Pages From Berry Sept-Oct 2014 Final Out

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70 JUNIPER BERRY September/October 2014 www.junipercivic.com

Igrew up in Queens and my first exposureto the natural world came from weekendwalks with my father in Forest Park dur-ing the late-50s and early-60s. Those earlyexperiences sparked a lifelong respect and

curiosity for our environment. I eventually becamea passionate birdwatcher to the point where Inow lead nature trips for various organizationsaround New York City. In fact, I was fairly cer-tain that I knew about all the birding hotspotswithin the five boroughs until choreographer andperformance artist Jennifer Monson contactedthe Brooklyn Bird Club in February of 2007.

Jennifer runs an organization called iLAND(Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature andDance). She was working on a project callediMAP/Ridgewood Reservoir and needed a groupof naturalists to perform a nesting bird survey ofthe reservoir and its surrounding habitats. Theproject was a collaborative effort between artists

and scientists that would result in a series of out-door performances, the purpose of which was toengage local communities in new understandingsof their environment. In March of that year agroup of us met with Jennifer at the reservoir andwere immediately amazed at this untamed, envi-ronmental gem. We couldnt wait to start explor-ing it and tracking the birds that nested there.

Heidi Steiner would be coordinating the censusfor the bird club and, coincidentally, shortly afterour meeting with Jennifer we both received alarge envelope in the mail from the New YorkCity Department of Parks & Recreation. It wasan invitation to a series of community listeningsessions designed to determine the future of theRidgewood Reservoir. It was also around thattime that I created the blog Save RidgewoodReservoir [ridgewoodreservoir.blogspot.com]with the intent of letting more people know aboutthis incredibly rich historic and natural site.

SavingRidgewoodReservoir

by Rob Jett

How a Two-Month Bird SurveyBecame an Eight-Year Effort

to Protect the Reservoir

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www.junipercivic.com JUNIPER BERRY September/October 2014 71

LEAVE THE RESERVOIR AS A

NATURE SANCTUARY

The first Parks Department listening sessionwas held June 24, 2007. It was not what I hadexpected. Rather than a Q&A style meeting,attendees were assigned to various color-codedteams. Each team sat around a table presidedover by a Parks Department facilitator. Theexercise they had created for the evening was tohave each team design a park on a large printedmap of the reservoir basins, using stencils ofvarious types of active recreation. A representa-tive from each team would then present theirdesign to the room. To nobodys surpriseexcept the Parks Department, team after team

either made reluctant, minimal changes to thebasins or expressed the desire to just leave thereservoir as a nature sanctuary. During theremaining two sessions over the following year,it became clear that the community loved thecurrent nature preserve design. For reasonsthat are still unclear, the Parks Departmentseemed frustrated by that outcome.

After the first meeting ended, a group of like-minded attendees organized in an effort to pro-tect the reservoir from what seemed like theParks Departments drive to destroy it. Within

a week, we had our first meeting. Within sev-eral weeks, we had a Google discussion groupset-up with a rapidly growing list of supporters.The group then formed a 501c3 non-profitorganization.

Publicity about the plight of the reservoir andthe communitys support came fast and furiouswith several articles in the Daily News, MetroNY, Times Newsweeklyand the QueensChronicle, to name a few.

We also garnered a lot of support from electedofficials early on. The first to come on a tourwas then-Council Member Tony Avella. Hewas astounded that the City would waste moneyruining what could be a world-class urbannature sanctuary. Assembly Member CathyNolan was an early supporter, as well asCongress Member Nydia M. Velzquez. Theturning point in our effort to prevent the reser-voirs development occurred in early Februaryof 2008. City Comptroller Bill Thompson

came on a tour and, like all the other politi-cians to visit, came away shaking his head in

disbelief that the city would be willing to wastetens of millions of dollars on a project that notonly didnt anyone in the community want, butalso would wreak havoc on a sensitive environ-ment. He told the Parks Department that hewould only approve the Phase 1 funds forimproving the fencing, lights and pathway, butnot for the basin interiors on environmentalgrounds. On May 29, 2008, he co-authored anopinion piece about the reservoir for the NewYork Times with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. A

Photos: Basin 3 forest

(opposite page)

Magnificent Ridgewood

Reservior landscape.

(photos: Christina Wilkinson)



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Wilderness, Lost in the City, described the reservoir as arare oasis in danger of being paved over with athletic fieldsby the Parks Department.

On October 15, 2013, the Parks Department reopened thereservoir, having completed work on the fencing, lightingand paths. With few complaints, the community seems to

love the facelift. In the preceding few years, the ParksDepartment seemed to have neither the money nor motiva-tion to reintroduce any reservoir development plans.Because of that, our groups activity dwindled, membersmoved on to other issues, and we retained only a smallgroup of dedicated protectors. Unfortunately, we now face anew assault on the reservoir.

