In comments to Courier-Life reporters, a spokesperson for Gateway National Park said that the United Stated Park Police did not arrest anywhere near the number alleged by a law student working on the case. According to the student’s allegations, 76 arrests were made on Plumb Beach in August 2009 as part of sting operations to net perpetrators of supposed illicit sexual behavior. But reports in GerritsenBeach.net and from Gene Berardelli during a Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association meeting suggested that the stings became increasingly messy with fishermen and others being swept up. According to a Courier-Life report, only around 17 arrests were made by the Park Police during August in plainclothes operations. “They (USPP) do standard undercover operations, but there was no massive stings or anything like that,” Gateway National Park spokesperson Jane Ahern told Courier-Life. “We do close the rest area at 10 p.m. and open at 6 a.m., and everybody after those hours would be loitering, but there was no sting operation.”
Archive for the tag 'plum beach'
The silver lining in the recent devastation of Plumb Beach is that community leaders, and city, state, and federal agencies are finally considering long term solutions to erosion issues at Plumb Beach.
Congressman Anthony Weiner once again brought together officials from Department of Transportation, Parks Department, National Parks Service, Community Board 15, and Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic on Tuesday, December 1, to survey erosion’s threat to the important ecological zone and the Belt Parkway.
After surveying the damage, all came to a consensus: more needs to be done to protect the beach and highway. Continue Reading »
The devastation caused to Plumb Beach this weekend by the remnants of Hurricane Ida was “No surprise,” according to members of Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association and experts. As recently as January, officials from the community, city, state, and federal agencies convened at the Plumb Beach bathhouse to discuss protection of the increasingly dangerous bike path and the threatened Belt Parkway. The problem is greater, though, affecting the ecology and wildlife of the entire area.
The meeting, called by Congressman Anthony Weiner to survey nature’s threat, ended with calls for solutions. At the time, the surging waters appeared to be passing underneath the bike path. Water soaked the grass adjacent to the highway, suggesting that erosion was occurring beneath the Belt Parkway as well, undermining its stability. While SBPB Civic proposed a plan to shore up the coast and add more sand and rocks underneath the bike path to strengthen it, nothing has happened. Continue Reading »
This weekend’s storms sparked by Hurricane Ida battered the Plumb Beach coastline, leaving a trail of destruction and providing fuel for a new wave of jurisdictional battles between NYC Parks Department and the U.S. National Parks Service.
The tale of devastation was drawn in the sand, as rubble from the bike path dotted the shore, carving lines to the water. Trees lay like fallen solders, their sides partially submerged and their roots reaching into the air. The water clawed sand out from under roots and rock, leaving everything without ground to stand on. In all, as the hurricane swept up the northeastern coast, it pushed back Plumb Beach’s protective break-line several feet, felling dozens of trees, and crumbling about 100 yards of the bike path. Continue Reading »
On Saturday, October 24, the NYC Audubon Butterfly and Bird Walk at Plumb Beach is kicking off at the Plumb Beach Round House off the Belt Parkway. Show up at 9:30 a.m. to see some of the birds and bugs in Jamaica Bay, one of New York City’s only federally protected nature reserves. The walk is free and ends at 1:00 p.m. Call NYC Audubon to reserve at (212) 691-7483.
(Photo courtesy of Tom Turner via Flickr)
Nearly a year after initial designs were unveiled for the Brigham Street Park and news of the project teetered off, the little park we’re all hoping for is back. Councilman Lew Fidler has given it new life with an injection of $400,000 of capital funds, and Borough President Marty Markowitz is kicking in an additional $100,000.
The funds will be used by the Parks Department to conduct soil testing and begin reworking the designs. “This money will begin to get us answers to turn a concept into a reality,” Fidler told Sheepshead Bites.
But the money is also creating a bit of the political surreal and stirring up serious questions about the park’s future. You see, the park initiative is spearheaded by Fidler’s electoral challenger, Gene Berardelli of the Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association. And as the money funnels in they’re both using the park to pump up their campaigns, leaving us wondering what really will happen to the park after the election. Continue Reading »
Beachcombers who like to take an evening sandy stroll are invited to look for Horseshoe crabs spawning on our shores.
You can volunteer as little as two hours of your time, starting May 22 (that’s this Friday!) and your research will help our environment. You can go to the movies and see them play-mating on the silver screen or you head out to the beach and watch some real live action in the name of science. Except in this case, you will have to record your observations on a form.
The Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association informed us about this program. Here is information from the NYC Audubon – IWASH site about organizations credited for the program’s development:
IWASH, which stands for Improving Wetland Accessibility for Shorebirds and Horseshoe crabs. IWASH is a large project involving multiple partners (including the American Littoral Society, Jamaica Bay EcoWatchers, NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, NYC Department of Environmental Protection, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation and the National Park Service) that is funded by a Together Green Innovation Grant from National Audubon and Toyota.
Who to contact:
Use the “Contact Us” page on the SB/PBCA website
or
send e-mail to John Rowden at NYC Audubon.
New researchers, just getting their feet wet, might find useful information about Horseshoe Crabs at the following:
Smithsonian Marine Station at Fort Pierce
The Ecological Research & Development Group (ERDG)
(Photo courtesy of ERDG website and Frans Lanting)
Fact: The Brigham Street Park Project is without question the Bay’s most innovative and captivating community initiative in recent years. The project’s benefits to the community are many, including developing a blighted lot into a sprawling greenspace for public use, adding a fantastic viewing point of the Bay’s mouth (take that, Breakers), and giving the neighborhood a venue for concerts and shows. But the real clincher for me, and where it deserves the highest praise, is in its focus on protecting the environment by preventing thousands of gallons of polluted storm runoff from mixing with Sheepshead’s water.
(Click image for full view)
I don’t think I can emphasize this enough – this system is really cool. Like, super cool. Gene Berardelli, the attorney for Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association and one of the lead organizers of the effort, calls the park and its runoff system an “example of how proper planning can benefit the environment.” Using a network of bioswales – a natural landscaping feature designed to collect, filter and redirect water through channels – storm water from Emmons Ave. and Brigham Street’s de facto parking lot will be prevented from entering the Bay. Instead, the oily, crack- and condom-filled fluid will run down a slope and through the park in an irrigation ditch of sorts. Nature takes over from there as a collection of plants such as Cinnamon Ferns, Giant Sunflowers and Turtlehead flowers filter the pollutants out of the water. The system is estimated to keep more than 35,500 gallons of icky-sticky water out of the Bay over 10 years.
Continue Reading »
