Report: Staten Island Open Space
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The preface and introduction to the report appear below. Copies of An Islanded Nature may be ordered by contacting The Trust for Public Land's New York office at (212) 677-7171. A $10 donation is suggested to help defray the costs of publication.
Preface
Introduction
--History and Broadening Scope of the Harbor Herons Project
--Evaluating the Gains and Losses in Open Space for Western Staten Island
--A Study Area with a Unique Nature and Multiple Challenges
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| Photo by: Ken Sherman |
An Islanded Nature enlarges the geographic area covered by The Harbor Herons Report. In addition to the 11 sites within the Harbor Herons Region and the three islands of the Arthur Kill/Kill van Kull, the present study examines nine additional sites south of the Fresh Kills Landfill and presents individual "portraits" or "landscapes" of each site. (Fresh Kills Landfill is discussed in the Appendix as an additional, massive site with conservation potential). Descriptions draw upon such site specific aspects as prehistoric and recorded human use, natural habitat value, restoration potential, current threat to open space at the site, and proximity to publicly owned and protected lands.
Like its predecessor, An Islanded Nature is intended to serve as a resource for land use planning in the borough and as a catalyst for action on the part of agencies, organizations, and concerned individuals. Furthermore, the document has an educational mission much broader than the mission of tracking the conservation status of individual sites. The study is also a celebration of nature as it persists and even thrives in urban environments. In this celebration, pen and ink drawings, engravings, photography, aerial photography, and satellite imagery supplement the primary components of research, writing, and mapping.
The title of the study, An Islanded Nature, reflects the early focus of the Harbor Herons Project, initiated in the late 1970s, on avian nesting at Shooters Island, Prall's Island, and Isle of Meadows. The title also reflects the study's inclusion of the larger constellation of harbor islands that supply vital habitat for the Harbor Herons. Most broadly, An Islanded Nature refers to the insular existence of unprotected and protected natural areas—islands of open space set amidst the rising tide of development in Staten Island.
Introduction
History and Broadening Scope of the Harbor Herons Project
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| Photo by: Scotty Jenkins |
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| Photo by: Scotty Jenkins |
In order to safeguard a local population of a species, conservationists recognize that it is critical to protect the full range of landscapes locally utilized by that species. A Snowy Egret, moving from an island in the Arthur Kill to Saw Mill Creek Marsh or to the shallows of Goethals Bridge Pond, and the Great Blue Heron, working its way south from the wreck field of Blazing Star to Kreischer's Cove, may be likened to living needles with invisible thread. The landscapes that birds require for resting, feeding, courtship, and nesting form, in essence, a fabric of natural areas. This fabric contains similar and diverse habitats, knit together by avian utility. Two encouraging observations emerge. First, as the birds are studied more fully, the fabric of habitats is often expanded, for example, from northwestern Staten Island to the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which encompasses all five boroughs. Second, if the fabric, consisting of natural or regenerating landscapes, is preserved in whole or in part, vast numbers of animal and plant species that share this habitat will benefit along with the species of initial focus.
The conservation focus on the Harbor Herons Region has called upon the energy and dedication of numerous individuals, organizations, and agencies for the past two decades. Soon after the founding of the New York City Audubon Society (NYCAS) in 1979, Albert Appleton, the first Conservation Chair of this new chapter of the National Audubon Society, was alerted about a proposal (advanced by Representative John Murphy of Staten Island) to blow up Shooters Island. This proposal, in theory, would have facilitated navigation and would have created jobs in the area. Fortunately, the proposal's deficiencies were recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the island was spared detonation. In the process of fighting island demolition plans, NYCAS was informed about Scotty Jenkins' "little secret" concerning heron nesting on Shooters Island (Albert Appleton, pers. comm.).
By 1980, Shooters Island and Prall's Island had become conservation priorities for NYCAS, and the Harbor Herons Project had begun. Both the project and the project title originated with Al Appleton. Following the protection of Prall's Island by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYCDPR) in 1984, NYCAS agreed, in 1985, to manage the island as a wildlife refuge for the city. Although it had been set aside as future parkland prior to 1990, Shooters Island did not enter NYCDPR jurisdiction until 1994. In the early 1980s, it was determined that Goethals Bridge Pond—a major foraging area for the wading birds nesting on Prall's Island and Shooters Island—was vulnerable. Efforts were initiated to conserve the pond and contiguous undeveloped land. With the help of NYCAS, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), and other organizations, Goethals Bridge Pond was secured, in part, by 1987, and the site was eventually transferred to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC).
