| Low Tide 1:14am | High Tide 7:04am | Low Tide 1:32pm | High Tide 7:36pm* |
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SOS Rally
Photo by Robert Simko
Peter Stanford, above, was the first
president of the South Street Seaport Museum when he and two others founded it in the 1967. As the museum and its
historic vessels teeter on the brink of disintegration, 150 loyal supporters, led by Mr. Stanford and a band of museum volunteers, rallied to save them on May 22, 2011 near the tall ships Wavertree and Peking.
"We cannot lose this museum and what it stands for," said John Doswell,
executive director of the Working Harbor Committee. "We must keep the vessels alive and working!"
"This Seaport has a future as well as a past," Mr. Stanford said, looking out at the crowd, "and it's YOU."
Check the SOS web site for the latest news about the Seaport Museum New York.
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Events on the Waterfront
Click on the links for details about these events. A calendar of events
may be found at www.waterfrontalliance.org/calendar
| May 26
Dance Party: Celebrate Brooklyn!
7:00p, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 1
May 27
Governor's Island Open to Public (every Fri, Sat, Sun & Holiday Mondays until Sept. 25)
May 28
Swim: NYC Swim Presents: Great Hudson River Swim
7:00a, Christopher St. Pier, Pier 45
May 28
Festival: Governors Island Family Festival #7
Noon, Ferries depart all day from Battery Marittime Buildings, 10 South St.
June 2
Party: Sunset Soca!
6p, Pier 1 Furman and Old Fulton Streets Brooklyn Bridge Park
June 4
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MWA Blue Bulletin Board |
MWA WATERFRONT CONFERENCE MATERIALS AVAILABLEInterested in seeing presentations from MWA's 2010 Waterfront Conference last November? Click here to see videos and minutes from each conference session MWA ADDRESS
241 Water Street, 3rd FloorNew York, NY 10038. MWA EMAIL ADDRESSESOur waterwire.net addresses are no longer in service. All MWA emails end in waterfrontalliance.org.
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FLOATING FOLLOW-UP YIELDS PROMISES & INSIGHTS
| | Congressional Representatives Commit to a Harbor Caucus
On May 16, standing before several hundred waterfront advocates and government leaders, Representatives Jerrold Nadler, Nydia Velazquez and Carolyn Maloney from NYC, and Paul Tonko from Albany, promised to form a Harbor Caucus in Washington, DC and push for the region's fair share of federal funding for the waterfront. The audience aboard the Spirit of New Jersey cheered.
The idea of a Harbor Caucus in Washington had been bandied about for months, but it was not acted on until the four Congress people stood side by side at the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance's Floating Follow-Up.
After the federal legislators' announcement at this on-water sequel to the MWA's 2010 Waterfront Conference, policymakers and professionals went on to discuss four keys to the successful future of the NY-NJ Harbor: regional ferry service, dredged material management, greater federal funding and resolving waterfront governance.
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Christopher Ward of the Port Authority of NY & NJ gives the event's keynote address before hundreds of waterfront experts, advocates, and policy-makers aboard Entertainment Cruises' Spirit of New Jersey.
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"We don't need more governance. We need consensus building," said Chris Ward (above), Executive Director of the Port Authority of NY & NJ and the event's keynote speaker. He was one of several speakers who opposed the idea of a new governance body for the waterfront.
Mr. Ward concluded his speech with good news. "We had thought the recession would deal a major blow to the maritime industry," he said. "But last March was one of the largest growth months in the port's history."
Please read on for a look at what happened at each panel discussion.
Press coverage of the event included articles in Downtown Express, The Epoch Times, and The Jersey Journal.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OUR EVENT SPONSORS
| | Supporters of A Restored & Revitalized Waterfront
The Waterfront Conference Floating Follow-Up would not have been possible without the partnership and support provided by our corporate sponsors. Please take a moment to recognize the companies that made this important event possible.
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DEBUT OF THE HARBOR COALITION
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WE ACT executive director, discusses the newly formed Harbor Coalition
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Plans, Goals, Outreach
The motivation for the formation this year of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Coalition can be boiled down to one incontrovertible fact: last year, the Great Lakes received $475 million in federal restoration funds. New York-New Jersey Harbor received $800,000.
With its main goal sustained advocacy to bring a fair share of federal -- and state -- waterfront funding to the region, the Harbor Coalition was launched at the Floating Follow-Up on May 16.
"This Coalition is not about generating more plans," panel moderator Laura Hansen of the J.M. Kaplan Fund told the audience. "It's about generating funds."
