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How Investments in Clean Water Can Restore Ecosystems
In March, after a long year of social distancing and cold, cloudy weather, two dolphins were spotted swimming up the East River in New York City. This atypical pair provided a much-needed sign of hope and recovery for City dwellers. Even more surprisingly, tiny seahorses can now be found clinging to oyster cages and other submerged objects in the lower Hudson River. These little seahorses, known as the Lined Seahorse, are one of many aquatic species that now make up a diverse and thriving ecosystem in the Hudson River estuary. For decades, the Hudson River was severely polluted after PCBs, oil, heavy metals and solvents were all dumped into the river by factories producing cars and paper. At one point, local fishermen could tell what color General Motors was painting cars based on the color of the river that day! In 1972, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to restrict “point sources” such as factories and power plants from discharging contamination into US waterways. Over the nearly 50 years that have passed since then, NYC has invested more than $12 Billion to upgrade wastewater treatment to improve the health of the Hudson’s delicate, aquatic ecosystems. And, it has worked. A 2017 report by the NYC Department of Environmental Protection found that the Hudson River is the cleanest it has been in over a century as evidenced by the presence of the Lined Seahorse that would not be found in the Hudson River without these extraordinary cleanup efforts. Efforts such as these give us hope that if we take measures now our ecosystems can, indeed, be restored. We must also remember to stay vigilant in protecting our waters to ensure healthy ecosystems for future generations. Photo Credit: Tina Walsh for Hudson River Park
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Water Friendly Lawn Care Tips
Nitrogen pollution impacts the health of our bays and drinking water source. The #2 source of nitrogen pollution is fertilizers (#1 is septic systems.) In an effort to protect the water that sustains us, we offer some healthy lawn care tips. 1) Timing is important. Fertilizer should not be applied before April and after mid-October. Nor should it be applied during the hottest summer months when grass is dormant and cannot efficiently absorb fertilizer. 2) A little goes a long way. If fertilizer is applied, its use should be minimized. Especially on a well-established lawn, no more than one-third to one-half the amount recommended on the fertilizer bag should be used. A low nitrogen fertilizer developed especially for Long Island’s fragile ecosystem should also be considered. 3) Precision is key. Equipment used to spread fertilizer should be calibrated for a single application rate of a maximum of 0.6 pounds of total nitrogen per 1,000 square feet at least once annually or each time fertilizer products are changed. Calibration directions are available on the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County website. 4) Grass clippings should be left on the lawn. Mulching mowers finely chop grass into small pieces which get deposited into the lawn and decompose quickly. It is like adding a little bit of fertilizer after every mow, and allows the property owner to lessen, or eliminate, chemical fertilizer application. As a general rule, no more than a third of the grass blade should be removed during a single mowing. And it’s also good practice to keep the height at least three inches high, which encourages deeper, healthier roots. 5) Consider a smaller lawn area. One of the most effective ways Long Islanders can do their part to protect local water resources is to replace their lawn or a portion of it with less water-intensive landscaping like meadows or “xeriscaping.” Xeriscaping makes use of native plant species, requires little to no fertilizer and can help to absorb and filter rainwater. For more information, please visit the following resources: NYS DEC Lawn Fertilizer webpage
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Restore our Bays: Applying Innovative Advanced Nitrogen Reducing Technologies to Long Island Septic Systems.
Restore our Bays: Applying Innovative Advanced Nitrogen Reducing Technologies to Long Island Septic Systems.
