Letter of Opposition to Runway Expansion Plan
Forwarded to Port Authority Executive Director Christopher Ward March 17, 2011Mr. Christopher O. Ward
Executive Director
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
225 Park Avenue South
New York, NY 10003
By Fax (212-435-6670) and U.S. Mail
Dear Mr. Ward:
The undersigned organizations write to express our strong opposition to recent proposals to expand John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) into Jamaica Bay. Such an expansion would irreversibly harm what is not simply New York City’s ecological crown jewel but a wetlands and estuarine area of national importance. We ask that the Port Authority consider other available alternatives for meeting the region’s airport capacity needs.
Jamaica Bay encompasses more than 25,000 acres of water, marsh, meadowland, beaches, dunes and forests in Brooklyn and Queens, all accessible by subway. It contains a federal wildlife refuge the size of 10 Central Parks, a portion of Gateway National Recreation Area, Bayswater State Park and nearly a dozen city parks. It provides nursery and foraging habitat for the region’s fisheries and other marine life – indeed, Bay waters adjacent to JFK are renowned for some of the region’s best fishing for bluefish and striped bass — and is a critical bird habitat area that is visited annually by what is estimated to be nearly 20 percent of North America’s bird species. It is also home to various endangered and threatened species – from sea turtles to peregrine falcons. Jamaica Bay provides visitors with opportunities to enjoy nature and all its bounty, and to find relative quietude and respite in the middle of a noisy and frenetic metropolis. In announcing last year that New York City was committing more than $100 million to reduce water pollution in the Bay and to restore its marsh islands, Mayor Bloomberg described Jamaica Bay as “without question one of the most bountiful wildlife habitats in the entire Northeast. It is important to the people who live in the area for its rich biodiversity, the recreation it offers, and the protection the marshlands provide from flooding.” U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Salazar has described it as one of America’s “great urban parks” and just last month outlined ambitious plans to further enhance Jamaica Bay’s natural resource and recreational value to surrounding communities.
A study released in January by the Regional Planning Association (RPA) and funded by the Port Authority surveyed a range of alternatives for meeting projected future aviation demand in the region.[1] The analysis encompassed a variety of expansion projects and operational improvements at the region’s major and regional airports. The array of alternatives included certain alternatives for JFK that would extend existing runways into Jamaica Bay, build new runways in the Bay, and/or significantly increase Bay overflights.
Such an expansion of JFK would have unacceptable adverse impacts on Jamaica Bay. Hundreds of acres of the Bay would need to be permanently filled in, something currently prohibited by federal law. Intrusive commercial jet noise would increase, potentially dramatically. Wildlife conflicts with aviation safety would escalate. Finally, water pollution from the airport, which currently discharges the run-off from the millions of gallons of toxic de-icing fluids used each winter directly into the Bay, would likely increase.
Our groups do not oppose efforts to increase the region’s aviation capacity. The RPA report identifies a number of alternatives that would satisfy the authors’ most optimistic projections of long-term aviation demand growth, including an additional runway at JFK that does not require filling or additional overflights of Jamaica Bay, expansion of Newark Airport (which can be done within the existing footprint), build-out of the regional airports, and technological improvements in air traffic control. We strongly recommend that the Port Authority consider such alternatives in lieu of further consideration of expanding JFK’s runways into Jamaica Bay.
We are confident that you share our view that Jamaica Bay is a natural treasure of singular value. We look forward to continuing to work with you to protect and restore it as a cornerstone of New York City’s and the region’s environmental legacy for generations to come.
Respectfully yours,
| Brad Sewell, Senior AttorneyNatural Resources Defense Council | Mitchell CohenBrooklyn Green Party | Peter Dorosh, President Brooklyn Bird Club |
| Steve Barrison, PresidentBay Improvement Group | Mitchell Cohen, CoordinatorNo Spray Coalition | Jeanne DuPont, DirectorRockaway Waterfront Alliance |
| Alexander R. Brash,Northeast Regional Director National Parks Conservation Association | Geoffrey Croft, PresidentNYC Park Advocates | Kathy Flynn, PresidentSheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Ass’n |
| Brett F. Branco, Ph.D. Aquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY | Judy Davis, Chapter PresidentGreat South Bay Audubon Society | Paul M. Forlano, Ph.D, Associate Director & Assistant Professor of BiologyAquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY |
| Deborah A. Mans, Baykeeper/Executive Director NY/NJ Baykeeper | Glenn Phillips, Executive DirectorNew York City Audubon | Kerry Sullivan, Executive DirectorNatural Resources Protective Association |
| Dan Mundy, Jr., PresidentBroad Channel Civic Association | Tony Pignatello, CommodoreSebago Canoe Club | John T. Tanacredi, Ph.D., Chairman Dep’t of Earth and Marine Sciences, Dowling College |
| Dan Mundy, Sr., President Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers | Don Riepe, DirectorAmerican Littoral Society,Northeast Chapter | Cindy Zipf, Executive Director Clean Ocean Action |
| Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River Program DirectorRiverkeeper, Inc. | Martin P. Schreibman, Ph.D, Founding DirectorAquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY |
Signatures waived to expedite delivery.
