors, berthing areas andshipping channels can fill with sedi-ments that move with water currents.Periodically, they need to be shov-eled out, a process called dredging.But the stuff that is dug out has highlevels of contaminants and it has tobe gotten rid of somehow. They usedto just dump it into the ocean, butthat had been outlawed in federalwaters. But it was still allowed withinthe three mile limit, which was underthe jurisdiction of each state. In NewYork, they were eying the water ofthe Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserveas a potential dumpsite as well assome areas between Brooklyn andStaten Island. But there were newmethods available to remediatedredge material so that it could safe-

Recreation Area, Penn and Fountainwill be under the jurisdiction of theNew York State Office of Parks, Rec-reation and Historic Preservation.The parks will have a total of 403acres of parkland, 10 miles of trailswhich will connect with the bikepaths of the Jamaica Bay Greenwayand 3.5 miles of accessible shore-line. There will be spectacular viewsof the Manhattan skyline from thetops of the parks, which max out at130 feet. There is also a pier at theback of each landfill which somedaycould even be used for ferry service.

NRPA became involved in this pro-ject about 15 years ago. But thestory of these new parks is like a setof Russian nesting dolls, with a story,inside of a story, inside of yet anoth-er story.

Up until the 1950’s, this shorelinearea was pristine marshland. Butback then, marshes were calledswamps and were thought of aswasteland. If there was anything youwanted to get rid of, you just dumpedit in the ocean, or if that was too in-convenient, into the nearest swamp.

Today, we try to recycle all of ourtrash. We carefully separate outpaper, glass, metal and plastic andsoon all of us will also be saving ourbanana peels, uneaten pizza slices,peach pits and other food wastewhich will be composted. But not solong ago, NYC just dumped or incin-erated everything. The eastern por-tion of Penn and Fountain Parksstarted out as the Pennsylvania Ave-nue Landfill and it is a little over 100acres in size. Before the constructionof Spring Creek Towers (formerlyknown as Starett City) PennsylvaniaAvenue was a desolate, unimagina-bly rutted, roller coaster of a roadthat ended at the Belt Pkwy. It’s only



claim to fame was a reputation as anillegal drag racing strip.

In 1956, New York City started usingthe shoreline at the end of Pennsyl-vania Avenue as a dumpsite for resi-dential and commercial trash andconstruction and demolition debris.It was also used to dump incineratorash. Back then, every city apartmentbuilding had an incinerator whichburned everything that residents dis-carded. It was a common sight tosee black ash falling on streets andstinky black smoke pouring fromstacks on the top of every apartmentbuilding. Later in the day, metal bar-rels containing the still smolderingash were lined up on sidewalk, wait-ing for the Sanitation Department topick it up and take it to the dump.NYC had municipal incinerators tooand many were located along thewaterfront, where ash was loadedonto barges for transport to thedump.

Around 1961, dumping ceased at thePennsylvania Avenue site andmoved a bit further east to a secondsite at the foot of Fountain Avenue.But all of a sudden in 1968, con-struction and demolition dumpingresumed at Pennsylvania Avenue.Things got worse in the 1970’s whenillegal disposal of hazardous wastewas common and it persisted untilPennsylvania Avenue was officiallyclosed in 1980.

The Fountain Avenue parcel is aboutthree times bigger than PennsylvaniaAvenue at almost 300 acres. Munici-pal waste was dumped there as wellas a toxic stew of industrial waste,including asbestos, medical waste,metal plating solutions, paint thinnersand lacquers and sewage sludge.Before it was officially closed in1985, illegal dumping was happeningon Fountain Avenue too. Corruptionwas so rampant that unscrupulouscontractors used to go up on thelandfills and spray PCB contaminat-ed oil over the landfill roadwayswhile Sanitation Department workerswere working there. The workerswere told that the oil was beingsprayed “to keep the dust down”.

Not only were the landfills a toxiceyesore, but the stench emanatingfrom them was unbearable. Backthen, air conditioned cars were fewand far between and car windows

The late Lee Shelley, planting the firsttree on the Pennsylvania Avenue landfill,

in 2007.

Gone but nor forgotten: Ben Gabriel,Lee Shelley and Wilbur Fussell standingproudly with the first tree planted on the

future Penn Park.

was seeded with beach grass andobserved for over a year, until it wasultimately covered with the plasticliner. There were no further efforts toutilize the Brooklyn landfills as bene-ficial reuse sites for dredge material.We were told that this was becausethe various agencies were “unable tocoordinate dredging projects with thework schedule on the landfills”. Asmall quantity of amended dredgehas reportedly been placed on Stat-en Island’s Fresh Kills landfill, butthere doesn’t seem to be much inter-est in doing more. We suspect thatthis has to do with cost. If that is thecase, we need to be alert to the pos-sibility that the agencies will want toreturn to dumping dredge into localwaterways. That possibility is still anopen option on the last Army Corpsof Engineers Dredged MaterialsManagement Plan, which was re-leased in 2008.

We’re not sure yet how anotherpromise will work out: That the parkswill be badly needed grassland habi-tat for birds. In the years since thelandfills have been planted, a widevariety of birds now pass throughthere and some species have begunto breed. You can see Bald Eaglesflying overhead and owls have beenspotted too. Numerous species ofmigratory birds pass through everyyear. But the quiet gravel trails willsoon become filled with people, bicy-cles and dogs which will surelychase the birds away. And JFK Air-port is right across the water and thePort Authority is not happy aboutbirds being near the airport. In fact,at one point, newly planted trees hadto be ripped out because the PortAuthority feared that they wouldgrow too tall and/or attract too manybirds. Most of the trees that werefinally planted are species that aremore like tall shrubs rather thantrees.

