| High Tide 12:16am | Low Tide 6:11am | High Tide 12:14pm | Low Tide 7:12pm* |
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~ by & large ~
Photo coverage of recent happenings
at and on local waters. Send photos to asimko@waterfrontalliance.org
September 30, 2012
North Brooklyn Boat Club Celebrates Capitol-to-Capitol Canoe Trip
The North Brooklyn Boat Club and Beczak Environmental Education Center both hosted Capitol to Capitol by Canoe -- paddlers sponsored by the Canadian Wildlife Federation on a canoe trip from Ottawa to Washington, DC. Their mission: to call attention to international collaboration to achieve clean water. Above, in a photo by Rob Buchanan, Max Finkelstein, organizer of the Canadian paddlers, and Fung Lim, NBBC's resident wooden boat builder, take in the night air on Newtown Creek.
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October 4, 2012
A Day in the Life of the Hudson River
In New York City, more than 50 public school students took water samples and made environmental observations on the East River, at Gantry Plaza State Park. It was the 10th annual "Day in the Life of the Hudson River," an event sponsored by the State Department of Environmental Conservation's Hudson River Estuary Program and Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observation. The event occurs in conjunction with Hudson Basin River Watch and coincides with National Estuaries Day and World Water Monitoring Day.
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October 1, 2012
New Navy Ship Commissioned in NYC
Escorted by a FDNY fireboat, the USS Michael Murphy headed up the Hudson River to Pier 88 for its commissioning ceremony on October 6. The Navy Burke-class destroyer is named after
Lt. Michael P. Murphy, a Navy SEAL posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.
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Events on the Waterfront
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October 6
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For a map of vessels navigating the NY/NJ waterways at this moment, check marinetraffic.com.
Tide times above are for the waters off Port Newark Terminal on October 5, 2012.
For your waterfront's daily tides,
go to saltwatertides.com.
For information about environmental conditions (currents, water temperature, salinity, wave height, etc.) of the New York Harbor area, check the Urban Ocean Observatory at Stevens Institute's Center for Maritime Systems
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WW follow-up
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Corrections, clarifications, updates and letters to the editor
Editor's note: The lead story in the last edition of WaterWire noted that union workers of the International Longshoremen's Association were preparing to strike at ports up and down the East Coast and the Gulf Coast on October 1, 2012, if contract negotiations with the U.S. Maritime Alliance were inconclusive. After WaterWire went to press at the end of the day on September 20, port operators and union workers agreed to extend negotiations through December 29, 2012 -- an update that was not reflected in the next day's WaterWire article. ------------ Are We Rushing to Over-Develop the Port of New York & New Jersey?Readers Continue to Respond
Editor's note: Two WaterWires ago, waterfront advocate Rob Buchanan questioned the wisdom of the accelerated and expensive expansion of shipping industry infrastructure projects. In particular, he suggested that the fast-tracking of the raising of the Bayonne Bridge project was inappropriate without more public dialogue. Below are more responses: From Johna Till Johnson
I think we agree more than we disagree. I particularly agree with your statement: "I think there's a sustainable vision for this harbor that includes an active working waterfront-in fact, one that's more active than what we've got now. I'd like to see more stuff moving locally by water and less by land, and I'd like to see more of our young people grow up using the waterways and eventually finding employment on them." Amen, and that's a mission statement right there! Sign me up. Just to be clear, I'm not insinuating that you or anyone else is proposing "death by perpetual study committee". That was a reaction (perhaps an overreaction) to what I've seen happen in some cases, where instead of opposing an idea directly, someone will recommend "further study" with the goal of delaying the project to keep it from happening at all. As you said above, you're proposing SOME study rather than NO study--something I wholeheartedly agree with. However, I do think there's a real timeline here, and we need to understand what it is. Once the supercargo ships start steaming, activity will move to ports that can accommodate them and away from those that can't. It's like what happened when railroads (or later, interstate highways) were built: Even though the original roads were still there, traffic shifted to the new routes-and didn't return to the old routes, even if they were later upgraded. That's because the entire infrastructure shifted to follow the new flows. There's a limited window of time between the launch of the first supercargo ship and the point at which the traffic flows become more-or-less permanent-and if we've shut ourselves out of the innovation by not acting early, it's not something we can fix downstream. I can't say how long it will take for this to occur (I'm not an expert in transportation technology) but I can say that it WILL occur--there will be an inflection point at which momentum shifts away from the old pathways into the new ones. And if we wait until then to act, it will be too late. To tie things back to the less theoretical, if we do an extended study and arrive at the conclusion that raising the Bayonne Bridge is, in fact, the optimal solution -- it's pointless if that conclusion is arrived at AFTER the shipping routes (and associated infrastructure) has already shifted. So I think any call for additional study needs to be both clear on what constitutes "enough" study (whether that's duration, inclusion of specific groups, or whatever) and some recognition that things are moving quickly and we want to recognize the need for taking whatever action is appropriate within the window of opportunity. Thanks for opening up the dialogue. The more people who discuss and debate this the greater the chance of arriving at an optimal solution all around-not just a solution that benefits some folks. Ms. Johnson is President & Sr. Founding Partner at Nemertes Research