cc:
Senator Charles E. Schumer
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Representative Anthony D. Weiner
Representative Gregory W. Meeks
National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis
Gateway National Recreation Area Superintendent Linda Canzanelli
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt
Representative Audrey I. Pheffer
New York State Dep’t of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection Commissioner Caswell F. Holloway
New York City Council Member James F. Gennaro
New York City Council Member Eric Ulrich
Rob Pirani, Regional Planning Association
bcc:
Assistant Commissioner James Tierney, New York State Dep’t of Environmental Conservation
Deputy Commissioner Angela Licata, NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection
Deputy Commissioner Carter Strickland, NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection
Christopher Zeppie, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Doug Adamo, National Park Service
Aaron Koch, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
Tim Dillingham, American Littoral Society
[1] Zuban, et al., Upgrading to World Class –The Future of the New York Region’s Airports, Regional Planning Association (January 2011).
Ecowatchers Letter to the Secretary of the Interior
Working to preserve, protect and enhance the natural resources of Jamaica bay
56 West 14th road, Broad Channel, New York, NY 11693
Jamaicabayecowatchers.org
February 10, 2011
Kenneth Salazar
Secretary of the Interior
Department of the Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington DC 20240
RE: Comments on Proposed Expansion of JFK Airport into Gateway National Park and Jamaica Bay
Dear Mr. Secretary:
You may recall our meeting at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife refuge when you visited on July 10 2010. At that time Congressman Anthony Wiener had introduced us to you that day by saying that we, the Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers, had been at the forefront of the efforts to protect and preserve Jamaica Bay. We were pleased to see you taking the time out of your busy schedule to personally experience this remarkable part of the National Parks system. Your presence as well as your comments indicated your appreciation for this magnificent natural jewel only miles from the skyscrapers of New York. Your call for a new era in American conservation which envisioned Jamaica bay and the New York harbor as a “star relative to the great urban parks of America in the 21st century” were encouraging words to hear! We, too, believe that after many years Jamaica bay’s time has come and we have worked with many partners, including the NPS, Hudson Raritan Estuary, NYS DEC, Army Corps of Engineers, and others to identify and address the problems affecting Jamaica Bay. We currently have successful large scale marshland restoration efforts underway. In addition we are working with the National Parks Service and Stony Brook University to reintroduce oysters to these waters where they once thrived and finally we have just reached an agreement, due to a Clean Water Act lawsuit we brought against the City of New York, to have the city upgrade waste water treatment plants with over $100,000,000 in state of the art technology upgrades. It would appear that years of efforts are finally paying off and this National Treasure is finally getting the recognition it is due.