We can be sure of one thing though:These parks will be spectacular!

BEACH GRASS COMES TOBROOKLYN!

By Ida Sanoff

On a bitterly cold March morning,over a hundred volunteers, includinglots of little kids, showed up to plantAmerican Beach Grass on parts ofConey Island Beach.

People were able to walk around,take in the spectacular views andspeak directly to those who weredoing the actual work.

None of this would have happenedwithout the efforts of the CitizensAdvisory Committee and its leader-ship: Lee Shelley, Ben Gabriel, Solo-mon Peeples and Wilbur Fussell.They devoted almost 30 years oftheir lives to not only dealing withcomplex technical, health and safetyconcerns, but figuring out how tomaximize the features of the parksthat were to come. There were someterrific educational opportunities tooand they reached out to schools anduniversities. They talked, they nego-tiated they did the legwork and theybrought people together. Sadly,these men did not live to see theirefforts pay off. We hope that theywill somehow be recognized whenthe new parks open.

The last story here is about promis-es. The people of East New Yorkwere promised parkland and water-front access and that promise waskept. Each former landfill has a largepier which will be transformed intoshaded seating areas. There willalso be a kayak launch. The landfillshave been landscaped with a widevariety of flowering plants andshrubs and each bears a bar codedtag. That way any plants that fail tothrive can quickly be replaced. Butthese new parks cannot escape theirformer history as old, toxic landfills.They must be carefully monitored toensure that soil does not erode andexpose the liner. So softball and soc-cer games are out of the question. Itremains to be seen whether or notthe NYS Parks Department will haveadequate staff to supervise park ac-tivities.

Other promises have not been kept.We were assured that these twoBrooklyn landfills, as well as StatenIsland’s Fresh Kills, would providethe solution for New York’s dredgedisposal problem for “at least 40years”. That has not happened. Onlya very small quantity of amendeddredge made it onto the Pennsylva-nia Avenue landfill, as a pilot project.It was used to see whether or not itwas suitable as a planting medium. It


ly be reused in other ways.

Enter the landfills! The plan was touse processed dredge material ontop of the old landfills to smooththem out. A system to drain and col-lect toxic liquid would be installedtoo, as well as a piping system tocollect and burn off the methane gasthat was generated by all of the de-composing garbage. Then all 400+acres would be sealed in plastic. Ontop of the plastic liner, there wouldbe thousands of tons of soil andthousands of plants, creating not justbadly needed parkland, but bird hab-itat too! And once this process wasused for the Brooklyn landfills, itwould be used at Staten Island’smassive Fresh Kills landfill.

NRPA was still cautious though.There was a solid track record show-ing that dredge material could beprocessed in such a way that toxinswere bound and the resulting materi-al could be safely reused. But theclincher was that we were assuredthat there was enough capacity atthe Brooklyn and Staten Island land-fills to solve NYC’s dredge disposalproblem for at least forty years. Talkabout a win/win situation!

So NRPA’s former Executive Direc-tor, the late Kerry Sullivan and I,rolled up our sleeves and got towork. We shuttled between BrooklynBorough Hall and Staten Island Bor-ough Hall to discuss the merits ofwhat was to be done. And weworked very, very closely with theCitizens Advisory Committee for thelandfills. We reviewed thousands ofpages of documents and attendedcountless meetings. We worked hardto make sure that the landfill remedi-ation would be done safely and ef-fectively. And as usual, we did all ofthis without receiving a penny.

Another story that needs to be told isabout the residents of East NewYork who had a vision of two beauti-ful parks that would finally providewaterfront access. Some peopleworked for over 30 years to makethis dream come true. They orga-nized tours where vans transportedneighborhood small groups of localresidents onto the landfills. Therethey were met by the engineers whosupervised the restoration under theguidance of the NYC Department ofEnvironmental Protection (DEP).

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Mail to: Natural Resources Protective AssociationC/O Richard Chan, TreasurerPost Office Box 050328Staten Island, NY 10305

We hope that this project will keepthe sand on the beach where it be-longs. Hopefully, we can get somemore planted next winter.

Join NRPA today

bunches were held together withrubber bands and they looked morelike straw than grass. The plantshave to go into the ground when theyare dormant. It was a lot of backbreaking work, but several thousandplants went into the sand.

Brooklyn’s public beaches get bat-tered on both ends. Like every otherbeach, waves erode the shoreline.But unlike Rockaway, where there isvegetation near their boardwalk,Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach and Co-ney Island are buck naked backthere. As a result, the beaches losesand from the front AND the back. Insome areas, the Boardwalk can getcovered with several inches of sand.And when the wind picks up a littlemore, the sand blows onto localstreets where it is lost forever. Butreplacing sand is a complicated, ex-pensive and habitat destroying pro-cess. Millions of dollars are neededto dredge sand from local underwa-ter areas and pump it onto a beach.


We had been begging for beachgrass for years and finally, the NYCParks Department came through!The big day had arrived and twoplanting areas had been roped off(one near West 5th St. and the othernear West 27th St.). The preciousboxes of American Beach Grasswere there waiting for us. Little

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, June 5, 2018 NRPA monthly meeting at the Blue Heron Nature Center at 7:30 PM Saturday, June 16, 2018 NRPA beach cleanup of Oakwood Beach at Kissam Avenue at 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM No monthly meeting held during July Tuesday, August 7, 2018 NRPA monthly meeting at the Blue Heron Nature Center at 7:30 PM Tuesday, September 4, 2018 NRPA monthly meeting at the Blue Heron Nature Center at 7:30 PM

wƵďůŝĐĂƟŽŶ ŽĨ ƚŚĞ natural resources pƌŽƚĞĐƟǀĞ …tome by food author mark...

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