From Erik Baard
We've been discussing the global forces with which New York City's maritime industry must contend. But we must also be mindful of how local industries throw elbows at each other. A company in this town needn't be dying to die -- it can be turning a profit, yet still wake to find its lease renewal thrown into doubt by competition from a higher-bidding, even more profitable company from an unrelated industry. This jostling is even more hazardous to waterway dependent industries, for which location is paramount. As Rob Buchanan wrote, our harbor and facilities will not "dry up and blow away." No, they'll be paved over or swallowed by retail or residential developments. Some of our region's docking facilities, left fallow, have already become parking lots for the kind of big box stores Rob opposes. Condo towers cast shadows across stilled barge slips and gantries, and more are planned. Meanwhile, the wait list for dry docks now stretches into years. These losses are typically irreversible, at least within the span of a few generations. If Rob wants us to take a deliberative time out, we'll have to protect those parcels more effectively than we've done in the past. But how? We need solid proposals. Despite Melville's description of the New York wharves as a place where "meditation and water are wedded forever," don't count on today's waterfront vacuums being preserved for thought before action. Even the derelict edges that kayakers, artists, and romantics cherish are often mere spandrels between poorly sited car compounds, self-storage warehouses, and other fully terrestrial (and passive) businesses that supplanted maritime trades. That said, I'm actually comfortable with some entertainment and residential newcomers to the waterfront, so long as they're environmentally sustainable and bring inclusive life to the harbor and estuary (we need better partnerships and regulations to achieve those goals). We could have an even more wonderfully diverse harbor that crackles with urban energy at street ends and also boasts vast stretches of revitalized estuarine habitat restoration areas. Superships could help us get there. Superships require a smaller real estate footprint ashore than would the aggregate of smaller vessels that would bring goods from deep ports like Norfolk and Halifax via "short sea shipping," a European term for smaller land-hugging cargo carriers known in the U.S. as the "marine highway" and codified as " Coastwise trade." Loading and offloading activity has continually condensed throughout our harbor's history; as ship sizes grew, the number of piers declined even as trade multiplied. Remember that Walt Whitman's "Mannahatta" was a "city of spires and masts" where virtually every downtown street led to pier. More recently, containerization pulled shipping into massive terminals. Trucking is an environmental failure and I'm confident that the data will continue to bear out my admitted prejudice. Within NYC's urban density, habitat and human health are intertwined. Any kid with asthma near a trucking hub like Hunts Point will tell you that, and the World Health Organization quite belatedly recognized in June that diesel exhaust is a carcinogen. Add to that the asphalting of soft earth, increasing habitat fragmentation, the "heat island effect," and runoffs laden with automotive fluids. Rob argues that the trucking fear might be a straw man. "[I]t's not as if the market--the 40 million people who live in the region--is going to evaporate. Shippers will still need to get goods to that market, and they'll still use ships to do it because moving freight by water is always going to be cheaper than moving it by land, regardless of vessel size," he writes. But such rhetorical dualism can't wave away a muddled and damaging reality. It's not that trucks will replace all shipping, but trucks will replace more shipping if the port languishes in at least partial obsolescence. So, yes, studies are urgently needed. But I believe those studies should primarily focus on developing a holistic improvement of the harbor with special attention to the Kill Van Kull area. To undertake such a major infrastructure project in seeming isolation from improving other characteristics of the waterway is antiquated thinking. Study what environmental restorations should be instituted along with infrastructure upgrades. Study how much land might be freed by a centralizing the flow of goods away from smaller vessels and trucks, and how that land should be used. We should demand that officials integrate the fullest possible community input on both fronts. But don't leave New York Harbor on the shoals of the twentieth century. Mr. Baard is founder of the LIC Community Boathouse and HarborLAB and progenitor of City of Water Day |
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| CONTENTS: October 5, 2012 | Click on the links below to read the stories in this edition of WaterWire.
Join MWA on Oct. 9 at the Heroes of the Harbor Dinner and Boat Parade
Bronx and Manhattan groups unite to revive the river
Bronx Dead End Transformed to Waterfront Access
Hunts Point Landing opens to fishermen and kayakers
The Bluebelt system uses natural drainage areas to improve water quality
Everybody + POOL!
