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Wetland Restoration in Jamaica Bay: Will Katrina Threaten Its Funding?


Should New Yorkers sacrifice the city’s last remaining wetlands to help the citizens of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast regain theirs?

The bargain isn’t that direct, of course, but as the White House and Congress budgetmakers count up the dollars needed to meet President George W. Bush’s September 15 commitment to rebuild Mississippi River levees, extend Gulf Coast breakwaters, and restore the once massive network of flood-absorbing bayoux around the New Orleans metropolis, those with a stake in local, federally-subsidized marsh restoration are already bracing for impact.

“The [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers has a big plan to do about 70 to 90 acres of restoration next spring,” says Don Riepe, Jamaica Bay guardian for the American Littoral Society. “This project only costs $16 million, but with the Bush Administration promising $200 billion for the Gulf Coast, I’m wondering if we’re going to lose a lot of these projects as Congress or whoever authorizes the money for this takes it away.”

The $16 million project is already underway and already budgeted according to an August 3rd summary put out by the New York District of the Army Corps of Engineers. It involves the relocation of sand and sediment gathered in the dredging of local shipping channels and the spraying of that sand onto targeted islands such as Elders Point and Yellow Bar Hassock.

Based on a successful 2003 pilot study that increased both the acreage and amount of erosion-resistant vegetation of Big Egg marsh, the project is slated to commence this month with the dredging of Ambrose Channel at the entrance of Lower New York Bay and of Rockaway Channel at the entrance of Jamaica Bay. The gathered materials, estimated to be upwards of 200,000 cubic yards, will be stockpiled at the end of Floyd Bennett Field and relocated to local marshes in the spring of 2006.

While Riepe has few doubts that the project will go off as planned, it’s the fate of future projects that causes him concern. The restoration plan for Elders Point and Yellow Bar owes much to a mid-1990s policy shift on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers. After the upper Mississippi River flooded its banks in 1993, the federally-funded civil engineering agency began looking for alternative remedies to levee-raising, a tactic which had merely increased the volume of water penned in during flood conditions. Encouraged by environmental groups eager to regain wetlands lost when the Corps effectively channelized the river in the 1930s, the agency began buying up lowland portions of the river valley in an attempt to regain the river’s natural floodplain and thus create an escape valve for flood waters.

That eco-friendly strategy is sure to be modified in the coming years. Earlier in September, according to the Associated Press, the Justice Department sent an email to regional U.S. attorneys’ offices, seeking information on the role environmental lawsuits played in the delaying of federal funded levee-strengthening projects in and around New Orleans. The inquiry came on the heels of an Internet posting by the conservative think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, noting that in 1996 the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club sued to block an Army Corps of Engineers project to raise and fortify levees along the lower Mississippi.

Congressional Democrats, including New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg, denounced the Department of Justice inquiry as a Bush Administration attempt to deflect blame at a time when polls showed a majority of Americans disapproving both the president and the entire federal government’s initial response to Hurricane Katrina. Subsequent news stories, meanwhile, have shown that the levees in question were eventually fortified and were not the levees that failed in the wake of Katrina.

Still, with the death toll from Hurricane Katrina still rising, restored habitats and healthy marshland will no doubt take a back seat to the simple protection of life and limb in the coming allocation of Congressional funds. What’s more, as fiscal conservatives float the argument that the $200 billion needed to fix the Gulf Coast should come from pet local projects, even a $16 million effort to fight marshland erosion in the heart of New York City has a target on its back.

Maybe that’s why Jamaica Bay’s primary Congressional benefactor, Democratic U.S. Representative (and former mayoral candidate) Anthony Weiner, when discussing next spring’s sand-spraying and other related projects, framed it as a way to strengthen the city’s own flooding defenses.

"We need to increase coastal protection programs in New York,” Weiner said, and such programs mean “marsh restoration, beach renourishment and the contruction of jetties and groins to protect waterfront communities like Manhattan Beach, Sheeps Head Bay, Rockaway, and Broad Channel."

Such arguments might not win over the newly ascendent deficit hawks in Congress, but they are playing well at City Hall. That’s where Jim Gennaro, Democratic council member for the 24th District in Central Queens and chairman of the council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, has secured the recent passage of two laws designed to push the city to the lead role in both protecting and reversing the loss of Jamaica Bay wetlands. Passed this spring, the first law calls for the development of a watershed protection plan encompassing Jamaica Bay and its surrounding environs. The second law calls for the creation of a task force to examine city-owned properties adjacent to Jamaica Bay and earmark which of those properties can be returned to wetlands status and put under the aegis of the parks department.