Funded by seed money from Kaplan for its first two years, the Coalition will organize political and nonprofit constituencies in New York and New Jersey to participate in a multi-year advocacy campaign that will target existing and new funding sources. The Coalition is seeking a director (click here for more information), part of whose job will be to keep in close touch with the offices of the members of the new Harbor Caucus in Washington (see story above).
Representatives from five of the 10 founding Coalition organizations participated on the Floating Follow-Up panel: Chad Lord from the National Parks Conservation Association, Marc Matsil from the Trust for Public Land, Rob Pirani from the Regional Plan Association, Elizabeth Ruebman from NY/NJ Baykeeper and Peggy Shepard (above, with, from left to right Chad Lord, Laura Hansen and Marc Matsil) from WE ACT for Environmental Justice. The other coalition members are the Environmental Defense Fund, Hudson River Foundation, Ironbound Community Corporation, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance.
"The key is speaking with one voice in Washington," said Mr. Pirani, who urged taking advantage of a current interest by Washington lawmakers in urban parks and urban waters.
Mr. Lord advised against asking for "dedicated" funding, because it would be outside the appropriations process. "It's a good time for education and outreach in Washington," he said.
Ms. Ruebman, a former federal lobbyist, took the microphone. "There is never a bad time [for education and outreach] in Washington," she quipped.
This panel was a continuation of the "Show Us the Money" panel at MWA's Waterfront Conference last November. To access the summary materials from this panel click here. Stay tuned for supplementary material from the Floating Follow-Up in future issues of the Waterwire. (back to top) |
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WHAT TO DO WITH DREDGED HARBOR SEDIMENT?
| | And How to Pay for Its Testing, Transportation & Disposal?
It's the marina operators, tugboat owners and small shipyards that are most drastically affected by dredging issues in New York Harbor. "They can't even afford to test their material because the process is so expensive," said Andrew Genn of the NYC Economic Development Corporation. He was on a panel discussing Dredged Materials Management at the MWA's Floating Follow-Up. "Even a bulk chemistry test can be a hardship to a small marine terminal. Companies defer dredging, and will do their best to light-load their barges. Marinas will try to get permits to lengthen their docks to federally dredged shipping channels."
One possible source of money to pay for dredging costs, Mr. Genn told the audience, is the federal government's Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, which is funded by the Harbor Maintenance Tax. The Fund currently has surplus of $7 billion, and operators around the country are banding together to demand access to the money. [According to the web site of RAMP, or, Realizing America's Maritime Promise, a bill -- H.R. 104 -- has been introduced to provide a method for disbursing the funds.]
Matthew Masters of the Port Authority said the Authority hopes to lower the cost of dredging by 30% by cultivating long-term certainty and barge delivery. The Authority is testing this theory with its recent long-term (more than a decade) contract with a dredging company that is required to have placement sites 25 miles from the Statue of Liberty and is also required to transport the material by barge, as opposed to trucks.
The panel turned to the question of sediment decontamination. Panelist Scott Douglas of the New Jersey Department of Transportation (above, center, with panel moderator John Tavolaro of the US Army Corps of Engineers at left and Mr. Genn at right) suggested that the cost of decontamination needs to be offset by creation of an equally valuable product.
The panelists agreed that our current dredged material management strategy, while being very effective for the last decade or so, is no longer economically sustainable. It was reiterated that we are heading for a crisis that will affect all dredging projects, both large and small. It is particularly true as the Harbor Deepening Project comes to close in the next few years and the newly deepened channels require ongoing maintenance. Our region needs a plan for thinking holistically and long term about feasible solutions. One panelist said "If we fail to plan we will be unable to avoid a crisis that would likely only be solved through political solutions which usually do not lead to the best long term options." The panelists concluded that it is time to dust off the books, find out what works from before, what new solutions we can put on the table, and develop a 10 to 20 year plan.
To download the handout entitled "Avoiding a Dredging Crisis - Planning for Sustainable Dredged Material Management" click here.
This panel was a continuation of the "Dredged Material Management" panel at MWA's Waterfront Conference last November. To access the summary materials from this panel click here. Stay tuned for supplementary material from the Floating Follow-Up in future issues of the Waterwire. (back to top)
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THE FUTURE OF REGIONAL FERRY SERVICE IN NY HARBOR
| | New York Experts Hear that West Coast Ferry Service Faces Challenges, Too
The question came from the audience at the Floating Follow-Up. "Are our maritime support services equipped to handle the expansion of ferry service in New York Harbor?"
