A Publicaon of the Natural Resources Protecve Associaon Coalion Against Water Disposal of Contaminated Sediments Post Office Box 050328  , NY 10305 In Memory of Edward “Kerry” Sullivan SUMMER 2019 Executive Director BALD EAGLES AND OTHER cancers. Try to eat organic if possible and Ida Sanoff CREATURES RETURN TO NYC look up the list of the “Dirty Dozen” CAWD environmental toxins. Director By Jack Bolembach Secretary In the 1970’s, the waters were so polluted that Tony Rose I saw two Bald Eagles in a tree that are a very little sea life existed. Due to the clean Staten Island Sport Divers mating pair. They first arrived at Mount waters in the Harbor and Bay, the microorganisms and fish have started coming Director Loretto in the Spring of 2016 but they only succeeded in having two babies that survived back in the 1990’s. Forty-five years of fighting Treasurer and reducing pollution as a result of the Clean Membership in 2017. Each Spring they build a nest as Newsletter they have done again this year. Water and Clean Air Act has created an Richard Chan ecosystem where wildlife has returned and is NRPA I met a few bird watchers and walked around now thriving. An interesting outcome of with them. This is the first pair of mating Bald cleaner water was seen in the foundation of President the shoreline walkway alongside the Financial Jim Scarcella Eagles in the area in over a hundred and fifty years. The Bald Eagles are Center at the Hudson River. It was originally NRPA constructed with wood pilings. But as the NY/NJ Baykeeper here because the Bay now has an abundant source of food. Not too long ago, the waters Harbor became cleaner, microorganisms Vice President were too polluted to support a mating pair of which bored into wood returned and Charles Perry Bald Eagles. Ospreys are also seen at Mount undermined the foundations. The architects Protectors of Pine Oak Loretto and many other species of birds and and engineers never thought these organisms Woods wildlife. Dozens of deer live in the park too. were an issue because the harbor was so Assistant Treasurer polluted for a hundred years. They had to John Malizia In 1970, a survey estimated that only two build cofferdams and pour water resistant S. I. Yacht Club, dozen Bald Eagles were living in all of New concrete to form new foundations. S. I. Tuna Club, FCA York State. The pesticide used by farmers called DDT and the acid rain that formed from Occasionally, prior to 2000, a few seals and Assistant Secretary the pollution emitted from power plants in the whales might be seen near New York Harbor Robert Carrano but they could not survive because of the NRPA south and mid-west were killing fish in the lakes of New York and New England. These pollution and lack of an adequate food source. TRUSTEES fish were a food source for Eagles and their As the Harbor became cleaner, seals arrived sharp decline, along with the use of DDT, Dr. Martin Schreibman nearly decimated the Bald Eagle population. Brooklyn College AREAC As a result, the Bald Eagles were placed on Dr. John T. Tancredi Molloy College the endangered species list.

Cindy Zipf DDT was ultimately banned and strict Clean Ocean Action pollution controls at power plants were put into place. As a result, today we see a remarkable comeback in the Bald Eagle population as well as in other species of wild animals.

