Page 3
Spring 2016
NATURAL RESOURCES PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
2016-2017 ELECTION OF
DIRECTORS RESULTS
By Richie Chan
Elections were held at the annual
meeting of members along with vot-
ing on bylaw change proposals.
Elected as Directors were:
Executive Director Ida Sanoff
Director Tony Rose
Director Richie Chan
Appointed for Officers were:
President Jim Scarcella
Vice President Chuck Perry
Secretary Danny Ingellis
Assistant Secretary Tony Rose
Treasurer Richie Chan
Assistant Treasurer John Malizia
All bylaw change proposals were
overwhelmingly passed and changes
have been incorporated into the by-
laws. Bylaws are available in pdf
format to any member.
FRESH KILLS RESTORATION
NEARS REALITY
By Anthony Rose
A significant piece of shoreline is
about to be added to the Staten Is-
land coast. Or, perhaps more accu-
rately, is about to be restored to the
Staten Island coast.
The Fresh Kills landfill reclamation
process is moving through the resto-
ration process to the monitoring and
protection phase. Parts of the for-
mer dump are already parks.
Schmul Park, a playground in Travis
has been tripled in size thanks to the
addition of remediated landfill. Owl
Hollow Soccer Fields in Blooming-
dale is a welcome addition to the
south shore recreational community.
These fields are also a result of the
Fresh Kills project.
On a sunny, cold Sunday afternoon
this past January, Cait Field, the
Fresh Kills manager for science and
research delivered a presentation at
the newly opened Staten Island Mu-
seum site in Snug Harbor.
For 53 years the largest landfill on
the planet, Fresh Kills was an urban
blight. Source of urban legends, it
assailed the senses and sensibilities
of all Staten Islanders. Residents
were barely able to travel to the new-
ly opened mall. Condominiums built
behind the shopping center could
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done welcomed us to the spectacu-
lar Ocean Breeze Indoor Track and
Field facility on Fr. Capodanno
Boulevard.
The presentation was divided into
four parts: Sand Lane, South Beach,
Midland Beach and New Dorp/Cedar
Grove Beaches.
The Parks Department’s consultant
stated to the 60 people who were
present that at no time would public
access be denied from the parks in
its entirety, that is that pieces of the
shoreline path would be open at one
area at a minimum, during the four
year physical alterations of the sea
wall.
The construction of the wall will be
performed as follows:
NY State and the Army Corps of En-
gineers agree on the scope of the
project, local partners like the NYC
Dept. of Environmental Protection
buy in to maintain and operate ma-
chinery for mechanical gates, the
package is submitted to the Secre-
tary of the Army for approval, the
final funding for the construction as-
sembly and then rebuilding the
boardwalk at an elevation of twenty
two feet above sea level.
Natural Resources Protective Asso-
ciation will continue to monitor the
process and documents as the East
Shore Staten Island Sea Wall project
moves forward.
only be marketed during the winter
months.
Robert Moses’ THREE YEAR PLAN
(!) was to fill in the useless (his be-
lief) swampland and use it for indus-
trial development and a shore road
intended to circle Staten Island. At
one point all trash generated in the
five boroughs was trucked or barged
into Fresh Kills.
If you lived or
worked in New York City between
1948 and 2001, you contributed to
the Fresh Kills park program. The
last barge of trash (with a ceremonial
banner), arrived in 2001.
An unintended consequence of be-
ing the repository of the city’s house-
hold trash was that the area was
spared from the type of development
that plagued and continues to plague
the Island’s shoreline. Fresh Kills
could have become a petrochemical
tank farm, auto junkyard or more
tacky condos instead of its current
configuration of rolling hills, grassy
meadows and scattered woodlands.
The primary concern of everyone
involved in the remediation is the
safety of future park goers. One
saving grace is the fact that the land-
fill was only assigned household
trash. There was never medical or
industrial waste directed to the site.
Fresh Kills was spared the insults
seen in other landfills, from the PCB
contaminated oil and heavy metals
at the Pennsylvania and Fountain
Avenue sites to the toxic, radioactive
waste Great Kills catastrophe at
Gateway.
The process of capping a shuttered
dump site is fascinating and complex
and deserves to be the subject of a
future story on these pages. Suffice
it to say the trash is covered and
encapsulated, protecting visitors
from any exposure to the unseemly
foundation of one of the city’s largest