Janet Cox from the Port Authority, one of the experts on the Regional Ferry Service panel, took the microphone. "You need to have fueling stations in your backyard so ferries don't have to go too far out of the area to maintain their fleets," she said. "We need to leave space for these uses amid waterfront development."
Madelyn Wils from the NYC Economic Development Corporation agreed. "We want to concentrate ferry service where new development is springing up on the waterfront," she said, suggesting as an example, that congestion on the L line could be alleviated with ferry service.
But ferry service is an expensive proposition. Ms. Wils said ferry service was equivalent, at least in one way, to express bus service because both require major subsidies. The EDC has come up with $9 million to subsidize the new East River ferry service that will be launched in June for three years.
John Sindzinski San Francisco's Water Emergency Transportation Authority (WETA), which manages all public ferry services in the Bay Area and is charged with delivering new routes and faciities, described the challenges faced by this agency, among them lack of funding, lack of support in the state legislature and by local transit operators, complaints by California environmentalist about air pollution from ferries and attempts by Berkeley citizens to block the construction of a ferry terminal.
Ms. Wils, Ms. Cox and William Wheeler from the MTA responded that New York can learn from the travails of WETA and perhaps have a better outcome. Acknowledging WETA's leadership in emergency preparedness, panelist Genevieve Clifton from the New Jersey Department of Transportation, commented, "We do not do enough to incorporate disaster risk into ferry planning."
This panel was a continuation of the "Water Mass Transit" panel at MWA's Waterfront Conference last November. To access the summary materials from this panel click here. Stay tuned for supplementary material from the Floating Follow-Up in future issues of the Waterwire. (back to top) |
ADVICE FROM THE WEST COAST AS NYC GRAPPLES WITH WATERFRONT GOVERNANCE
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City's Waterfront Management Advisory Board will Convene for the First Time in June
Audience members at the MWA's Floating Follow-Up were curious about New York City's new Waterfront Management Advisory Board (WMAB). When will the members be confirmed and announced?, and when will the Board begin its work?
City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden answered at the start of the Governance panel discussion. "Not all members have gone through Department of Investigation background checks," she explained. When that process is complete, in the next few weeks, the WMAB's three committees -- permitting review, mitigation and wetland banking, and environmental review -- will begin convening regularly.
Three West Coast waterfront planning experts -- Marshall Foster from the Seattle Department of Planning and Development, Ann Baier from the Portland Office of Healthy Working Rivers and Will Travis from the Bay Conservation and Development Commission in San Francisco -- were ready to talk about how their cities retooled their governance systems to provide better management, spur investment, and encourage redevelopment of waterfronts into accessible and inviting places.
Mr. Foster said Seattle has been working on a waterfront plan for its 300 miles of shoreline for about 10 years. His office has basic decision making power on the waterfront. "We haven't seen the need to create a standalone city department to handle maintenance and managing the waterfront," he said.
Ms. Baier said her office was created by the Portland city government but not given regulatory authority or a big budget, "so we work to empower organizations or shame them into doing what they should be doing."
Mr. Travis emphasized the two equally important mandates of his office: conservation and development.
After hearing about West Coast experiences, the panel moderator, Bob Yaro of the Regional Plan Association, asked Ms. Burden if New York City has "the wherewithal to implement the Comprehensive Waterfront Plan."
"The first component of implementation is funding, and we have $3.3 billion of that. Most of it will go to clean water and environmental remediation," she answered. "In Seattle, the committee structure appears to be really effective. We've started with that, and hearing more about that would be helpful. Each committee member comes with their own expertise, and this broad spectrum of expertise is necessary for a diverse waterfront like New York's. What we've heard over the past few years is that permitting is a big problem here in New York. The first goal for the Waterfront Management Advisory Board is to work on streamlining permitting. Portland has done a great job of pulling everyone together and making people work together."
This panel was a continuation of the plenary address at MWA's Waterfront Conference last November. To access the summary materials from this panel click here . Stay tuned for supplementary material from the Floating Follow-Up in future issues of the Waterwire. (back to top)
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CON EDISON AGREES TO REMOVE BRONX KILL OBSTRUCTION
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Boating Community is Buoyed by Power Company's Plans
The word went out by email from Rob Buchanan on May 18: Con Edison had agreed to remove the large concrete conduit that has long blocked water access at the east end of the Bronx Kill.
