Green Team Teens and kindergardeners

Our Green Team Mentoring program with teens from the Community School for Social Justice cointinues. This week our teens guided kindergardeners from local school PS 179. Here they are turning the cover crop into the sopil of some of the vegeatble beds to prepare for seedlings to be transferred. Another example of cooperative relationships developed across age lines.

FoBP Join the S.W.I.M. Coalition!

PLaNYC2030: A Great Step Toward a Greener More Sustainable City, but Where's the SWIMming?
New S.W.I.M.Coalition
Says, "Where's the SWIMming in the City's Long-Term Plan?"

Quick. Look out the window. Now. It's raining, and, guess what? More sewage is being swept into our waterways. Yes, sewage. Again.

Just before Earth Day, as you'll remember, our city was hit with a nasty and very unusual Spring Northeaster, socking us with torrential rain. And we also watched, just days ago, as a whale lost its bearings and swam into the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. The Daily News named the whale "Sludgie," and they did that for a reason. Many of our waterways, although generally improved in the last couple of decades, remain polluted. And one of the biggest sources of that pollution: CSOs (Combined Sewer Overflow).

Did you know that less than 1/10 of an inch of hard rain is all it takes for sewage to enter our waterways? So, can you imagine the sheer volume of sewage that is being swept into our waterways? This happens largely because we don't capture enough of our storm water BEFORE it flows into our waterways through the CSOs.

Right on point, just this past Sunday, on Earth Day, Mayor Bloomberg unveiled the city's long-term plan called PlaNYC 2030. It's the first time in a long time that any Mayor/NYC government has tried to envision what our city should look like in the coming decades. It's a terrific plan that really should do a lot to give us a greener, less polluted, more sustainable city.

And we're happy to report that much of the water quality action plan is directly in line with the S.W.I.M. platform, and includes many great measures. However, parts of the plan aren't quite expansive enough e.g., planting only five storm water capture street trees and studying only those while tens of thousands of others are being planted, potentially missing broad opportunities for storm water capture.

While parts of the plan are modest, the plan does contain many S.W.I.M. platform items like creating an interagency task force that will address innovative storm water management techniques and creating a pilot program that includes swales (shallow troughlike depressions that carry water mainly during rainstorms or snow melts) along parkways, improving tree pit design and looking into mollusk habitats to improve water quality. The plan also calls for planting a million more street trees and creating at least 40 more greenstreets every season and designing them to absorb storm water, as well as new zoning regulations requiring storm water capture in parking lots and providing incentives for green roofs.

However, despite early mentions by the Mayor's office that the water recreation goal would include swimming (he said that in an early press release), PlaNYC 2030 doesn't mention achieving swimmability in any of the city's waterways.

We think the bar is set too low and we ask, "Where's the SWIMmability?"

While no one intends to actually swim in the shipping lanes on the East and Hudson Rivers, we firmly believe that 90% of our waterways can be swimmable by 2030. We can do that by making sure that all of the S.W.I.M. platform is adopted.

So, a word to Mayor Bloomberg: We want to work with you on water quality and, some day, when our waterways are again swimmable, we'll all get together for a beach party.

In case you missed the storm water overflow, see the picture above:

It is a picture of an overflowing CSO at Stuyvesant Cove (on the East River @ 23rd Street in Manhattan) caused by the recent northeaster. What you're looking at is a mix of untreated storm water and sewage that's pushed out into the water because the way we've built our city causes too much water to "run off."

The other pciture is after over a week of NO Rain from a discharge off Randall's Island!

You can help us make these photo ancient history. You can help S.W.I.M. Feel free to post this photo and send it around the 'net. Call, email or write your Councilmember and the Mayor and ask them to support the entire S.W.I.M. platform.

We are planning a large outdoor event for late Spring, and other events that may be "virtual" in nature. We hope you'll join us.

Coalition Partners

Ashokan Services, Inc
Bronx Council for Environmental Quality
Bronx Initiative for Energy and the Environment
Bronx River Alliance
Cook + Fox Architects
The Downtown Boathouse
Eastern Queens Alliance
Full Spectrum
Friends of Brook Park
Friends of the High Line
The Gaia Institute
Gowanus Dredgers
Gowanus Oyster Garden Stewards
Green Apple Corps
Habana Labs
Long Island City Community Boathouse
Lower East Side Ecology Center
Manhattan Island Foundation
Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance
Mosholu Preservation Corporation
Mothers On the Move
Natural Resources Defense Council
Neighborhood Initiatives Development Corporation
New York City Soil and Water Conservation District
New York Harbor School
New York/New Jersey Baykeeper
New York Public Interest Research Group
New York Restoration Project
Newtown Creek Alliance
Nos Quedamos
Pratt Center for Community Development
The Redhook Boaters
Regional Plan Association
Riverkeeper
Rocking the Boat
Sebago Canoe Club
Solar 1
South Bronx Economic Development Corporation
Sustainable South Bronx
The Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy
Trees NY
Water Resources Group
Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice


For more information, contact: Marsha Gordon, LCG Communications: 718.853.5568; marshag@lcgcommunications.com

The red bird with the black wings sited...

