City Pulls Plug On Flushing Airport Swamp/Dump Steps Up Battle Against West Nile Virus

City work crews have launched a massive clean-up of debris illegally dumped at the former Flushing Airport, as part of the battle against the West Nile Virus.
Funded by a $25,000 grant from the Economic Development Corporation (EDC), the ten-day project is expected to be completed by this weekend.
EDC President Michael G. Carey revealed that the work is being conducted with input from the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which had designated much of these grounds as a wetlands area.
Stressing his desire to facilitate the areas environmental upgrading, Carey outlined the EDCs clean-up and flood control measures:
Immediate removal of the illegal bulk dump onto the airport grounds.
Spreading dirt or salt over areas of low standing water, and dropping larvicide pellets in deeper water.
Repairing a broken valve which has triggered a waist-high 20-acre flood onto the airports runway.
Carey said that the broken valve was designed to operate a tidal gate, which facilitates the ebb and flow of wetlands water from the airport into the adjacent Flushing Bay. "Were taking active steps to repair the broken valve," he declared.
Earlier this year, a concerned State Senator Frank Padavan (R-11th SD), joined by Councilman Michael Abel (R-19th CD), had contacted city and state health officials because the airfields dilapidated equipment and holes in the runways were ideal mosquito breeding locations. They called for a major remediation effort, involving larvicides as well as the removal of tires and old equipment.
Despite this promise of a hasty clean-up, State Senator Toby Stavisky (D-16th SD) was not convinced. She visited the site this Monday and spotted two ducks placidly swimming amidst large piles of debris. "I was appalled to learn that the cause was a broken valve which apparently the city has failed to maintain," she declared.
"I would like to know how long the valve has been inoperative and whose responsibility it is to inspect the site," Stavisky wrote in a letter to John Cahill, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation. "Have there been any reports or other information dealing with conditions at the wetlands?"
Since 1984, when the 78-acre aviation facility was shuttered, civic leaders and residents have complained that the entire area had become a vast dumping ground where abandoned vehicles, tires, household goods, and house wrecking refuse were being illegally deposited. Flushing Airport was opened in April 1926.
The airport lies in the heart of the giant 550-acre College Point Corporate Park, a huge shopping and business building complex that has been developed by the EDC during the past decade. During this same time, developers have unsuccessfully applied for permission to re-open the airport as a heliport, or as a landing base for dirigible airships.
The College Point Task Force, an adjunct of Community Board 7, has charged that, until now, the EDC has been fighting a losing battle against dumpers. Compounding the problem, they say, are a host of Sanitation Department refuse collection facilities located close to the abandoned airport. Commercial dumpers passing the airport site on their way to the Sanitation Departments nearby marine transfer, household dump, or E-Z Pac stations, often dump their old tires and household junk in the airport to avoid paying sanitation fees.
As evidence, they point out the Sanitation Departments court-ordered closing of the ill-fated College Point sports complex, nearly three years ago, because 15,000 tons of building debris had been illegally dumped into the 22-acre unit.
The shuttered field, whose closing has impacted the athletic activities of 1,400 College Point youngsters over the past three summers, is coincidentally located just across the street from garbage-ladened Flushing Airport.
Local civic leader Fred Mazzarello, president of the College Point Board of Trade, whose organization has conducted a 16-year campaign against dumping in the unused airport site, remained optimistic. "Its about time," he declared.