Councilman James Gennaro (l.) & Robert Pirani discuss ideas.
With swamps and marshland gradually disappearing across the five boroughs, two Council members are calling on City Hall to preserve more than 250 acres of city-owned wetlands.
Queens Councilmen James Gennaro and Joseph Addabbo urged Mayor Bloomberg to place the land − 82 properties in all, including 68 in Queens − under Parks Department jurisdiction.
The holdings are currently controlled by as many as 12 different city agencies. With darker financial clouds looming for city government, the Council members reasoned, the time is now to pull those neglected environmental assets under the Parks Department umbrella.
"In the last century, the New York harbor area has lost about 86 square miles of coastal wetlands," Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) said at a Thursday news conference held at one such parcel in Broad Channel, overlooking the salt marshes of Jamaica Bay.
"We certainly cannot recover these vanished ecosystems," Gennaro added, "but we can and must work to protect and restore what remains."
The seven-member Wetlands Transfer Taskforce − created by Gennaro-authored legislation in 2005 − evaluated 1,020 properties in the city's portfolio, many acquired as a result of foreclosures or former industrial sites.
Robert Pirani, director for environmental programs for the Regional Plan Association, co-chaired the task force.
"The feeling was that by putting [the wetlands] in Parks' ownership, we'd ensure their permanent protection − and, just as importantly, they'd be managed for conservation purposes," he said.
In addition to recommending 82 parcels for parkland status, the task force urged further review on 111 other parcels, totaling 373 acres, including 47
acres in Queens. These parcels are also suitable for parkland, but certain legal snags must first be worked out.
City Hall has until March 27 to transfer the properties - or explain why such actions were not taken, said Gennaro, who is chairman of the Council's Environmental Protection Committee.
City Hall did not return a call seeking comment last week.
Nevertheless, Addabbo (D-Howard Beach), who previously chaired the Council's Parks and Recreation Committee, said prospects for the transfers are good.
"I firmly believe and am very optimistic that the Parks Department will get these wetlands," he said. "They're the right agency to maintain them and to protect them."
In Queens, some of the parcels recommended for transfer are large holdings that border existing parkland, such as wetlands adjoining Idlewild Park Preserve along Jamaica Bay's north shore and portions of the Rockaway Peninsula.
But Broad Channel resident Donna Reardon, who formed a local wetlands preservation group when several city-owned parcels were slated for auction in 2004, said large parcels should not dominate the transfer process.
"I'm hoping that no plot of wetlands is too small to be considered," she said. "Every inch of marshes or wetlands does contribute something to the ecosystem."
