By Alex Davidson
In an effort to restore acres of disappearing wetlands in Jamaica Bay, federal officials and community members announced Monday the start of a pilot program to raise the levels of marshes in the face of a rising Atlantic Ocean.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) stood with National Park Service rangers and Queens preservationists to explain how the dredging of 4,000 cubic yards of sand from a nearby creek will help restore two acres of deteriorating marshland by elevating it above present ocean levels.
“The Jamaica Bay wetlands are drowning, but this sand could just be the life preserver they need,” Weiner said. “It's urgent that we take concrete steps to save this beautiful but disappearing treasure before it is too late.”
A state Department of Environmental Conservation report released in 2000 warned that all wetlands in Jamaica Bay could disappear by 2025 if the current rate of degradation continues.
Dan Mundy, a lifelong Broad Channel resident who has been studying the bay's marshes for almost 10 years, said no one knows why wetlands in Jamaica Bay have been disappearing at the rate of 4 percent each year since about 1995. He said several different agencies have been discussing theories as to why the wetlands are dying, such as chemicals from Kennedy Airport polluting Jamaica Bay and rising sea levels drowning out existing sand marshes.
Mundy said the restoration project, focused around Big Egg marsh, is the first concrete step being taken to bring the wetlands back to life. He is the founder of Eco Watchers, a Broad Channel-based group created in 1995 to study the wetlands in Jamaica Bay.
The $400,000 federally funded initiative will be coordinated by a private, Orlando, Fla.-based firm, Weiner said.
“The outside of the marshes are healthy. It is the inside where there is a problem,” he said. “The sand is sinking and there is nothing but water in the middle.”
During the next three weeks, a ship will dredge sediment along a 1,000-foot path, then another machine will dispense the seabed material gathered from Cow Path creek onto nearby Big Egg Marsh, Mundy said. The sand will increase the height of the existing marsh from seven inches to as much as 20 inches in some places, he said.
Federal officials will then join Mundy and his seven-year-old Eco Watchers in planting new spartina, or marsh grass, in the hopes of fully rejuvenating plant life on Big Egg Marsh, Mundy said.
Weiner, who appointed a blue ribbon panel three years ago to study the wetlands' disappearance, said researchers will know within weeks if the pilot program is a success. He warned, however, that the restoration regiment is based on one of numerous theories for the wetlands' disappearance and thus could yield some confusing results.
“We are going to know (if the program is working) pretty quickly once the sand is planted,” Weiner said.
Mundy said it took five years, starting in 1995, for National Park Service officials to take notice of his research that established the dwindling number of wetlands. He said he and his friends who frequent the bay individually noticed the marshes were deteriorating, then confirmed their theories when discussing the problem together a few months later.
The Eco Watchers have since compiled aerial maps, taken sand samples and documented the migratory patterns of birds to confirm the decrease in wetlands and marshlands.
Jamaica Bay is part of the larger federal national park Gateway National Recreation Area that includes the boroughs of Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island as well as part of New Jersey.
Reach reporter Alex Davidson by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 156.
