Can Jamaica Bay Be Saved?

Guest Post by John Casey John Casey is a New York-based health and science writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, WebMD.com, Parade magazine, CBSHealthWatch.com, Self magazine, and other publications.

Those damned birds. That was the sentiment immediately following the Hudson River crash landing of a US Airways jet in New York City in January.

The plane's pilot, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger, III, performed the near-miraculous feat of ditching his plane without the loss of a single soul. Sully was hailed as a hero, and the geese of the Jamaica Bay, who had so rudely fouled Sully's engines, were suddenly villains of the worst sort. After the crash, a few local politicians even voiced a desire to destroy all birds in the area as a precaution against future such incidents.

History has made one thing clear: When politicians talk about the need to kill, it's time for a reality check. So here's one. If a city builds airports smack in the middle of one of the largest river estuaries in the country, an estuary that also happens to be a big stopover on the Atlantic Flyway for migratory birds, well, guess what? Birds are going to be sucked into engines.

Fortunately, some people are working very hard to save Jamaica Bay, which may well save the city itself some day.

Corps rebuilds 50 acres of marshland

In what some environmentalists describe as a surprising turn, the U.S. Corps of Engineers has emerged as a leading force in restoration. The Corps is more often aligned with forces seeking to dam, dredge and straighten waterways to maximize commercial boat traffic. Hurricane Katrina offers an informative example of what decades of intensive work by the Corps has wrought in another major river estuary.

In a first-of-its-kind project, however, the Corps deserves credit for developing novel techniques to rebuild more than 50 acres of marshland.

Before the 20th century, Jamaica Bay was a marshland of about 25,000 acres of shellfish, eelgrass beds and 300 species of birds. According to the Corps, about 4,000 acres remain. Nearly all of the 12,000 acres of wetlands on the shores of the bay were destroyed by landfills, channel straightening and the construction of causeways and runways.

"We are definitely committed to Ecosystem Restoration in Jamaica Bay and in the overall Estuary," said Daniel Falt, an engineer who manages the Corps' restoration projects in the bay. "The salt marshes within the bay have been disappearing at alarming rates. The loss of salt marsh was as high as 44 acres per year between 1994 and 1999."

How they did it

The project was simple — in concept, anyway. The researchers took a barge and fitted it with a great big pump. The pump pulled sediment off the floor of the bay and forced it up through hoses into sprayers all over what was left of one particular piece of marshland. Over months and months of spraying, the sediment built up and took hold.

Previous research had shown that the numerous causeways and encroachments had hemmed in and strangled the tidal, sediment-rich flows that created and maintained the marshland.

The Corps' sediment spraying replaced that natural process. And after much careful measurement, the Corps demonstrated the rebuilding of 50 acres of salt marsh.

Now, 50 acres of might not sound like much, but as proof-of-concept, the Corps' work is very important. If the process were employed on a large scale in the bay, it would likely reverse the extremely rapid loss of marshland habitat.

And it would apply equally well to other estuaries. One reason Hurricane Katrina did so much damage in New Orleans, scientists have theorized, is that 100 years of marshland loss in the Mississippi River estuary left the city with little or no buffer from storm surge. Should New York City find itself in the eye of a Category 4 or 5 storm, it would likely find itself in the same situation New Orleans did, its natural protections long since stripped away.

The Corps is now in the process of making plans to expand the restoration process in Jamaica Bay.

Even in its much-reduced state, the bay remains a thing of startling beauty. And though the geese and other shore birds of the bay may shatter the occasional turbojet, it's important to keep in mind that a fully restored Jamaica Bay might just help save the city on some future, stormy day.