By Betsy Scheinbart
Scientists are set to began a series of pilot projects this month to discover why half of Jamaica Bay’s marshland has disappeared and how that damage can be reversed.
The pilot projects and scientific studies will be conducted by the Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center at Brooklyn College and should be complete by this fall.
The studies are being funded by a federal grant of $200,000, secured by U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills), whose district covers the 13,000-acre bay area nestled between eastern Brooklyn and southern Queens.
Some 3,400 acres of marshland remain in the bay, only half the island surface that existed in the 1920s, Weiner’s office said.
Larger and more costly projects will be planned later this year, Weiner told a news conference on the edge of Jamaica Bay in Gateway National Park last Thursday.
Weiner estimated that about $5 million will be required to reverse the damage done over more than 70 years. Several natural and human factors are believed to have contributed to the destruction of the marshes.
“While $5 million may seem like a lot, it is nothing compared to the loss we will have,” Weiner said of restoring the marshes. “Salt marshes are the life blood of the ecosystem here.”
Gateway Park is one of the largest bird estuaries on the East Coast and 85 percent of the fin fish in the area spend part of their life cycles in the bay, said John Tanacredi, chief of the division of natural resources at the park.
Weiner, Tanacredi and other park officials described the five pilot projects getting underway this month:
• Assess the effects of green sea lettuce, which may erode the salt marshes during lunar high tides and storm tides.
• Test the bay’s water chemistry to determine if increased ammonia can affect the marshes’ growth and reproduction.
• Compare the bay to other coastal sites to determine if birds such as Brant Geese and snow geese contribute to salt marsh loss by eating much of the vegetation.
• Test the effects of mussels that attach to the marshes and create a berm that results in a damlike effect.
• Plant salt marsh grasses to see if the erosion of the islands can be stopped or reversed.
The marshes are shrinking not only around the edges of the bay’s islands but also in the middle, park officials said.
A local environmental group, Jamaica Bay Eco Watchers, noticed that salt marshes were disappearing in the 1990s, but it took them a few years to persuade politicians and parks officials that there was a serious problem.
Experts now estimate the marshes began to deteriorate in the 1920s. Dan Mundy, head of the Eco Watchers, believes 55 to 60 acres of marshland have disappeared each year since 1999 and 50 percent of the marshland that existed in the 1920s is now gone.
Weiner asked the National Park Service in December to convene a blue ribbon panel of scientists to recommend ways to protect and restore marshlands.
“These scientists are like modern day Sherlock Holmes, except they are looking for clues below the surface of the water,” Weiner said.
The panel met in May and released a hefty report in July, which Wiener outlined last week. Members of the panel concluded that the disappearance of salt marshes in the past several decades was due to a combination of factors.
In addition to the natural impact from Brant and snow geese that eat the salt water vegetation and dense mussel beds that affect the bay’s water flow, humans have contributed to the demise of the wetlands.
Humans altered the channels of Jamaica Bay during the construction of John F. Kennedy International Airport and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers moved sediment to make way for commercial piers that never materialized.
Sediment is the essential building block for forming marshland, the panel reported. Also, contaminants from Brooklyn landfills that surround the bay may be damaging marsh plants.
Tanacredi and other park officials suggested that global warming and an increase in the sea level have also contributed to the shrinking marshes.
“There is no single factor that has been identified yet,” Tanacredi said of the marshes’ disappearance.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300 Ext. 138.