Launch of a fundraising campaign for a new kind of floating pool
Oil Spill in Paerdegat Basin
State agency says clean-up will be complete this weekend
Corrections, clarifications and letters to the editor
Newslinks
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| MWA HONORS THE HEROES OF THE HARBOR | | Join Us on October 9 at Pier 61
The Heroes of the Harbor Awards and Parade of Boats honors members of the New York and New Jersey waterfront community who have guided our waterfront in important ways toward its transformation into a healthy, thriving, world-class resource. On the evening of Tuesday, October 9, we will salute this year's Heroes at the Lighthouse, Pier 61, Chelsea Piers. Please click here for ticket information. In this issue, you'll find short pieces on some of the heroes who will rise to accept your applause on Tuesday night, including Buzzy O'Keefe and paddlers from 17 boating clubs. The previous edition of WaterWire had a piece about a few more 2012 Harbor Heroes: the team at the NYC Economic Development Corp.
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RISK-TAKER, VISIONARY, HERO: BUZZY O'KEEFE
| |  An Early Waterfront AdvocateDescribed by some as a visionary, by others as a risk-taker, restaurateur Michael "Buzzy" O'Keefe saw the potential of New York City waterfront dining back in the 1960s, if not earlier. It took him 12 years to persuade City officials to grant him permits for a restaurant at the Brooklyn shoreline, and in 1977 he finally opened the River Cafe under the Brooklyn Bridge, having opened eight other restaurants in the succeeding years. Five years later, he opened the Water Club on the East River in Manhattan at 30th Street. A Bronx boy, Buzzy grew up in the Silver Beach neighborhood, exploring the waterfront with a twelve-foot skiff powered by a six-horsepower Mercury outboard motor. Today, his iconic waterfront restaurants are not only extremely successful but have been the catalyst for other waterfront redevelopment. "Buzzy O'Keefe saw beauty, life, fun and great food at the water's edge when most of New York saw decay and blight," said Roland Lewis, MWA president and chief executive officer, who will honor Mr. O'Keefe at the Heroes of the Harbor dinner on October 9. "He had the vision and determination to create the River Café and the Water Club. He has not only created loved waterfront landmarks, he has shown the way for future waterfront entrepreneurs and dreamers." |
WHY MEMBERS OF 17 PADDLING CLUBS ARE HEROES
| | Offering Free, Safe Access to the Water
Seventeen boating clubs; hundreds of members volunteering their time to provide free paddling and rowing; thousands of happy people in boats.
On October 9, 2012, the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance honors as Harbor Heroes organizations that offer free rowing and paddling programs. We salute these waterfront advocates who volunteer their time so that thousands may safely experience the fun and freedom of boating. Sharing their love of the water, they animate the shoreline and impart important lessons in stewardship and environmentalism. In the words of the mission statement of the Village Community Boathouse, they preserve "a tradition of maritime hospitality and fellowship."  Please join MWA in honoring the following organizations that provide free rowing and paddling programs to the public:
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BOTH SIDES NOW!
| | Bronx & Manhattan Groups Unite to Revive Harlem River
This is the third year of the Harlem River Festival, and the first time that planners come from both sides of the historic river. "We see ourselves as uniting communities," said Chauncy Young, coordinator of the Bronx-based Harlem River Working Group (HRWG), a consortium of community organizations, government agencies and commercial stakeholders focused on improving the environmental quality of and access to the river. The HRWG organizes the Harlem River Festival each year.  This year's weeklong festival begins Monday, October 15 when schoolchildren in canoes push off from a dock at Roberto Clemente State Park (above) on the Bronx side, to explore the river with Wilderness Inquiry guides. On October 17, the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality and the HRWG will co-sponsor a conference, open to the public, from 6pm to 8pm, with scientists from US Geological Survey, Environmental Protection Agency, NY State Department of Environmental Conservation and others to discuss the condition of the river.  The festival concludes Saturday, October 20, 10am to 4pm, with a six-hour outdoor celebration of boat rides, educational activities, food, music and entertainment. Watch for a parade of fireboats and kayaks, a log-rolling contest, and a Battle of the Boroughs Regatta featuring a Row New York (Manhattan, above) crew racing a crew from Harlem River Community Rowing (Bronx). The Harlem River Working Group's enthusiastic grassroots work caught Washington's attention. About a year ago, the Urban Waters Federal Partnership (UWFP) selected the Bronx & Harlem River Watersheds as one of seven projects across the nation to reconnect urban communities with their waterways by improving coordination among federal agencies and collaborating with community-led revitalization projects. This past June, Harlem River advocates from community organizations joined representatives from city, state, and federal agencies on the EPA vessel Clean Waters and together they assessed the Harlem River corridor by water. "The vision is to develop Greenway paths and access points on both sides," Mr. Young told WaterWire. |
BRONX DEAD END TRANSFORMED TO WATER ACCESS