“I feel that each level of government has to be responsible and do what’s appropriate,” says Gennaro. “I think we’re still going to have [federal funding]. My focus is more on taking steps to try to stem the loss of the 40 or 50 acres of wetlands we lose every year from the forces that are at work now.”

Gennaro is particularly interested in finding a bigger role for the city’s Department of Environmental Protection in the restoration of Jamaica Bay. Currently, the department’s primary interaction with the bay comes via the 26th Ward Water Pollution Control Plant, a facility near the end of Flatlands Avenue that has been blamed for boosting the nitrogen content in the bay and possibly contributing to the die-off in local marsh grasses. Currently, the state Department of Environment Conservation, a superseding agency when it comes to waterway discharge, is looking to impose a cap on the maximum amount of nitrogen effluent released. Gennaro says he would rather avoid the inevitable litigation such a process would generate and simply give the Department of Environmental Protection a greater stake in keeping the bay’s waters healthy enough to support marsh ecosystems.

“We’re looking for creative ways to have DEP expand its role and they have been very receptive to that,” says Gennaro.“We want to take it beyond stormwater and sewage treatment and take it to the point that some of the properties that are managed by DEP, such as the old Pennsylvania Avenue landfill, would become prime spots for wetlands restoration.”

Such a strategy would literally work around the edges of the current problem. It would allow a percentage of the dry land along channelized inlets such as Hendrix Creek near Canarsie to revert back to their original wetlands state. It wouldn’t, however, be able to replace the fast-disappearing islands soon to be targetted by the Army Corps of Engineers and its sand-spraying project. That’s why environmental stakeholders such as Don Riepe of the American Littoral Society are keeping an eye on both the weather in the Gulf of Mexico and the political climate in Washington, D.C.

“If we don’t start doing these [sand-spraying] projects, we’ll never get a basis for restoration. We’ll lose the whole system,” he says. “I know in the past [the Army Corps of Engineers] have had a lot of projects on the books for Jamaica Bay, and they haven’t done them because Congress hasn’t authorized the money. I’m hoping it doesn’t happen again.”

 

Mayoral Issue Grid: Environment



Mayoral Issue Grid

ENVIRONMENT
-Mayor's Waste Plan?
-Bronx Water Filtration

Garbage is a critical issue for New York City. Since the closing of the Fresh Kills landfill in 2001, the city has paid high prices to ship its waste out of state. And 80 percent of the waste is currently handled by waste transfer stations in four, low-income neighborhoods

In October 2004, the Bloomberg administration issued a new solid waste plan, which would move most of the 50,000 tons of trash the city produces each day by rail or barge, instead of by truck. To do this, the city proposes reopening four marine transfer stations, piers where trucks can dump trash onto barges, to handle the city's residential waste. Critics say the plan does not address many issues like commercial waste or recycling. And it does not solve the problem of where the garbage ends up and how much the city must pay other states to dispose of it.

Safe, clean drinking water is also a critical issue for New York City and a state court ruled that the city must filter water that comes from the Croton Reservior. A water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx was first proposed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the late 1990's and generated heated political debate. Some environmentalists argued that the water does not need to be filtered; parks advocates said it should not be built in limited green space; and residents of the north Bronx fear years of construction, noise, and dust. The plan was abandoned in 2001 because it lacked support of elected officials.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg revived the plan by offering two concessions. The city committed $240 million for building and improving parkland in the Bronx and the city's Department of Environmental Protection agreed to do an environmental impact study.

Fernando Ferrer

At a 1999 hearing on the filtration plant, Ferrer, then the Bronx borough president said, "I'm here to personally convey that the Bronx is unanimous in its unequivocal opposition to the Croton water filtration plant." This, though, was before the Bronx was promised the money for parks - and Ferrer has not been on record as being so unequivocal this year.

Michael Bloomberg

Michael Bloomberg proposed the solid waste management plan that uses marine transfer stations rather than trucks.

Bloomberg was responsible for reviving the filtration plant project in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx. He won the support of many local officials by offering $240 million for building and improving parkland in the Bronx.

 

Mayoral Issue Grid: Parks



Mayoral Issue Grid

The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation oversees more than 27,000 acres of parks, playgrounds, beaches and other recreational areas, giving New York the largest city park system in the country.

