Page 4
Fall 2014
NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
Port Authority came to the res-
cue. Tired of waiting for their
donation to be realized as a
community resource, the PA
donated an additional one mil-
lion dollars to clean the site.
Opening ceremonies were
announced in the spring of
2014.
When that didn’t hap-
pen, they were re-scheduled
for the summer and cancelled
again. Meanwhile, the park
gates were open, but posts in
the roadway prevented visitors from
driving into the park to use the 20
spaces. Street parking near the park
is extremely limited. Although ac-
cess to the park was severely re-
stricted, the city used the
shiny new space to announce
other programs with a visit by
the governor.
However, in late October,
politicians and activists came
together to mark the opening
of the new Heritage Park.
Native American representa-
tives joined the event to per-
form a drum ceremony and
bless the site.
Like other city parks, it is open from
dawn to dusk. There is a small sign
at the Richmond Terrace entrance
and up to this point it is largely de-
serted.
We hope for the best for this newest
addition to the Parks Department
ronmental groups had established a
$60 million fund to protect endan-
gered natural areas in the harbor.
The first disbursement went to pur-
chase the Blissenback Marina, or
Van Street property as it was also
described. In 2004 a deal engi-
neered by the Trust for Public Land
and the PA purchased 9.7 acres and
donated to the New York City Parks
Department for $5 million.
And then it sat.
Somehow, in the planning and budg-
eting for the acquisition, no one
thought about the fact that this had
been a working industrial maritime
site. The soil was filled with oils,
petroleum distillates and red lead
from years of sand blasting the hulls
of ships private and commercial.
The top few feet of topsoil needed to
be scraped away and replaced by
clean fill.
So, it sat.
Much like Mariner’s
Marsh, the Brookfield landfill as well
as dumps at Fountain Avenue and
Pennsylvania Avenue areas waited
to be reclaimed and returned to the
community.
Again, to everyone’s surprise, the
Don’t Blink Or You’ll Miss It:
The Little Park That Never Was
By Anthony Rose
In early spring of this year, the Natu-
ral Resources Protective Association
got a grant from the Citizen’s Com-
mittee for New York (“New York is
my neighborhood”) intended to be
directed towards creation of a mini-
park at the site of the NY State pas-
Ocean Conservancy's Internation-
al Coastal Cleanup
By Chuck Perry
This past September, NRPA teamed
up with the Protectors of Pine Oak
Woods to clean up about a
mile of beach front at Sharrotts
Rd. and the Dorothy Fitzpat-
rick Fishing Pier.
The focus of NRPA is our
beaches and waterways, every
month - and often several
times a month we're out some-
where doing a cleanup along
the shore.
Ocean Conservancy's Interna-
tional Coastal Cleanup has
removed millions of pounds of trash
from our oceans, beaches and wa-
terways every fall. We not only pick
up trash we count every item as well.
The resulting item by item, location
by location Ocean Trash Index pro-
vides the only global snapshot of the
ocean trash littering the world's
coasts and waterways.
This year 26 volunteers picked up
436
pounds of trash including seven
wooden pallets, a 55 gallon plastic
drum, 779 plastic bottle caps, 350
tampons and three 6-pack holders.
In the past the 6-pack holders were
major problem for marine turtles and
marine animals that used to get
caught up in them. According to in-
ternet research done by Don Reck-
les of Protectors...since 2010 these
plastic rings have to be made from
material that photo-degrades in less
than 90 days. Now if we can only
get rid the-coast-clear/pledge.html
and of the plastic bottle caps and
tampons the same way.
If 10,000 people chose to reduce
their trash for one month, we could
reduce the trash on earth by more
than one million pounds. Take the
pledge to keep the Coast Clear at
www.oceanconservancy.org/keep
-
the-coast-clear/pledge.html and help
stop trash at its source.