The efforts to restore Jamaica Bay—an economic staple for the local community—are one step closer to completion after a recent $7.2 million grant to make long-awaited restorations to the bay’s Yellow Bar Hassock Island.
Funding from the grant, legislators and project officials said, will be used as nearly half of a $15.5 million effort to restore roughly 50 acres of salt marsh habitat at Yellow Bar Hassock and place 300,000 cubic yards of dredged material there.
The dredging work at Yellow Bar is being handled by the Illinois-based dredging company, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company.
Yellow Bar is the third of three key marshes in the area—the other two being Elders Point East and Elders Point West—that were recommended by a 2006 report to be fixed in order to restore three key marsh areas of the 25,000-acre bay that neighbors Howard Beach, Broad Channel and the Rockaways.
The grant is being provided by the US Army Corps of Engineers, whose mission statement is to provide public engineering services in peace and war to strengthen national security, energize the economy, and reduce risks from disasters.
State Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder, who announced the grant recently along with US Senator Charles Schumer, said the restoration funding was key in helping to preserve the bay area, which he identified as a major economic draw in the area for tourism.
“We have people coming for boat watching, scuba diving, snorkeling, and many other activities that the bay offers,” Goldfeder said on why the resurgence of the bay was vital to economic vitality in the area.
Goldfeder credited Dan Mundy, president of the Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers, a local watchdog group focused on the preservation of the bay area, for helping to push for the funding needed to restore Yellow Bar and the other two marsh areas.
The marsh restorations in Jamaica Bay have been pushed by Mundy’s group since 1996.
The new salt marshes are expected to be more resistant to erosion due to new sediment within them that allows for better drainage of water; the previous marshes, Mundy said, were too absorbent, which allowed the sewage water to stay in longer.
For years, the marsh lands in Jamaica Bay have been slowly disappearing, Mundy said, losing as much as 50 acres each year; experts told Mundy that the marsh erosion is due to excess nitrogen levels in the bay that have degraded the water quality, caused by five nearby sewage treatment plants emptying waste water into the bay.
That issue, Mundy said, is something his group has been pushing to resolve with city officials for some time. Last year, the Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers were involved in negotiations with the city to upgrade those sewage plants in order to reduce the erosion problem around the bay area.
Under the Unites States Army Corps of Engineers’ Continuing Authorities Program (CAP),the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) requested assistance in implementing one or more restoration projects to counter those effects and preserve the marshes.
A report calling for the restoration of the Yellow Bar Hassock, Elders Point East, and Elders Point West marsh islands was approved in 2006.
Construction of the Elders Point East marsh island took place around 2007, while the Elders Point West project began in 2009-2010.
To date, including the Yellow Bar project, approximately $60 million has gone into the Jamaica Bay marsh restorations, according to Mundy.
In the meanwhile, Mundy said, restoring the Yellow Bar marshes go a long way towards preserving the characteristics of the bay.
“There are numerous benefits for aquatic life and innumerable good things that these marshes produce,” Mundy said on why the marsh restoration projects were vital in preserving the bay.
By Jean-Paul Salamanca
Forum Newsgroup Photo by Luis Gronda
jp.salamanca@theforumnewsgroup.com