The Bronx Kill forms the north border of Randalls Island, connecting the Harlem River to the East River. A link in the expanding NYC Water Trail, it allows boaters to avoid the turbulent waters of Hell Gate, at the southern end of the island.
"There are a few hurdles left to clear," Mr. Buchanan wrote to Water Trail enthusiasts. "The Fire Department has a fiber optics cable in the conduit that will need to be moved and they want to build some new 'splice boxes' that will require an easement from the nearby rail yard. But everyone at the table seemed reasonably confident that the work could be completed at the latest by the beginning of next season."
Mr. Buchanan, Harry Bubbins of  Friends of Brook Park (FoBP), and the NYC Water Trail's Nancy Brous were at the forefront of the multi-year negotiation with Con Edison. "If all the commitments and indications are carried out, it is an historic victory for waterway users, a prime example of the power of the NYC Water Trail Association to support and augment localized efforts and bring the collective and larger stakeholder pressure to bear on important shared priorities," commented Mr. Bubbins in his exuberant email to FoBP constituents.
Click here for a video showing the kayakers approaching the conduit.
Mr. Bubbins traced the start of the current negotiations back to April 2008, when a letter was sent to Mayor Bloomberg and Seth W. Pinsky, President NYC Economic Development Corporation signed by The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy, Friends of Brook Park, NYC Water Trail Association, Red Hook Boaters, Inwood Canoe Club, Downtown Boathouse, Long Island City Community Boathouse, NYC Environmental Law & Justice Project, Transportation Alternatives, NYC Park Advocates and East Harlem Preservation. The Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance provided testimony and support, and Mr. Bubbins also commended the work of Congress Member Jose Serrano's Office, NYC Parks , NYC Planning, US Coast Guard, Council Members Melissa Mark-Viverito and Maria Del Carmen Arroyo, Randalls Island Sports Foundation and NYC EDC.
 According to Con Ed spokesperson David Gmach, the removal of the conduit is part of the upgrading of electrical connections to Randalls Island and the construction of the Randalls Island Connector, a pedestrian passage built directly above the conduit that connects the South Bronx to the island. "The Randalls Island Connector is one of the first and most critical pieces for making the Bronx Greenway project a real success," Mr. Gmach said. "We will continue to work with the stakeholders in the community."
Mr. Buchanan closed his email with this: "Many thanks to the Steve Ridler and Fred Landa at the Department of State for bringing all the involved agencies to the table, to Harry Bubbins for keeping the fire burning, to Al Butzel for his genteel legalizing, and to Big Bad Con Ed for promising to do the right thing." (back to top)
Photos: Google, Fred Henderson,Friends of Brook Park. |
| SAVE THE DATE: CITY OF WATER DAY IS ON JULY 16 THIS YEAR! | | Play, Learn and Help Revitalize the Waterfront at this Free Event
 City of Water Day is a free day of entertainment, education and adventure produced by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance that  celebrates the potential of our waterfront. Hundreds of organizations participate, offering free boat rides, fishing, games, films, performances, readings, crafts and much more -- and thousands of people join in. On July 16, 2011, make your way to Governors Island and Liberty State Park for the 4th Annual City of Water Day Festival.
To find out more about City of Water Day, click here. Volunteer opportunities are available, especially for City of Water Day in Liberty State Park (New Jersey), when volunteers will be needed before, during and after the event. For all opportunities and to sign up, click here. (back to top) |
| MWA PARTNER SPOTLIGHT |
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Expanding every week, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance is more than a coalition; it's a force. We are ferry captains, shipping executives, park directors, scientists, sailors, paddlers, swimmers, teachers, urban planners, architects and more. Together, we advocate for the best possible waterfront in the best possible city, a waterfront that is clean and accessible to all, with a robust maritime workforce and efficient, affordable waterborne transportation. Join us! Contact Louis Kleinman at lkleinman@waterfrontalliance.org. Here's a glance at four of our 500+ partners:
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Bargemusic http://www.bargemusic.org/
New York City's floating concert hall.
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Baxt Ingui Architects http://baxtingui.com/
Baxt Ingui Architects, P.C., a general-practice architectural and design firm, has been specializing in residential and commercial renovation projects since 1977.
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Bay Ridge Parks & Waterfront Council
Preservation and advocacy for Bay Ridge Parks.
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Bayonne Local Redevelopment Authority http://www.bayonnelra.com/
Purpose to develop, expand and to publicize the activities of the Bayonne Terminal and it's surroundings.
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| WATERFRONT NEWSLINKS |
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