Jamaica Bay marshland groups get honors 
 

 

 
Members of an environmental team striving to protect and restore the mysteriously vanishing saltwater marshes in Jamaica Bay have been accorded presidential honors.
Fifty-six individuals representing 16 groups, from the Jamaica Bay Guardian to Brooklyn College, received 2004 Partnership Awards from Coastal America for their roles in helping to restore Big Egg Marsh.

National Park Service Director Fran Mainella presented the awards on behalf of President Bush and the 12 federal departments that make up the Coastal America Partnership. The award recognizes outstanding efforts that demonstrate the power of leveraging collective resources.

Team members accepted their awards at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

"Receiving recognition from the President is really something outstanding, especially when I look back to 1996 when we first noticed the marsh loss," said Dan Mundy, founder of the Jamaica Bay EcoWatchers.

Since 1924, when 2,300 acres existed, the bay's salt-marsh islands have decreased in area by half. Urbanization, rising sea levels and pollution are among reasons believed responsible for the salt-marsh decline, not just in Jamaica Bay, but all along the East Coast.

"This is an important award because it recognizes the value of the bay and the partnership of working together," said award recipient Billy Garrett, deputy general superintendent for Gateway National Recreation Area, National Park Service.

Under park service leadership, the partners last year implemented an innovative pilot salt-marsh restoration project in the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. 

Environmentalists applied new sediment to tidal marshes as a means to reestablish salt-marsh vegetation and increase elevation of deteriorating marshes. In addition, 80 volunteers planted more than 20,000 smooth cordgrass plants.

"I think it's a significant restoration that's taking place," said Mainella. "All of us working together on the restoration of a bay that is not only critical to New York but also to the entire nation."

Only minor erosion occurred over the winter and plant survival has been very good. Monitoring will occur for at least five years as larger-scale projects are planned and implemented. Results of the $750,000 project will guide future restoration efforts.

"We don't inherit the environment from our ancestors, we kind of borrow it from our children," said Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), a member of the Environmental Protection Committee.

The award recipients are: the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, state Department of Environmental Conservation, Port Authority, Research Foundation CUNY, Brooklyn College's Aquatic Resources and Environmental Assessment Center, the city Department of Parks and Recreation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA National Marine Fisheries, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Jamaica Bay Task Force, Jamaica Bay EcoWatchers, Jamaica Bay Guardian, Greenbelt Native Plant Center Propagation Nursery and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University. 

Originally published on December 5, 2004