NEW ASSAULT ON THE RESERVOIR

The New York State Department of Environment Conservation(DEC) regulates all dams within the state, with theRidgewood Reservoir spuriously being considered one ofthose dams. According to their dam safety division, the

reservoir is labeled as a Class C, High Hazard dam. As

such, the dam owner, the Parks Department, is required todecommission it in order to lower its hazard level to aClass D, Low or Negligible Hazard dam. To that end,Parks recently announced plans to breach the basin walls.The community immediately began coming together again.This latest plan would create an 11 x 14 tunnel through thebasin wall closest to Vermont Place. A road would then be

built within that basin to the central basin. Two earthendams would also be created in the remaining basins toaccommodate trucks. This would be at a cost of between$6M and $11M. All of this construction is aimed at, osten-sibly, preventing the reservoir from refilling during a catas-trophic weather event which would, in turn, cause the basinwalls to fail, releasing torrents of water and destroying livesand property in neighborhoods downstream. Except thatthis scenario is completely without merit as the ParksDepartments permit applications to DEC contain no datato support this theory. At a recent public meeting, I askedthe DECs chief of dam safety what scenario he envisionedwould create a catastrophic failure of the reservoirs berms.

He could not answer the question.Some people think that the NYCDepartment of Parks & Recreation ismerely using the decommissioningrequirement as a backdoor strategy for

Photos: (above) Gatehouse and path. (top right) Joelle

Byrer of the Parks Department explained the details of

the plan. (photos by Rob Jett)

(right) New pathway, (opposite page) Male Blue Dasher

Dragonfly on Sunflower. (photo: Christina Wilkinson)



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preparing the basins for future active recreation facilities. Infact, at a public meeting on June 30th, when chief of capitalmanagement for the parks department, Jonna Carmona-Graf was asked if she could assure the community that noactive recreation facilities would be placed in the basins inthe future, she would not give that assurance. Parks officials,however, maintain that they do not want to breach the

reservoir basins, but are being forced to. According to DECregulations, A dam owner maycontest the Departments assign-ment of or change to a hazardclassification. We have asked theParks Department if they plan topetition the DEC to have the clas-sification changed from a C to aD. They have not responded. Wehave begun our own petition on the website Change.orghere - http://tinyurl.com/ridge8.

Another issue awaiting resolution is our application for wet-

lands mapping that we submitted to the NYSDEC overthree years ago. Using environmental assessments from theparks department, Round Mt. Ecology LLC and state certi-fied wetlands delineator, Mickey Cohen, our applicationwould most certainly have the reservoir habitats protected

from any future development. The DEC claims they neveracted on the application because of priorities and staffingissues following Hurricane Sandy. Recent media coverage,political pressure and our online petition seems to be work-ing to motivate them and they now appear willing to pushforward our application.

Another positive development was a letter sent to GovernorCuomo by State AssemblyMembers Cathy Nolan andMichael Miller, Congress MembersNydia M. Velzquez and GraceMeng, State Senators JosephAddabbo and Michael Gianaris,and Council Members ElizabethCrowley and Antonio Reynoso. The

letter asks the Governor to have the DEC give the ParksDepartment a waiver for the decommissioning process inorder to allow time for the wetlands mapping. They also askthat the DEC reevaluate their outdated classification of the

reservoir.

Initially, the Parks Department stated that they needed tobegin the breaching process by August 2014. QueensCommunity Board 5 recently convened meetings with the

PARKS OFFICIALS MAINTAIN

THAT THEY DO NOT WANT TO

BREACH THE RESERVOIR BASINS,

BUT ARE BEING FORCED TO.



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Parks Department and DEC in an attempt to get a waiver to delayit. Our group has also retained the services of an environmental lawfirm. They have been meeting with both DEC officials and ParksDepartment officials. While nothing is definite yet, we are beginningto feel optimistic about both the reservoir being reclassified as a DLow or Negligible Hazard and the state recognizing the importantfreshwater wetland habitats within the basins.

Since my involvement with this project in 2007, Ive been baffledby the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation seemingignorance to the obvious benefits of such a unique urban natureoasis. Are forests and wetlands any less valid for physical and men-tal health than baseball fields? Shouldnt nurturing a childs innatecuriosity for animals and plants be as important as teaching them tothrow a ball? I think Bill Thompson and Robert Kennedy Jr. said itbest in their New York Times piece, Ridgewood Reservoir offersvisitors a rare chance to lose themselves in a forest, to hear birdsong, to touch wilderness and to sense the divine. The city shouldntlet that slip away.

Photos: (top) Silver Spotted Skipper (photo: Barrie Raik)

(right) Red-tailed hawk (photo: Rob Jett)


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