Idlewild Park Gets $1.6 Million ‘Shot In The Arm’ For Wetlands
by Bryan Joiner, Chronicle Reporter November 10, 2005
The Eastern Queens Alliance has received a $1.6-million grant from the state Department of Environmental Conservation that will be used to restore and maintin Idlewild Park Preserve’s wetlands to their original state.
The grant will also help the EQA build an Idlewild Park Salt Marsh Environmental Learning Center, increase the accessibility of the park and help the EQA link with universities to study the wetlands, which are an integral—if sometimes cumbersome—part of life in Eastern Queens near Springfield Gardens.
The EQA hopes these efforts will make the wetlands become a destination for sightseers instead of a diversion for drivers along Rockaway Boulevard. EQA President Barbara Brown said the $1.6 million was the largest single donation to the Idlewild Park Preserve since a $10-million plan to revitalize the park was drawn up in 2003.
“It was a big shot in the arm. It is the largest grant we have received,” Brown said. The total windfall from the grant may eventually exceed $1.6 million: the EQA can use it to apply for matching funds programs to bolster its funding.
Brown said the upgrades to the park were being implemented on a section-by-section basis, and that the diagram for a trail system was almost complete. But she said there was much work left to do on the $10 million plan to restore the entire park. “We’re not close to being finished at this point.”
The wetlands support an uncommon variety of animal life for a New York City park, but caused numerous instances of flooding in nearby neighborhoods by preventing proper drainage when it rains, until a sewer system was installed near 183rd Street and Rockaway Boulevard that siphoned water into a former wetland that had become a local dumping ground. The result was happy residents in that area, and at least three new acres of wetlands were created by the water flow.
Idlewild Park Preserve is the last remnant of a formerly massive expanse of wetlands in Eastern Queens near Kennedy Airport, where 4,930 acres were filled.
During the 1930s and 40s, the city used the 160-acre patch of salt marsh near JFK Airport as a dumping ground for construction and demolition debris. The Parks Department acquired the land in the 1950s and 60s, and it became colonized with invasive plant species like phragmites, mugwort and Japanese knotweed.
In recent years, the EQA, a consortium of civic associations based in Southeast Queens, has worked with the Parks Department to clean up the area and restore the ecosystem, which is an integral part of the 18,000-acre Jamaica Bay.
The tidal creeks in Idlewild provide the largest volume of water to the entire Jamaica Bay system. To this end, the EQA has petitioned Mayor Michael Bloomberg to support a City Council bill, written by Jamaica Estates Councilman James Gennaro, that would prevent any further intrusions, construction on or de-mapping of Idlewild wetlands or parkland.
The bill would also turn over all city property on the south side of Rockaway Boulevard near the park to the Parks Department, and would push for the city to acquire any privately owned wetlands adjacent to Idlewild Park. Many city agencies are able to sell unused wetlands if they run into budget problems, but the Parks Department is obliged to protect the land.
Gennaro previously introduced a bill that requires the DEP to develop a comprehensive protection plan for the Jamaica Bay watershed, which Bloomberg signed in July. The city owns an estimated 2,000 acres of wetlands throughout New York City. Since 1994, an average of 40 acres of wetlands have disappeared each year.
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Originally Posted by Eric Daniel Smith
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