| | Hunts Point Landing Opens to Fishermen and Kayakers
A dead-end street in the South Bronx has been transformed into a 1.5 acre public space with a fishing pier, a kayak launch and tidal pools along a restored shoreline. Giant boulders from the remnants of the Willis Avenue Bridge form waterfront seats.   This is Hunts Point Landing on the East River, the latest addition to a network of public spaces on the South Bronx waterfront, including Barretto Point Park, also on the East River, and Hunts Point Riverside Park on the Bronx River. The creation of Hunts Point Landing was cosponsored by the NYC Economic Development Corporation and Congressman José E. Serrano, and designed by Mathews Nielsen Landscape Architects with equal attention to pleasing aesthetics and green infrastructure. Hunts Point Landing is a project of the South Bronx Greenway Master Plan, released in 2006, which identified opportunities to link existing and new parks through a network of waterfront and on-street routes. When complete, the South Bronx Greenway will encompass 1.5 miles of waterfront greenway, 8.5 miles of inland green streets, and nearly 12 acres of new waterfront open space throughout Hunts Point and Port Morris. For a story on Hunts Point Landing from the architects' perspective, click here. |
| BRONX HOPS ON NYC'S BLUEBELTWAY | | Using Natural Drainage to Improve Water Quality
New York City's famous Bluebelt system -- which uses natural drainage corridors like streams and ponds to direct excess stormwater to wetlands and thus reduce flooding and combined sewer overflows -- originated on Staten Island. A full third of the island is now part of this award-winning, ecologically sound program, saving the City millions of dollars that might have been spent on gray infrastructure (e.g. sewer systems). Last month, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection opened the first Bluebelt system in the Bronx, along Southern Boulevard and in the New York Botanical Garden.  Once the scene of regular flooding in rainy weather, the sides of Southern Boulevard now feature catch basins that direct water into a new, half-million-dollar Botanical Garden wetland, which was funded by DEP. Botanical Garden officials are grateful. Chief Executive Officer Gregory Long thanked the Bloomberg Administration for "a project that solves the flooding problem, enhances the Garden's natural beauty, creates habitat for birds and other wildlife, and will serve as an educational tool to teach everyone about the benefits of proper stormwater management." |
EVERYBODY + POOL = FUN IN THE RIVER
| |  A Newfangled Kind of Pool Imagine a public pool floating in the East River near the Brooklyn Bridge. Yes, it's been done before (thank you, Floating Pool Lady!), but this one's different. This is + POOL, a pool shaped like a cross (actually four pools in one) that filters river water through its walls, removing bacteria and contaminants and leaving swimmable water that meets local and state standards. +POOL was launched in 2010. After two years of research, meetings, initial fundraising and plenty of advocacy for this floating, water-filtering pool, Everybody + Pool, a new fundraising campaign, was launched October 1. Donate to this campaign at www.pluspool.org/everybody/. 
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OIL SPILLED IN PAERDEGAT BASIN ON SEPT. 28
| | Clean-Up to be Completed This Weekend
The NY State Departments of Environmental Conservation and Health advise the public to avoid recreational boating, fishing and consuming fish or shellfish from Paerdegat Basin until further notice.  On September 28, 800-1,400 gallons of oil was spilled onto the ground and into storm drains at Paerdegat Basin as National Grid worked on a decommissioned underground gas pipeline. For the latest information, check the DEC's web site. |
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| WATERFRONT NEWSLINKS |
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NarrativelyA new digital publication focused this past week on New York's waterfront Happily Adrift in the Tricky Currents of the Hudson"I've always wanted to be the skipper of my own nonmotorized boat on the Hudson River..."The New York Times, October 4, 2012 Give New York-New Jersey Harbor in Newark a boost"...Most recently, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers money, secured by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez (both D-N.J.) for Minish Park along the Passaic River, was diverted to address flooding in the Midwest..." Star-Ledger, October 4, 2012 Specially Trained Unit Quietly Keeps Water Around Several Landmarks SafeCBS New York, October 2, 2012 Sailors, New Yorkers & NY Harbor Community Come Together to Support City's Only Maritime High School"...Thursday's charity Regatta invited Harbor School students to sail New York Harbor alongside expert sailors from the Olympics, racing teams and maritime academies and industries, putting them in close and meaningful contact with people who have reached the peak in fields Harbor School students have chosen for high school..."Huffington Post, October 1, 2012 Scratching Past the Surface "To the tourists and Wall Street bankers enjoying a sunny afternoon along the South Street Seaport last Friday, it might have appeared that Kabir Carter was going fishing..." The Wall Street Journal, September 28, 2012 Governors Island and Its Future"...There is one big missing piece, which is to lure commercial enterprises that will help sustain the park without compromising its natural beauty...."The New York Times, Sept. 27, 2012
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