It was recently discovered that the herbicide Round-up adversely impacts the environment and is a known carcinogen. It was sprayed on crops and weeds. This could be a reason why This photo taken with my iPhone of the two Bald people are developing many types of Eagles sitting in the tree. In this Edion Page 1 BALD EAGLES Page 3 THE FASCINATING HORSESHOE CRAB – A Page 2 ACOE HARBOR AND TRIBUTARIES STUDY SPECIAL PRESENTATION (HATS) Page 4 NRPA SPRING SUMMARY Page 3 OAKWOOD BEACH CLEANUP AT KISSAM AVE. Page 5 UPCOMING EVENTS Page 2 NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION SUMMER 2019 None of these things were possible in the 1970’s when the waters were I took the S-44 bus from the St. very polluted. The waters will George ferry terminal, traveling continue to improve as long as along Richmond Terrace. As we funding is provided to keep the 14 passed the old US Gypsum plant, Wastewater Treatment Plants within my thoughts turned to the tens of the City of New York operating thousands of men and women who efficiently and staffed with highly had worked there during the plant’s trained, skilled trade workers. New 80-year operation. Ships were Jersey, and Connecticut docked there night and day, and the along with the municipalities along North Shore rail line tracks are still the Hudson, Raritan and Passaic there, running thru the length of the Close-up of these two Bald Eagles taken Rivers must all continue to do their quarter- mile building. The bus by a woman with a telephoto lens. I took part in safeguarding the environment passed Leidy’s, an Island institution, the photo with my iPhone off the screen of and fighting the discharge of pollution where the sailors and longshoremen her camera. into the waterways. would trade stories, play cards, and share beverages. Several homes around 2000 and over the last 19 ACOE HARBOR AND nearby were part of the Underground years they have established a large TRIBUTARIES STUDY Railroad, providing freedom to colony on Swinburne Island. Tour African Americans. As I glanced over boats depart from Sheepshead Bay (HATS) the guardrail, the waters of the Kill By Jim Scarcella during the winter months so people van Kull were roiling by and I saw can observe seals on Swinburne what looked to be a homeless Island. The Army Corps of Engineers recently released preliminary scoping encampment 25 feet below the documents related to the NY/NJ sidewalk elevation. Snug Harbor The seals leave in May and migrate seemed to be deserted, but I found north to the coasts of Montauk, New Harbor and Tributaries Study Coastal Storm Risk Management (HATS). the Music Hall and signed-in with the England and Canada. They have presentation team. The posters were their babies in the nutrient rich colder Several alternatives are being proposed, and each has its own visually informative. The Corps noted waters and return in November. that the five-mile sea wall from Ft. Humpback Whales have been seen benefits, analysis, risks, cost, ecology disruption and much more. Wadsworth to is in the Lower Bay off Staten Island planned, funded, and to be started in and even in New York Harbor 2020. feeding on fish as they make their Historical storms have severely impacted the NY/NJ Harbor region. Spring and Fall migrations to and Basically, the Corps has allotted the from Canada and the Caribbean. The study is assessing the feasibility of coastal storm risk management value of economic assets in our area to be approx. $400 billion dollars. Because the water is now cleaner, alternatives that can be implemented within the very large authorized study Most of these buildings and Oysters are now being placed by infrastructure is in flood zones. marine biologists in strategic area (NY /NJ Harbor, the Rockaways , the Hudson River, the Several Alternative Plans were locations around the harbor and presented. Alternatives 1 and 2 are bays. In the mid-1800’s and earlier, Raritan, the Passaic, Lower Bay, the eastern portion of Long Island by far, the most expensive and the City of New York had the largest environmentally damaging. Oyster populations in the world. In Sound, the Hackensack, and more). The public meetings were held in Alternative 2 is a 5-mile barrier from , you can Sandy Hook to Breezy Point, find evidence of Oyster shells on the Brooklyn, Staten Island , Poughkeepsie, the Bronx, shipping lanes, tides, currents, surface of the ground where migratory fish, shellfish and wildlife Woodchucks have made burrows. Middletown and the Customs House in . be damned. It is difficult to imagine These Oyster shells are hundreds of all of the harmful impacts of this years old. They were taken from the The Staten Island meeting was held barrier, including the threat that it will Bay by Native Americans as a rich result in the retention of sewage in source of food. Native Americans on a Tuesday evening at Sailors Snug Harbor. area waterways. The Corps says this lived in the area reaping the will cost $112 billion and take 25 abundance of seafood from Raritan years to complete. Other Alternatives Bay. A Native American burial involve various combinations of ground was discovered in the 1890’s smaller flood gates. The Corps has by archeologists from the Natural admitted that all of the flood gates History Museum under a ridge about will result in barrier induced flooding. three quarters of a mile southeast of Basically, when a storm surge hits a the Conference House, which was flood gate, it will be diverted to areas built in 1680. It’s called Burial Ridge alongside of the gate. So, any flood and today is safely protected within gate will also require massive the established parkland. amounts of shoreline hardening on either side of the gate, adding to cost and environmental impacts.