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Water Issues Are Not Unique to Long Island
Water Issues Are Not Unique to Long Island: Conservation in the “River of Grass” “The Everglades is a test. If we pass it, we may get to keep the planet.” ~ Marjory Stoneman Douglas, founder of Friends of the Everglades Guest Author Philip Kushlan, president of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting, preserving and restoring the only Everglades in the world. Learn more on Facebook or at everglades.org. The Florida Everglades is one of the most unique ecosystems in the world. Home to the American alligator, the Florida panther and countless other endemic species, the Everglades also provides important ecosystem services to South Florida such as replenishing our freshwater aquifers and buffering us from storms and flooding. The Everglades also face some huge challenges to its conservation. It depends on just the right amount of fresh water flowing through the southern end of the state, in wet years and in dry years. It needs incredibly clean water, devoid of any extra nutrients, or it quickly shifts from the sawgrass dominated ecosystem the rest of the native animals depend on to a cattail dominated one. Discharges of toxic algae from Lake Okeechobee through the St. Lucie river to the coast in 2016. Photo credit: Greg Lovett, Palm Beach Post Photo credit: Greg Lovett, Palm Beach Post Nature gave us the blueprint for how to keep this balance – when it rained too much, the water sheeted across the wide, flat state and the hot Florida sun evaporated the excess. When it rained too little, the porous limestone bedrock sucked up every drop and shuttled it south. The marshes between Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades took care of any excess nutrients, sequestering them as plant biomass as the water flowed south. But that was then. Today, in large part because of the influence of the agricultural industry, water is held back in Lake Okeechobee for irrigation purposes. Decades of pollution from stormwater and agricultural runoff north of Lake Okeechobee have resulted in massive blooms of toxic algae. When the lake is held too high and a big storm comes, the Army Corps has no choice but to dump the water to the coasts, toxic algae or not, and that’s what happened in the summer of 2016. Our coastal estuaries and their fishing and tourism-based economies were decimated, not to mention creating a legitimate health crisis for the people living there. These toxins have been shown to cause serious respiratory problems and there is evidence that the neurotoxins released may lead to increased instances of diseases like Parkinson’s and ALS. South of the lake, we lack the land we need for “treatment marshes” to clean the water flowing south to below the 10 ppb of phosphorus that the Everglades needs to survive. In 2018 Florida passed a plan to create a 23-foot deep reservoir south of the lake that included less than one third of the treatment marsh acreage needed to clean the water it can hold, risking us creating a new, “mini-Lake Okeechobee” in the southern end of the system. Classic tree hammock swamp in the Big Cypress National Preserve, adjacent to Everglades National Park. Photo credit: National Park Service Photo credit: National Park Service Despite these challenges, we have a good idea of how to fix them. Nature, after all, has already provided us with the blueprint. We need to alter the Army Corps lake operations manual to send more water south in the dry season, lowering the lake level so that if a big storm comes, the lake can simply absorb the excess water without discharging toxic algae to the coasts. For this effort to be successful, more land needs to be secured for use as treatment marshes and that takes political will. The best way to generate political will is through grass roots advocacy. So when people ask what they can do to help solve the problem, I say they can learn about the issues, they can support organizations doing the hard policy work and they can support political candidates who are champions for the cause. But the single biggest thing they can do is to get out there and spend time in these amazing places. Go camping in Big Cypress, go kayaking along the mangrove shores, go for a full moon bike ride along Shark Alley, take a drive around Loop Road or a stroll over alligators down the Bobcat Boardwalk! Take someone who has never experienced these magical places and post your amazing photos on social media! The Everglades may be a very different ecosystem from Long Island’s North Shore but our conservation challenges are similar. In many ways these conservation efforts are a test for all of us, and the biggest key to success is showing people the reason these places are worth saving in the first place. So, for those of you who may spend time in South Florida this winter, be sure to take a day and see for yourself what makes the Everglades so special and worth fighting for!
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Biodiversity in the Beaver Brook Watershed
The extraordinary variety of life on earth – a balance among plants, animals, microorganisms and the ecosystems in which they are found – is known as biodiversity. Protecting land locally helps preserve the biodiversity found right here on the North Shore of Long Island. Protecting land also provides “ecosystem services” such as protection of water resources, pollution breakdown and absorption and contribution to climate stability. The Beaver Brook watershed’s biodiversity is noteworthy for Long Island –even though it is a mere 20 miles from New York City. Spanning parts of Matinecock, Upper Brookville and other villages and much of Mill Neck, the Beaver Brook watershed is one of Long Island’s most treasured and ecologically valuable natural areas. The brook starts as a trickle between Piping Rock Club in Locust Valley and Planting Fields Arboretum in Upper Brookville. It flows northward, forming a small pond before it passes under Oyster Bay Road. There it enters Upper Francis Pond, where a pair of Osprey have nested for years. After narrowing to a creek again for a few hundred feet at the spillway at the pond’s northern edge, it forms Lower Francis Pond and then passes through a culvert under Frost Mill Road. North of that it flows into the Humes Preserve, creating a quaint pond behind the historic main house. Continuing northward the brook enters Shu Swamp. Finally, the brook makes its way to Beaver Lake, beyond which the Mill Neck Creek estuary passes into Long Island Sound. Throughout its journey, Beaver Brook and the lands it winds through support outstanding biodiversity. The brook’s cool, oxygenated waters now provide habitat for brook trout to breed and pools that shelter a diversity of amphibians. River otters move through swamps and forage for fish in ponds. Numerous species of woodpeckers and owls nest in cavities in snags (standing dead trees) that line the brook and fill surrounding woodlands. Skunk cabbage and spring ephemeral flowers delight visitors even before trees leaf out. A few weeks later iridescent ebony jewelwing damselflies can be seen hovering above the brook’s rippling water. North Shore Land Alliance and its partners North Shore Wildlife Sanctuary and Nassau County have protected a corridor of 150 contiguous acres of largely undeveloped land at the heart of the Beaver Brook watershed. Connecting and preserving these natural areas provides incredible ecological benefit to our community.
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