The red bird with the black wings was spotted during the roof-top photo shoot and by many children on Earth Day! Research has led us to conclude that it is a male Scarlet Tanager. Having seen the yellow females around and not known what it is, this seems to be correct. They fly all the way from South America! They ,ay know the monarch butterfly friends that vist us from Mexico.

Hear them here: http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/media-files/scarlettanager.mp3">BirdSong!
And more from Cornell University:

After spending the winter in the canopy of the northwestern South American tropical forest, Scarlet Tanagers begin their nocturnal migration north through Central America and across the Gulf of Mexico. Males arrive first and begin singing short phrases alternately high and low in pitch, reminiscent of the American Robin's song but characterized by a throaty burr. Males perform courtship displays from low branches, holding their wings drooped and slightly away from the body, with their neck elongated to display their scarlet backs, as the female looks on from above. After pairs are formed, the male's singing comes from mid-heights, and he accompanies his mate as she forages. Females are also known to sing, although with a somewhat softer voice than the male. A distinctive call given by Scarlet Tanagers is chip-churr, with the first note higher in pitch.

Despite the male's bright coloring, these birds can be difficult to see as they slowly and deliberately seek out beetles and caterpillars high in the tree canopy. These tanagers can remain motionless for periods of time, concealed amid dense foliage. During cold or wet weather in early spring, however, they may seek their prey on the ground, and, at other times, they sally after bees and wasps in the manner of flycatchers. Females, which tend to forage higher in trees than males, also engage more often in fly catching. Fruits, berries, and buds augment their primarily insect diet. Oak trees are favored both for foraging and nest building.

Scarlet Tanagers inhabit deciduous forests, pine-oak woodlands, parks, and suburban areas with large trees. The summer range extends throughout eastern North America from Minnesota to Maine, south to northern Mississippi and central Georgia. Where the range overlaps with that of the Summer Tanager (P. rubra), Scarlet Tanagers tend to occupy denser habitat, whereas Summer Tanagers tend to occupy more open habitat. Both Scarlet and Summer tanagers respond to each other’s songs and maintain nonoverlapping territories.

Description: Scarlet Tanagers are medium-sized songbirds (approximately seven inches in length) with stout, pale-colored bills. The adult male's plumage is unique and unmistakable: scarlet head and body with black wings and tail. Females have olive-brown wings and tails edged with yellowish olive green. The back and head are dull greenish, becoming yellowish below, especially on the belly. Males in winter plumage resemble the females, but their wings and tails are black. Female Scarlet Tanagers are distinguished from the similar Summer Tanager females by their smaller darker bills and by their yellow-green plumage. Female Summer Tanagers have yellow-orange plumage.

Recording credits:
From the Peterson Guide to Eastern/Central North American Bird Songs:

Scarlet Tanager song and call recorded by Robert C. Stein & Eugene S. Morton

Summer Tanager song and call recorded by Marian P. McChesney

Copyright© 2000 Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology
Learn more about them and hear their song at:

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/BOW/SCATAN/

Cherry Blossoms are out! Scarlet Tanager sited!

Cherry Blossoms are out!

The 8 "zakura" trees are from cuttings from the world famous ones on the Washington Mall, a gift of peace from the Japanese government.

The famous trees, a gift from Japan in 1912, signal the coming of Spring with an explosion of life and color in a sea of pale pink and white. Exactly when the buds will open is not an easy question to answer. The history of the cherry trees dates to 1912 when the original trees were planted by First Lady Mrs. William Howard Taft and the Vicountess Chinda of Japan.

We obtained them in 1999 through the Bronx Green-Up project of the New York Bontanical Garden and planted them with local residents, activist and even police, with water from the fire department!

Step It Up Paddle, Rally, and Bike Ride

An intrepid crew of us launched from the Harlem River in the South Bronx to head South down the East River to join up with thousands of New Yorkers in Battery Park for the Step It Up action to darw attention to global climate change and demand action from Congress to reduce polluting emissions. With the founder of Forest Ethics we navigated the current in our favor past Hallet's Cove in Queens where we wanted to link up with our LIC bretheren, who were otherwise engaged. Zipping south with the wind at our back we chose to land at the Dumbo Park Beach in Brooklyn, though our eyes cast look to the Manhattan side shore under the Brooklyn Bridge, armed with the awareness of the Public Trust Doctrine that local paddler Rob Buchanan and others have shared with us, knowing we all must advocate ever more for waterfront access and landing and launching rights everywhere in New York City.

