The Brownstoner tells us that in honor of the International Coastal Cleanup Day, one Brooklyn resident is raising money and organizing volunteers to help the Prospect Park Lake cleanup effort.
After having seen a tremendous amount of debris in the lake during an electric boat tour and having sensed a threat to the delicate ecostructure of the lake in her own backyard, Tami decided that it was time to get involved.
We would like to congratulate her in her efforts to call attention to Brooklyn’s dirty waters — because, although Prospect Park Lake is not coastal or ocean, Tami and her 19 (and maybe, more) volunteers will do the cleanup on September 19. Check out the chronicling of her efforts on ioby (acronym for “in our backyards”) and on Facebook.
Here, in Sheepshead Bay, our coastal, stagnant bay waters are in desperate need of a Tami. Just take a look at the picture above. That’s just one instance of debris floating in the bay.
There’s almost a whole month to get something going and, of course, we know that Sheepshead Bay’s problems are way too big to be tackled in one day. For that matter, international coasts are large enough that there can be an entire year set aside to clean up. Still, even just one day where we can call attention to Sheepshead Bay’s cleanup is a welcome one, and even if a topical cleanup is done for cosmetic purposes, our stroll could be more pleasurable.
Will a Sheepshead Bay Tami step up? Or, will we be satisfied with garbage afloat in our own backwaters?
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Great idea, Ray! Who’s interested in trying to get this going here in the Bay? Sheepshead Bites would love to help.
Nice of you to volunteer Ray!
Okay, okay, I will single-handedly dredge my beloved bay. Does anyone happen to have an extra lifejacket hanging around?
I think you have to realize that it is impossible to “clean up” the bay in a single or even mulitple efforts like sweeping a rug. The stuff you see in the water originates on land. Virtually every piece of trash you see on Emmons Ave, Sheepshead Bay Rd and all the other local streets ends up in the bay, at first on the surface and then on the bottom and some eventually out to sea. I’m sure the fish thank everyone for their garbage.
We can start be cleaning and keeping our streets clean. Then we can address the CSO (combined sewer overflow) that dumps trash and raw sewage into the bay when it rains a little more than a 1/4″. Once the streets are clean then maybe the bay would be too. Where do we start? There are organizations that are interested but it takes a lot of work and community support. The businesses who are only interested in sweeping their sidewalk in front of their store must realize that they must be part of the soultion.
Ned, you have a point that occasional cleanup is not enough, Bill W has a point that pollution sources have to be addressed and it is multi-targeted campaign. Also there are at least two organizations I know off: http://keepbayclean.blogspot.com/ and http://www.alsnyc.org
Bay pollution comes from CSO, boat activity and waterfront activity.
SCO is responsible for chemically and biologically active substances, floating and possibly a sinking debris. Sinking debris probably accumulates right under the outlet. Floating debris can be contained within limited area with floating booms. Then limited areas can be cleaned regularly. Biological and chemical contaminants i guess can be neutralized with plants and bacterias. I am thinking of floating gardens, algae farms, mollusc cages.
Boating activity AKA dumping waste over the board can be contained by monitoring, recording and reporting incidents to corresponding authorities. What do we pay taxes for? Keep authorities busy and violators punished. Probably the same applies not only to boaters but to general public on the waterfront as well. Keep your cameras ready!
Hi Ray, I hope you don’t mind me chiming here.
I sure hope Tami inspires others to do the same for Sheepshead Bay, Central Park Reservoir, and any other of our treasured places in New York that need it. When Tami approached me about organizing the cleanup at Prospect Park Lake, we were super excited. That’s exactly the kind of citizen-led volunteer action that we all have to do to make our neighborhoods better, protect the environment at the local level, and know that we’re doing better for the whole earth.
So, Ray, if you, or you and some of your friends want to organize a cleanup for Sheepshead Bay (or more likely, the land around the bay), you can also use ioby.org to organize volunteers and raise funds to pay for the gloves, garbage bags, nets. I might also recommend contacting the American Littoral Society to ask them for guidance on the project. Just the past June they organized volunteers to pick up debris at Plum Beach nearby. Here’s a link to a video about their efforts there and their overall effort to protect NYC’s beaches: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7fTHRQ-2sI&feature=channel
That is so disgusting!!
Look what one Japan municipality is deploying to clean the water http://trendsupdates.com/solar-ufos-to-cleanse-the-waters-of-japan/
Solar-powered robotic floating pod that filters up to 9 ton of water per day. Ok – everyone is crazy about robotics nowadays, but what about power of nature? Algae, mollusks and plankton can be used to filter the water to. Floating farms have to be deployed in non-navigable corners of the bay. In worst case farm produce will end up in the dump and in best case will be decomposed into fertilizer. As I mentioned before the only infrastructure-level source of pollution is CSO that brings stoppable debris, chemical and biological contamination.
While restructuring our sewer system is long way, turning our bay into water treatment plant is a quick fix. Someone might argue about living around water treatment plant but living around raw sewage reservoir is much worse
[...] Life in the back area at the Momoyama restaurant at 1901 Emmons Avenue is kinda dreary. I mean, it’s supposed to be so great working at a landmarked building. Thing is, I got stuck in the storage area and this Lundy’s building can be kind of dreary in the unrenovated side. And, yeah, there’s a waterfront out there, but even taking a smoking break over by the window gets me a view of nothing but garbage. But, I guess that ain’t too far from the real thing. [...]
This lake needs help indeed. Why people keep throwing garbage into the lake? Don't they have some trash can?
Thanks for information, I'll always keep updated here!
Bravo, Bros! keep going like this, more good info again.