Scientific research has always been a vital component of conservation efforts in the Harbor Herons Region. As advocated in the early 1980s by Dr. Donald McCrimmon of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, field research both publicizes the resource and guides future management decision making (Al Appleton, pers. comm.). From 1986 to 1995, Dr. Katherine Parsons, of the Manomet Bird Observatory, a nonprofit organization specializing in avian research and education and based in Massachusetts, undertook a long-range study of wading bird populations on Shooters Island, Prall's Island, and Isle of Meadows. In 1988, Manomet researchers found nesting herons and egrets on the Isle of Meadows. Since 1996, the survey work of harbor islands that support colonially nesting birds has been carried forward by Dr. Paul Kerlinger, a consultant for NYCAS and co-author of the present study.
Partnership between NYCAS and the Trust for Public Land led to the production in 1990 of The Harbor Herons Report, which has served as an overview of remaining natural areas in northwestern Staten Island, as a continuing resource for conservation measures, and as a call to action. The study's great utility as a planning document and the study area's biological importance are evidenced by a rare distinction recently made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As presented in a recent Corps publication, "Nationwide Permits 39, 41, 42 and 43 will not be available for activities located within the Harbor Herons System in Staten Island, New York, as identified in The Harbor Herons Report dated February 1990" (U.S. Army Corps, New York District's Regional Conditions for the New and Modified Nationwide Permits, March 9, 2000). The permits mentioned above address specific areas of activity: Permit 39—Residential, Commercial, and Institutional Developments; Permit 41—Reshaping Existing Drainage Ditches; Permit 42—Recreational Facilities; and Permit 43—Stormwater Management Facilities. The Harbor Herons, therefore, have made their imprint on the range of permitted human activities!
In response to the advocacy of concerned citizens, local environmental organizations, and city agencies, the present study has expanded the geographic coverage of The Harbor Herons Report. The present study area extends well south of the Harbor Herons Region and includes a complex of sites stretching to the Outerbridge Crossing and beyond. While Shooters Island and Arlington Marsh occupy the northern end of the present study area, Canada Hill Woods and Outerbridge Ponds and Woodland are the most southerly of the 23 sites presented. The geographic range of An Islanded Nature corresponds approximately to the area delineated by local Staten Island conservationist and botanist Richard Lynch as the Sweetbay Magnolia Biosphere Reserve. Lynch's area of conservation focus, however, takes in all of the eastern shore of the Arthur Kill and extends farther south to the willow oak woodland of Tottenville. The decision to make the vicinity of the Outerbridge Crossing the southern limit of the present study is arbitrary.
Evaluating the Gains and Losses in Open Space for Western Staten Island
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| Photo by: Dwight Hiscano |
One site is not included in the acreage analysis above. The Fresh Kills Landfill is omitted because of the site's unusual status as an active landfill and because of its vast size, which greatly skews the figures.
In carrying the Harbor Herons focus southward, the present study has added nine more sites: Blazing Star, Port Mobil Swamp Forest and Tidal Flats, Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve Additions, Sharrotts Road Shorelands, Kreischer's Cove, Charleston Woods/Kreischer Hill, Outerbridge Shorelands, Outerbridge Ponds and Woodland, and Canada Hill Woods. The total area of undeveloped land represented here is approximately 362 acres. None of the sites listed above, either in whole or in part, have been protected, with the exception of an estimated eight acres of the Mill Creek stream corridor (part of the NYCDEP Bluebelt Program) at Canada Hill Woods. (The 260-acre Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, established in 1976, is not included in the tally of undeveloped lands above.)
Development pressures on unprotected open space in southwestern Staten Island are very evident. A number of the nine sites listed above— Charleston Woods/Kreischer Hill, Kreischer's Cove, and Sutton Woods, a Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve Addition—are or have recently been subjects of development proposals. Portions of other sites—Outerbridge Shorelands, Outerbridge Ponds and Woodland, and Canada Hill Woods—are currently being actively marketed. The addition of the southern sites to the Harbor Herons sites (consisting of both protected and unprotected open space) brings the total of open space to 2,558 acres. Once the acreage of the southern sites, the 741 acres of protected Harbor Herons sites, and the Canada Hill Woods Bluebelt acreage are factored in, the overall area of protected open space consists of approximately 749 acres or 29% of the total area of open space covered by "An Islanded Nature." The analysis above supports the call for immediate open space protection, while there is still land to protect.
A Study Area with a Unique Nature and Multiple Challenges
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| Photo by: Ken Sherman |
Numerous factors underlying the recognized biodiversity of Staten Island are at work on the West Shore. These factors include: diverse bedrock geology and soils; the imprint of glaciation; the borough's position on the Atlantic Coast; its existence as an island, surrounded and defined by different coastal environments (the Hudson River, the Upper and Lower Bays of New York Harbor, the Kill van Kull, and the Arthur Kill); its position on the Atlantic Flyway, one of four major avian migratory routes in the United States; and its position in a transition area between the northern (Canadian) and southern (Austral) life zones (Staten Island Institute of Arts and Sciences, 1997). From a botanical perspective, the overlap of plant species with northern and southern distributions is particularly well documented for western Staten Island—the study area of An Islanded Nature and, in major part, the proposed conservation area of the Sweetbay Magnolia Biosphere Reserve. This "reserve" is an area of plant conservation focus, as proposed by the Sweetbay Magnolia Biosphere Reserve Conservancy, a Staten Island environmental group.