(continued next page) SUMMER 2019 NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION Page 3 right here in the NY/NJ Harbor Bight There are also concerns about apex, but Dr. Tancredi’s research whether this very costly project will indicates that their numbers are address sea level rise, which in declining. He compared them to the many areas, is a big problem. now extinct Passenger Pigeons. At one time, they were the most Although the Corps has provided a abundant bird in North America and lot of information about economic perhaps the most abundant bird in analysis, nothing has been provided the world. The population was just about the environmental impacts of enormous. Skies would darken as any of the Alternatives. The Corp flocks of literally millions of birds has received many, many comments passed overhead. It was said that if about this project and they have someone just fired a rifle straight up, admitted that most of the comments THE FASCINATING without even aiming, several birds support using Alternative 5, which would fall out of the sky, they were involves perimeter protection, such HORSESHOE CRAB – A packed in that tightly. But by the mid- as raising the shoreline. These SPECIAL PRESENTATION 1890’s, flocks were down to perhaps measures are cheaper, can be done By Jim Scarcella & Ida Sanoff a few dozen birds at most. The last faster and will have far fewer harmful Passenger Pigeon died in a zoo in impacts. There was a special treat at NRPA’s 1914. The birds had been hunted to June meeting. One of our Trustees, extinction. There were just so many We need to stay involved. The the distinguished scientist Dr. John of them that everyone thought that project website is http:// Tancredi, gave us an in depth look at this population could survive www.nan.usace.army.mil/ the need to protect Horseshoe anything. NYNJHATS. Crabs. Horseshoe Crabs may now be facing Dr. Tancredi is the Director of the the same situation. In Asia, they are OAKWOOD BEACH Center for Environmental Research CLEANUP AT KISSAM eaten and here in North America and Coastal Oceans Monitoring they used to be used for fertilizer but AVENUE (CERCOM) at Molloy College on are now harvested and crushed for By Jim Scarcella Long Island. He has written five use as eel bait. Right here in New books, numerous scientific articles York State, the Department of Thanks to support from all of you, and has led scientific expeditions Environmental Conservation NRPA cleaned a quarter mile of through Asia, the Caribbean, Europe (NYSDEC) allows a commercial Oakwood Beach on Saturday. The and even Easter Island and the harvest quota of 150,000 of them, a dumping at the bottom of Kissam Galapagos. number that has been unchanged Avenue was disgusting, but not as since 2009. But that is not the only bad as last year. The area is threat to their existence. Dr. returning to its floodplain, lots of Tancredi’s research shows that they phragmites (which we avoided for return to spawn in the same place fear of ticks) and Red Winged where they hatched. So, if a nest Blackbirds, Snowy Egrets, Yellow area is destroyed by development, Rumped Warblers and more. the creatures will not spawn anywhere else. In addition, high On the beach side, there were levels of nitrogen and pollutants plastic bags, bait boxes, dead increase crab mortality. bunker, 2 dead herring gulls, plastic Horseshoe Crabs are sometimes caps, cigarette butts, candy called “living dinosaurs” because They do not reproduce until they are wrappers, beer bottles, a steel dirt they have been on our planet, several years old and come ashore bike carcass, fishing line and virtually unchanged, for millions and in May and June, on the evening balloons. I personally carried a millions of years. Their three high tides around the new and full large piece of recycled plastic deck. sectioned bodies are very similar to moon. They spawn and bury their Tony Rose rolled a shipping buoy the fossils of extinct creatures called eggs in the mud along beaches and can 50 ft. up the beach to join the Trilobites and the Horseshoe Crab salt marshes and these are also riprap. may have descended from them. But they are not really crabs, they are As an added bonus, two of us saw a actually related to spiders. These seven-inch Eastern Fence Lizard hardy creatures are only found in two sunning itself on the berm. parts of the world: The Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America and in All told 12 persons removed more parts of Asia. Here in North America, than 600 lbs. of garbage. there is only a single species, Limulus Polyphemus and in Asia there are only three species.