But the figures can be misleading. While the number includes masterpieces such as Central Park and Prospect Park, it also includes areas so decrepit that Park Commissioner Adrian Benepe said they should essentially be abandoned. Even counting those wastelands, New York City has fewer acres of green space per person than any other major American city.

THE ONE PERCENT PLEDGE

Advocates blame many of the parks' problems on a lack of resources. In response, many want the city to devote one percent of its budget - or about $500 million - to park expenses, almost twice what it spends now. They have asked candidates to pledge that they will work toward this goal.

EARMARK FEES

The parks department licenses about 600 businesses that pay to operate concessions, such as skating rinks, golf courses and restaurants, on park property. In 2003, this generated about $60 million. But instead of being spent on parks, the money goes into the city's general budget. Many parks advocates would like to change this and see the money go for parks – assuming, of course, that the city would not reduce its appropriation to the parks department as a result.

VAN CORTLANDT FILTRATION PLANT

Faced with a federal court order that the city filter some of its drinking water, Mayor Michael Bloomberg authorized construction of a $1.3 billion filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. To offset the loss of parkland - and to mollify Bronx residents angered by the decision - Bloomberg will spend an extra $240 million on Van Cortlandt and other Bronx parks. This has not satisfied many parks advocates, who argue that using parkland for anything other than its intended use sets a dangerous precedent.

GREAT LAWN PROTESTS

For years, the Great Lawn in Central Park was the scene of massive rallies, large concerts and other huge gatherings. But in 1997, the city spent $18.2 million to restore the 13-acre Great Lawn and now the city says it is too delicate to support the trampling of hundreds of thousands of feet. The Bloomberg administration has limited large gatherings on the lawn to six events per year, at no more than 50,000 people at one time. And four of those would be for the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, sharply curtailing the opportunities for political expression.

The administration argues that that's not the point – protecting the lawn is. But civil liberties advocates note the issue arose when demonstrators wanted to use the Great Lawn for a massive protest against the Republican convention last summer. The Bloomberg administration denied the request, citing the need to protect the lawn.

CAR-FREE PARKS

<p,>Parks advocates would like the roadways of Central Park and Prospect Park to be closed to automobile traffic 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Ferrer

While he says he would like to take the one percent pledge, Ferrer says he cannot do so, given the budget deficits the city faces in the next several years.

The former Bronx borough president said that using the money from concessions for parks is one of three things that any mayor serious about parks would have to do. (The other two are providing minimum staffing levels at all parks and offering a completely transparent and ongoing review of parks operations.)

Ferrer said he would use some of the money from the fees to hire staff to supervise play after school and "make parks a welcoming place again. Not in some of our parks, all of our parks."

At a 1999 hearing on the filtration plant, Ferrer, then the Bronx borough president said, "I'm here to personally convey that the Bronx is unanimous in its unequivocal opposition to the Croton water filtration plant." This, though, was before the Bronx was promised the money for parks - and Ferrer has not been on record as being so unequivocal this year.

At the parks forum, Ferrer said he supported steps that would have avoided the need for the plant. He expressed concern about parkland being used for other purposes, such as parking cars and storage. "That's got to come to an end," he said. "Parks are for people."

While saying he treasured the Great Lawn, Ferrer opposes the policy limiting gatherings on it. "Blades of grass are replaceable. The first amendment is not," he has said.

Ferrer said the United for Peace and Justice, which had sought a permit for the convention protest, had offered to put up a bond to protect the city from damage to the lawn.

The former Bronx borough president told the parks forum, "I lean very heavily in favor of car-free parks...There are alternate means to getting around the city.

Bloomberg

During his four years in office, the mayor has kept funding for parks fairly constant at around $260 million - or, for this year, at only a bit more than one half of one percent of the city budget. The administration says it has tried to use partnerships with private groups and federal and state money to maintain and operate the parks.

Bloomberg says he advocated earmarking concession fees during the 2001 campaign, but that this plan was derailed by the city budget crisis. He says he has instituted a program that allows concession fees above a baseline amount to go to the parks department. This, he said has result in $14 million for the department since 2002.

Bloomberg's department of Environmental Protection chose the Van Cortlandt Park site as the preferred location for the filtration plant and Bloomberg negotiated the deal with Bronx politician to provide the additional funding for Bronx parks in return and so win their support for the project.

The Bloomberg administration has aggressively sought to limit use of the Great Lawn, with the mayor telling protestors they can go elsewhere to express their political views.

The administration has extended the hours that cars cannot use the parks but has not banned auto traffic completely.

 



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