The biological diversity of western Staten Island depends upon the integrity and diversity of available natural habitats. A survey of the 23 sites of An Islanded Nature, ranging from former dredge spoil islands to marshlands and interior woodland tracts, reveals landscapes that, either in their present natural state or in a restored state, are capable of supporting a wide array of native plants and animals. A review of the diverse habitats of western Staten Island reveals a consistent pattern. Proceeding from west to east across the study area, one encounters successive habitat zones: the Arthur Kill and its shoreline, intertidal marsh, high marsh, brackish marsh, freshwater marsh, swamp forest, lowland or "maritime" forest, and upland forest. A number of these habitats may be found within the boundaries of a single site.
As they exist today, the undeveloped lands of the Harbor Herons Region and of the broader West Shore are remnants of a once great and interconnected natural system. While this system has been fragmented by human endeavors over the past several centuries, geographic and hydrologic links remain, both between individual sites and between habitats, which may embrace all or portions of individual sites. Geographic links occur through the proximity or contiguity of sites. Examples of geographic linkage include the shared borders of Old Place Creek and the Gulfport Marsh and Uplands, and of Charleston Woods/Kreischer Hill and Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve. It must be remembered that boundaries, such as the boundaries denoting land ownership or defining Islanded Nature sites, are artificial constructs placed upon the natural landscape. Hydrologic links occur by means of water flow, whether the water is salt, brackish, or fresh. The linkage occurs through the diurnal ebb and flood of the tides and characterizes coastal sites, such as Saw Mill Creek Marsh, Old Place Creek, Blazing Star, and Sharrotts Road Shorelands. Hydrologic links also occur through the passage of fresh water from inland catchment areas to the coastal marshes and the Arthur Kill. In western Staten Island, such catchment areas often contain upland forests and swamp forests, as found at Cable Avenue Woods, Graniteville Swamp, Teleport Woods, and the Port Mobil Swamp Forest. State and federal wetland designations, which accompany individual site descriptions (when applicable), provide a valuable index of the extent and quality of hydrologic connections for a given site or for a cluster of sites.
Since the appearance of The Harbor Herons Report in 1990, Staten Island's unprotected open space has been facing increasing pressure on numerous fronts: population growth; increased residential, commercial, and industrial development; increased public service infrastructure, including ball fields, schools, park-and-ride facilities, rail links, port terminals, and transfer stations; point source and non-point source pollution; oil spills, large and small; patterns of site neglect and misuse; and systemic environmental changes, specifically global warming and sea level rise.
The growth in human population on Staten Island is a major driving force behind the alteration and loss of natural areas. Partly because its natural areas make it an attractive place to live, Staten Island, by 1999, was leading New York's five boroughs in population growth. Staten Island's population has risen "by 8.8 per cent in the last decade, far outpacing the city's four other boroughs and leaving some of the most sought-after bedroom communities in places like Fairfield County, Connecticut and Suffolk County, on Long Island, in the dust" (The New York Times, March 9, 2000). While it is small compared with Brooklyn and Queens, Staten Island's 1998 population of 413,280 grew at twice the rate of the Manhattan population of 1.5 million (Ibid.).
For the least urban of New York City's boroughs, the pace of human-induced changes in the landscape has been staggering. While it can be argued that urbanization and suburbanization have been in process on Staten Island since well before the Civil War, the pace of change greatly accelerated following the completion of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in 1964. Former residents of Staten Island returning to favorite corners of the borough after an absence of a decade or more may find these places unrecognizable, except, perhaps, for the street signs. Natural habitat and views have been replaced by townhouse subdivisions, office complexes, new commercial establishments and strip malls, and a proliferation of paved surfaces. Even streams and creeks have disappeared below ground, contained within pipes and culverts (Michael Catania, pers. comm.). Topographic and road maps readily reveal that the transformation from rural to urban/suburban areas has proceeded farthest in northern, central, and eastern Staten Island. Western Staten Island continues to contain significant open space. However, the flood tide of development is advancing steadily. Proposals for a twinning of the Goethals Bridge and for a widening of adjacent roadways to facilitate truck traffic through the borough are indicative of a prevalent mind-set that growth must always be accommodated on Staten Island, regardless of the impact of that growth on the quality of life and on the environment.