We see plenty of Horseshoe Crabs

(continued next page) Page 4 NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION SUMMER 2019 important feeding areas for migratory Please join or renew Action about the dangerous, birds. In some places, like Delaware your NRPA membership backward NESE Williams Pipeline, Bay, thousands of crabs may come TODAY See page 5 Parks Department Fresh Kills Park, ashore to spawn at the same time, and then a great session from churning up recently buried eggs. Malloy College (John Tancredi) This provides an important food about the invaluable Limulus source for migratory birds, traveling (Horseshoe Crab). from South America to northern breeding grounds. The birds can The beach clean ups started at almost double their body weight in Tarlton Avenue (Oakwood) with just two weeks. The eggs and newly great help from students of St. hatched larvae also nourish young Joseph’s by the Sea, where we fish. found rugs and auto parts, along with single use plastic bags. Humans owe a tremendous debt to Horseshoe Crabs too, thanks to their variation in population numbers from We then mobilized with Friends of sensitive blood. Injectable products year to year. However, overall, the Kivlehan Park at . such as vaccines, IV fluids, population appears to be declining This particular event was augmented antibiotics and other drugs are by 1% every year. By itself, that by the Student Conservation sterilized before they are used. But doesn’t sound so bad. But other data Association of Massachusetts, who they also have to be tested for shows that there is a decline in the were visiting the Big Apple and pyrogens – substances that can number of locations where breeding wanted to participate in a volunteer cause a fever. The cell wall – the occurs. Over the same time period activity. The sight of close to 50 outer coating – of some types of that the overall population has young adults walking down New bacteria, is a pyrogen, a type called declined by 1%, there has been an Dorp Lane to assist Howie, Mary endotoxin. Even if a fluid is sterile, it 8% decline in the number of beaches Ellen, Maxine, Kathy and Tony was can cause a fever and complications where spawning occurs. And there extremely encouraging. Over 400 if endotoxin is present. And that is are more and more beaches where lbs. of garbage was removed. where the Horseshoe Crab blood there is no breeding at all. Will these comes in. If endotoxin is present, it abundant animals soon suffer the Next, we assisted NYC H2O with the will coagulate (clot) their blood. So same fate as the Passenger Pigeon? Conference House Ecology Day. At pharmaceutical companies routinely this clean up, the Sea Vikings test a sample of each lot using Dr. Tancredi has been able to football team removed a Horseshoe Crab blood. There are successfully breed Horseshoe Crabs construction excavator tire that companies that collect Horseshoe in his lab and has offered to weighed over 400 pounds and many Crab blood and then return them to periodically release some to ensure bait packages left behind by their habitat. This test is called the that they don’t die out. But the fishermen. The IS 7 Bernstein Green Limulus Amoebocyte Lysate test. response has been pure Team was on hand to assist and Limulus polyphemus is the scientific bureaucratic nonsense. The New sadly a strangled lobster was found name of North American Horseshoe York State Department of in tangled, discarded netting. Over Crabs. Environmental Conservation 2,000 lbs. of debris was removed, (NYSDEC) has refused to allow this, with an additional 40 lbs. of metal because they do not believe that the and glass recycled. population is threatened. And so far, they have refused to lower the Then we tackled a new area of number of crabs that can be taken Oakwood Beach, at Kissam Avenue. for use as bait. (see related article).

We are hoping that NYSDEC wakes Next up was a cleanup with Urban up and addresses this declining Park Rangers at Lemon Creek population before it is too late. Sharrott Avenue Pier. We cut back Horseshoe Crabs are far too the overgrown weeds to help important to ecosystems and to prevent tick bites. The Rangers humanity to be taken for granted. concentrated on bottle caps and cigarette butts. We set the killifish NRPA SPRING SUMMARY trap at the salt pond south of the During breeding season, when the By Jim Scarcella crabs come ashore, they are Taking part in a beach counted and tagged in various The NRPA has had a busy and locations and Dr. Tancredi’s productive spring season, with great cleanup is one way to research has shown some disturbing presentations, environment- keep the oceans healthy trends. In a sixteen-year trend enhancing beach clean ups and a summary where crabs were counted successful Environmental Fair. for generations to come. in locations from Brooklyn to Join us at our next Montauk, there was considerable Presentations from Clean Ocean beach cleanup!