Bronx Environmental Activists Meet Bill Mc Kibben

April 14th, NYC Battery Park
Seaofpeople.org

After paddling from the South Bronx past Randall's Island, landing in
Brooklyn and biking to Battery Park with canoes in tow, local environmental
activists met with Bill Mc Kibben, lead organizer of Step It Up and the
author of "The End of Nature". The event was part of a nation-wide series of actions to demand Congressional action on climate change and highlight local impacts.

The campaign to preserve Randall's Island and stop the development of a 26
acre private beach club and amusement facility is gaining momentum and
powerful allies. Advocates are working with the legal team at NYC Environmental Law and Justice Project to stop this park land alienation, and are seeking supporters from schools, in softball leagues, fishing clubs and paddling groups. Also, activists have made it a priority to move forward the southern leg of the South Bronx Greenway to the island to ensure that the Port Morris, Mott Haven and Hunt's Point communities have access to this green resource.

For more information see: http://www.eastharlempreservation.org/docs/Randalls_Island.htm

pictured:
Harry J. Bubbins, Director friendsofbrookpark.org
Tzeporah Berman, Founder of forestethics.org
Bill Mc Kibben, lead organizer of Step It Up and the author of "The End of
Nature", professor Middlebury College




From Rob Jereski:
hi tzeporah,
thanks for a really lovely paddle. it was very fun;)
here below are stanley rogouski's pictures of us w/the man, bill mcK.
harry neglected to tell me that i had schmutz on my eye so just crop
me out of the version you print.

harry asked for each or one of us to write something up on our jaunt.
here are my notes.

i'll write to you in the next day or so about the indonesia project.
see you soon and thanks for all your excellent work.
peace,
rob

city-action-mob-flash paddle.
-reflections on a spring paddle in the harlem and east rivers, passed
randalls island, millers rock, through the roosevelt island/long
island passage and on to d.u.m.b.o.

sun, barges, industrial age overgrown by dominium under steel and
glass, sewage overflow.
trees first buds emerge.
and shopping carts rust at the high tide mark
as harry steers towards the swirls and whirlpool diablos of hells gate.

tzeporah, my wife's best friend growing up, skirts in her kayak like
a pilot fish across the eddies.
into the mountains, rippling canyons, swells we dig our oars,
cultivating human gifts, wisdom and grace.

dawning a sweater on the beach in queens in the shade of new life's
greeting,
the faces of friends who have died and those yet to be born are
carried by the wind
stirring the water's surface.

Noxious New York

Book presentation and talk on Environmental Racism by

NYU

11th Street
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM

5th Annual Parks Advocacy Day

A message from New Yorkers for Parks.
 
Tell your City Council Member you want your parks green, your beaches clean and your playgrounds safe.
When: Tuesday, May 8th, 2007, 4 p.m.–7:30p.m.

Where: New York County Lawyers’ Association, 14 Vesey Street

We’re changing the way we do business. This year New Yorkers for Parks will hold a legislative briefing for New York City Council Members and their staff, beginning at 4 PM. Please join us at a cocktail reception immediately after the briefing to discuss your park issues with your Council Members.

Following the cocktail reception, we will sponsor a panel discussion highlighting the most pressing parks advocacy issues, such as park land alienation and the role of public private partnerships.

While we have made some changes to timing and format, the goal remains the same: advocate on behalf of public parks, playgrounds, and beaches to New York City Council Members.

Due to our efforts at the 2006 Parks Advocacy Day, for the first time in years essential programs including seasonal staff and tree pruning were baselined in the Department of Parks and Recreation budget.
We hope you will join us for this exciting and important day for parks. Attached is a flyer which you can feel free to post, publish and distribute.
You, your members, and neighbors can register immediately for parks Advocacy Day at

http://www.ny4p.org/index.php?option=com_philaform&Itemid=90&form_id=6

Questions, please call Okenfe at (212)838-9410 ext 314 or Emily Antoniades at (212) 838-9410 x305.
Best,
Sheelah

-----------
Sheelah A. Feinberg
Director of Government and Community Relations
New Yorkers for Parks
The Arthur Ross Center for Parks and Open Spaces
355 Lexington Avenue, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10017
t: (212) 838-9410 ext. 302
e: sfeinberg@ny4p.org
www.ny4p.org

SAVE THE DATE
New Yorkers for Parks
5th Annual Parks Advocacy Day
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
4:00-7:30pm
New York County Lawyers' Association
14 Vesey Street (bet. Broadway and Trinity)