Pollution further challenges the integrity and viability of natural areas within the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary in general and within the study area in particular. Oil is one of the worst pollutants from both point and non-point sources. An example of point source oil pollution is the release of oil into waterways from a specific and localized source, such as a ruptured pipeline or a grounded tanker or oil barge. An example of non-point source oil pollution is the entry of oil into a water body from a diffuse source, such as runoff from roadways and parking lots. The increase in impermeable surfaces that invariably accompanies development greatly abets non-point source pollution by facilitating the entry of oil, insecticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and other compounds into the aquatic environment.
On January 2, 1990, as The Harbor Herons Report was going to press, a major oil spill occurred at the Exxon Bayway Refinery on the New Jersey side of the Arthur Kill. While there have been a number of oil spills since, the Exxon Bayway Refinery spill was undoubtedly the largest and the most destructive. That event, in which 567,000 gallons of No. 2 fuel oil entered the Arthur Kill from a ruptured underwater pipeline, led to the destruction of 8 hectares (approximately 20 acres) of intertidal marsh, chiefly occupied by salt marsh cord grass (Spartina alterniflora), and also led to the death of 684 birds (Berger, 1991). Often persistent in the environment, oil is highly toxic to animals and plants and can denude a salt marsh. Oil saturates soil air spaces and can lead to major erosion, exacerbated by the wake of shipping on the Arthur Kill (Carl Alderson, pers. comm).
This accident at the Bayway Refinery has had major repercussions for the environment, not only in terms of damages to wildlife and habitat directly affected by the oil, but also in terms of extensive habitat acquisition and restoration at numerous sites in western Staten Island. Acquisition and restoration, at least in part, were eventually made possible through criminal and civil penalties levied upon the corporation responsible for the damages incurred. The penalties led to the establishment, in 1991, of the Salt Marsh Restoration Team, administered by the Natural Resources Group of NYCDPR. As a result of The Harbor Herons Report, TPL was asked to serve as a land acquisition agent for the government trustees of the damages account.
In 1990, additional oil spills occurred in the Arthur Kill and adjacent waters of the New York/New Jersey Harbor. One spill occurred during the grounding of the tanker BT Nautilus, an accident that resulted in the release of 260,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into the Kill van Kull. The vulnerability of the harbor shoreline to oil pollution was underscored again in 1990 by the explosion of the oil barge Cibro Savannah, which was carrying four million gallons of heating oil. An overview of oil spills harborwide in 1990 provides a most disturbing perspective. In that year, "684 spills dumped a volume of 5.7 million liters (1.5 million gallons) of oil into the waterways and wetlands of New York harbor; 70% of this volume contaminated the Arthur Kill and the Kill van Kull" (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, 1996). More recent accidents have occurred in the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary, including the 1997 Reinauer spill of 43,000 gallons of fuel oil at a GATX docking berth in Carteret, N.J., and a collision between a tug boat and a berthed naval vessel in Leonardo, N.J. The latter accident, which occurred on September 15, 2000, resulted in the release of 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel into the surrounding waters (Carl Alderson, pers. comm.). Given the prominence and proximity of the petroleum industry and its related shipping, natural areas on both the New York and New Jersey sides of the Arthur Kill, including all of the Islanded Nature sites with hydrologic connections to the Arthur Kill, will undoubtedly continue to be at risk for the foreseeable future.
In addition to the pressures of population growth, land development, and pollution, urban natural areas face the challenge of site misuse. At one time or another and to differing degrees, all of the Islanded Nature sites have been subjected to inappropriate or even unlawful activities. Unmonitored and unprotected open space is vulnerable to a host of ills including abandoned automobiles; dumping of household and construction debris; dumping of toxic waste; pollution of streams and creeks from combined sewage and storm water (occurring in combined sewer overflow, or CSO, events); vandalism; unauthorized encampment; fire; unauthorized collection of animals and plants; introduction of non-native animals and plants; and abandonment of domestic animals. All of these problems are fortunately surmountable. Lands that have been designated parks, such as Mariners Marsh Park, Saw Mill Creek Park, and Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, provide encouraging evidence that site restoration and thorough and proactive stewardship can indeed turn the tide.
Urban wilds—open spaces either contiguous with or enfolded by a great city—may face a number of the challenges outlined above. These challenges are often interrelated. An additional challenge is operative on a larger scale: global warming. Ultimately linked to worldwide growth in human population, air pollution, and the destruction of forests, the existence of the process of global warming is now beyond serious dispute. By raising temperature and sea level, global warming may have profound effects on the future landscapes of the Harbor Herons, of the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary, and beyond.
FILE ATTACHMENTS:
 Official Site Map for An Islanded Nature | Aerial image of western Staten Island |
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