Whitestone Locals Win Little Bay Anti-Pollution Battle

A 35-year battle by local civic leaders and elected officials to clean up the pollution and stench in Little Bay will be resolved by the City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) by next June, it was learned by The Queens Courier.
DEP Commissioner Joel A. Miele has ordered the project to be placed on an accelerated track.
The DEP plans call for the construction of a giant 150-foot-long channel, with steel-reinforced fibre-glassed walls built taller than the highest local tide. This 20- to 30-foot wide unit will allow unobstructed outgoing tides to funnel the floating sewage into the Long Island Sound.
The shore cleaning program has been a two-year bipartisan effort.
Generated by $800,000 in capital construction appropriations, obtained by Councilman Mike Abel (RWhitestone), the DEP is currently filing permits with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Approval is expected by April 2001, and project completion is expected three months later.
Mr. Abel said that funding was a critical issue in launching the project. "I made it a priority in this budget negotiation process…This $800,000 will be money well-spent on improving our shore line and the quality of life for the residents," he declared.
Assemblywoman Ann Margaret Carrozza (D – Bayside) is expected to monitor the state DECs handling of the citys application.
The main pollution source is predictable. It is located at the southwest foot of the two-mile wide Little Bay shore line from a 3,800-acre sewer system that services key sectors of Whitestone, Bay Terrace, Bayside and Fort Totten…an area four times the size of Central Park.
The contamination is triggered by the Cryders lane storm sewer, a giant 13 1/2 by 8-foot pipe, which routinely shoots an estimated 400 gallons of water per minute into Little Bay on clear days. During rain storms, this flow balloons into a tidal wave of one million gallons every three minutes nearly half of which is raw sewage.
Twice a day, during low tide, large mounds of pollutants begin to collect along this battered shore line. Piles of garbage, slime, and fecal matter are deposited along the entire beach, because there is no tidal flow to carry it away. The blackened area near the storm sewer and the overpowering stench during the summer months bear mute testimony to the lasting power of the poisonous residue.
Compounding this problem, says CB 7 District Manager Marilyn Bitterman, is that the poisonous emissions from the giant Cryders Lane sewer also flow into the center of the recently-opened 50-acre Little Bay Park. The $3.5 million recreational center provides year-round facilities for thousands of youngsters belonging to local baseball, soccer, and roller hockey leagues. It also features additional facilities for adult joggers, cyclists and walkers along the tainted shore line.
Whitestone old-timers say that this method of keeping the bay clean had been originally installed by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses in 1952, but had been destroyed by a runaway barge during a storm. In the ensuing 36 years the wall was never replaced.