Queens Tribune
 
....September 14, 5:24 AM
 
 
 
Jamaica Bay Surprises:Need To Document Dwindling Species Spurred By Estuary’s Rapid Degradation

The bucket fills with fish.
By JULIET WERNER

The Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan Advisory Committee, established by law in 2005, released a study last month showing that the Jamaica Bay wetlands are disappearing much more rapidly than was previously thought. After comparing 2003 maps to 2005 maps, the Advisory Committee projected that the wetlands would be gone by 2012.

The causes behind the rapid loss of the wetlands are varied and include high toxin levels, rampant seaweed growth and grazing geese. However, concern is mounting over the role of nitrogen dumping.

Councilman Jim Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows), chairman of the Committee on Environmental Protection, held a hearing Sept. 6 in order to discuss the nitrogen factor.

Every day, four of the City’s wastewater treatment plants dumps into the bay 250 million gallons of treated wastewater, which contains 30 to 40 thousand tons of nitrogen.

The Advisory Committee has declared that nitrogen levels must be reduced by 55 percent by 2015, a recommendation modeled after the Long Island Sound.

According to City Council spokesman Anthony Hogrebe, the Department of Environmental Protection has committed to reducing nitrogen levels and must present a detailed plan by Oct. 1 of this year.



Bring On The BioBlitz

“How many people have actually been to this bay,” Gennaro asked a circle of scientists, students and volunteers who had gathered last Friday afternoon to take part in BioBlitz, a 24-hour expedition to tally the flora and fauna in the area. As Gennaro had suspected, the vast majority of participants — all wearing baby blue BioBlitz T-shirts — were first timers.

Jamaica Bay is the largest urban wildlife refuge in the country, and the only accessible by train. The visitor center is immaculate, the white pebbled paths hardly disassembled by foot traffic; it is yet another Queens’ attraction regularly described as an undiscovered gem.

Queens College professors Dr. Gillian Stewart and Dr. John Waldman organized BioBlitz to generate species lists and maps for park management. Their goal was to showcase the biodiversity that currently thrives in Jamaica Bay in order to highlight the need to protect the area wetlands.

“This is the generation that is either going to save or lose Jamaica Bay,” Gennaro said at a press conference last Friday before everyone divided into teams to survey the 9,155-acre refuge, protected since 1972 as a part of the Gateway National Recreation Area.

Waldman headed up the fish team. Net in hand, he addressed his group.

“This isn’t Mars,” he said. “But there are always surprises if you look hard.”

Waldman penned “Heartbeats in the Muck,” a book about the degradation of New York Harbor and its recent comeback. Having served with the Hudson River Foundation for 20 years, he is hardly a stranger to tracking wildlife. He explained how BioBlitz is unique.

“Typically you chip away,” Waldman said. “This is an intense snapshot.”

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Waders are necessary for wetland research.

Scientific Method

Waldman, joined by a National Parks Service Superintendent Dave Taft, lead his team to the first pond and distributed waders. Holding onto opposite sides of a green net, the scientists waded into the shallow pool. Waldman immediately started to sink.

“The lagoon used to be sturdy enough,” Taft acknowledged. “You could get some footing.”

The men agreed that changing circulation patterns had caused the pond’s softest settlement to build up. With 21 hours remaining, they decided to relocate to another site.

Upon arriving at the next pond, Waldman and Taft ventured in with their net. Drawing it back toward the shoreline, they discovered an abundance of tiny fish. The group crowded around and complaints from the college students that it smelled bad quickly subsided as hundreds mummichogs and silversides wiggled for air.

“It’s one thing to look in a textbook,” Taft said. “It’s another thing to get there and see it for yourself.”

The leaders asked if anyone wanted to drag the net and with no one volunteering they began the process again.

Baruch College freshman Anastasia Vasilchuk stood at the water’s rim with her hands on her hips. Her ecology professor had recommended she sign up.

“The air itself is healthy and fresh compared to the city,” Vasilchuk said. “All you see there is pigeons.”

She watched the scientists intently as they made their way toward her with a net full of fish. Although she had never conducted a similar study, she knew her goal for the afternoon.

“To find more than 10 [species],” she stated, adding, “It’s nice to know they all exist in this area,” she said.

But Waldman’s findings were not encouraging.

“More of the same,” he said looking down at the pile of fish. “What it lacks in diversity it makes up for in quantity.”

By the time the group was finished assessing the evidence, many had died on the sand.

“It’s the way of life,” Vasilchuk said before picking up her backpack and following the group to the East Pond.

The group, unused to the scientific method, seemed to be losing energy and focus. Three students left for the A train before the group had even arrived at its next destination. But as Waldman and Taft drew back their net for the third time, they revealed two more species: white perch and grass shrimp. The team’s bucket was quickly filling with diverse specimen.

Waldman, who grew up in the Bronx, described his childhood as a “Huck Finn environment within city limits.” He said that people mistakenly assume that crystal clear mountain springs boast the most wildlife.

“These mucky places are where you have the real life,” he said.



A New Discovery

After dinner Waldman ventured to the Bay’s marine waters and gathered more silversides. Then, alone in his tent, he took out his microscope and noticed something unusual.

He realized that the silversides from the bay differed considerably from those found in the pond water. It was midnight and the rest of his team was asleep, totally unaware of his discovery.

The next day, at the end of the 24 hours, Waldman’s group had found 14 species of fish. The announcement of these new “tidewater silversides,” however, was his group’s most significant contribution to the expedition.

“This is the heart of New York City,” Waldman said from his Queens College office Monday morning. “It has been walked on, netted and birded. You don’t expect dramatic surprises, but you also don’t know everything you think you know.”