(continued next page) SUMMER 2019 NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION Page 5 pier, and we were rewarded with aluminum. fishing debris, household items and over 40 banded fish that we put into fast food containers. We also the tank with a pump the Rangers Finally, NRPA collaborated with S. I. rescued three horseshoe crabs. brought. It was beautiful to observe Zoo Education Department and Over 500 lbs. of garbage was the mummichog schooling and docents for a great clean up at removed and another 50 lbs. of glass swimming. We removed over 600 Lemon (Lou Figurelli) Creek Park, and aluminum was recycled. Thanks lbs. of garbage and recycled an Seguine Point. Thirty volunteers to Richie Chan, Tony Rose, Chuck additional 40 lbs. of glass and removed beer cans, bait bags, Perry, John Muller and the Zoo crew. Upcoming Events:

NRPA MEETING LOCATION is at the Regina M. McGinn, MD Medical Education Center at Staten Island University Hospital 2nd floor, 475 Seaview Ave, Staten Island, NY 10305 Tuesday, August 6, 2019 - NRPA monthly meeting Tuesday, September 3, 2019 - NRPA monthly meeting Saturday, September 21, 2019 – NRPA beach cleanup at Lemon Creek Park at Sharrott Avenue with the Protectors of Pine Oak Woods from 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Gloves, bags and refreshments provided. Community service hours certi- fied. For more info: Jim Scarcella 718-873-4291 click here for directions Saturday, September 28, 2019 – NRPA beach cleanup at Cedar Grove Beach from 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Meet at Ce- dar Grove Avenue and Ebbits Street in New Dorp. Gloves, bags and refreshments provided. Community service hours certified. For more info: Jim Scarcella 718-873-4291 click here for directions Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - NRPA monthly meeting Saturday, October 5, 2019 - Beach cleanup at Lemon Creek Park at Seguine Avenue with Councilman Borelli and NYC H2O from 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM. Gloves, bags and refreshments provided. Community service hours from NYC H2O. For more info contact Councilman Borelli’s office or NYC H2O click here for directions Saturday, October 12, 2019 – NRPA beach cleanup at Oakwood Beach at Tarlton Avenue. Discover the beach before the construction of the East Shore Seawall. Community service hours certified. For more info: Jim Scarcella 718-873- 4291 click here for directions Wednesday, October 15, 2019 – NRPA-COA Student Summit for Marine Ecology sponsored by Con Edison and Staten Island Borough President. More info to be announced by Tony Rose. Saturday, October 26, 2019 – NRPA beach cleanup at New Dorp Beach from 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM. Meet at the foot of New Dorp Lane. Gloves, bags and refreshments provided. Community service hours certified. For more info: Jim Scarcella 718-873-4291 click here for directions NO NRPA MEETING IN NOVEMBER DUE TO ELECTION DAY Tuesday, December 3, 2019 - Holiday gathering at the Blue Heron Nature Center 7:30 PM click here for directions

Dedicated to preserving the marine environment, the Natural Resources Protective Association is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization. All contributions are tax deductible. All memberships expire on December 31, so please renew NOW! (All memberships paid after October 1 will also receive credit for the upcoming year) Are You A Member? Have You Renewed? Please Join Us NOW!

$15.00 Individual $20.00 Family $25.00 Organization $100.00 Sponsor (after 5 payments you become Lifetime member) $500.00 Lifetime Member YES! I/We want to join the fight! Name: Address: Phone: Email: Mail to: Natural Resources Protective Association C/O Richard Chan, Treasurer Post Office Box 050328 Join NRPA today Staten Island, NY 10305