You could imagine than our shock and outrage at a recent plan prepared by Regional Plan Association and endorsed by the Port Authority of NY/NJ representatives, including Christopher Ward head of the Port Authority, at a recent meeting, that calls for the expansion of JFK airport runways out into the waters of Jamaica Bay. This proposal would see hundreds of acres of critical wetlands and tidal areas filled in and paved over. This planned massive destruction of natural resources within a National Park is without recent precedent. Our organization also co-chairs the Jamaica Bay Taskforce which is an umbrella group for all of the environmental groups that are active in the bay and “greater-bay” area. We have received hundreds of E-mails and phone calls from concerned citizens. Many have asked that we reach out to you to solicit assurances that the Department of the Interior will protect this precious resource and forbid any such development. Congressman Wiener has come out strongly against this plan stating that is “bad plan that violates federal law” and has pledged to fight any such attempt. We wanted to bring this to your attention immediately so as ensure that the Department of the Interior would be fully prepared to respond to this threat. It is ironic that your words spoken during your visit , recalling past environmentally damaging practices , would be somewhat prophetic as to the vision of what this plan would offer. When you stated that –““We have learned a lot about rivers and waterways and how we as a country have come a long way in how we look at rivers and waterways. “It wasn’t so long ago … where we as citizens and governments turned our backs on the rivers. They were the places to dump things, the wastelands of our countries. Yet In the last 10, 15 years we’ve watched our society turn our faces to our rivers and embrace them for all that they can bring to us.” It was evident that yourself, as well as this administration, would consider those past practices as the mistakes of a less enlightened generation and yet we have here in 2011 ,in this report, exactly that mentality. The Port Authority has put forth this proposal before, in 1970, and it was roundly denounced and rejected by residents, elected officials, and environmentalists. That they would present this proposal at this time seems so much more shocking in light of the era that we find ourselves in with so much more awareness and regard given to the importance in preserving the environmentally sensitive areas we have for future generations. The full plan can be found here http://www.rpa.org/pdf/RPA-Upgrading-to-World-Class.pdf . We look forward to hearing back from your office on this critical matter with a rejection of this dangerous proposal and thank you in advance for your support.
Sincerely,
Daniel T Mundy,
Vice President,
Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers
March 17, 2011
Mr. Christopher O. Ward
Executive DirectorPort Authority of New York and New Jersey
225 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003 By Fax (212-435-6670) and U.S. Mail Dear
Mr. Ward: The undersigned organizations write to express our strong opposition to recent proposals to expand John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) into Jamaica Bay. Such an expansion would irreversibly harm what is not simply New York City’s ecological crown jewel but a wetlands and estuarine area of national importance. We ask that the Port Authority consider other available alternatives for meeting the region’s airport capacity needs. Jamaica Bay encompasses more than 25,000 acres of water, marsh, meadowland, beaches, dunes and forests in Brooklyn and Queens, all accessible by subway. It contains a federal wildlife refuge the size of 10 Central Parks, a portion of Gateway National Recreation Area, Bayswater State Park and nearly a dozen city parks. It provides nursery and foraging habitat for the region’s fisheries and other marine life – indeed, Bay waters adjacent to JFK are renowned for some of the region’s best fishing for bluefish and striped bass — and is a critical bird habitat area that is visited annually by what is estimated to be nearly 20 percent of North America’s bird species. It is also home to various endangered and threatened species – from sea turtles to peregrine falcons. Jamaica Bay provides visitors with opportunities to enjoy nature and all its bounty, and to find relative quietude and respite in the middle of a noisy and frenetic metropolis. In announcing last year that New York City was committing more than $100 million to reduce water pollution in the Bay and to restore its marsh islands, Mayor Bloomberg described Jamaica Bay as “without question one of the most bountiful wildlife habitats in the entire Northeast. It is important to the people who live in the area for its rich biodiversity, the recreation it offers, and the protection the marshlands provide from flooding.” U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Salazar has described it as one of America’s “great urban parks” and just last month outlined ambitious plans to further enhance Jamaica Bay’s natural resource and recreational value to surrounding communities. A study released in January by the Regional Planning Association (RPA) and funded by the Port Authority surveyed a range of alternatives for meeting projected future aviation demand in the region.[1] The analysis encompassed a variety of expansion projects and operational improvements at the region’s major and regional airports. The array of alternatives included certain alternatives for JFK that would extend existing runways into Jamaica Bay, build new runways in the Bay, and/or significantly increase Bay overflights.
Such an expansion of JFK would have unacceptable adverse impacts on Jamaica Bay. Hundreds of acres of the Bay would need to be permanently filled in, something currently prohibited by federal law. Intrusive commercial jet noise would increase, potentially dramatically. Wildlife conflicts with aviation safety would escalate. Finally, water pollution from the airport, which currently discharges the run-off from the millions of gallons of toxic de-icing fluids used each winter directly into the Bay, would likely increase.
Our groups do not oppose efforts to increase the region’s aviation capacity. The RPA report identifies a number of alternatives that would satisfy the authors’ most optimistic projections of long-term aviation demand growth, including an additional runway at JFK that does not require filling or additional overflights of Jamaica Bay, expansion of Newark Airport (which can be done within the existing footprint), build-out of the regional airports, and technological improvements in air traffic control. We strongly recommend that the Port Authority consider such alternatives in lieu of further consideration of expanding JFK’s runways into Jamaica Bay.
We are confident that you share our view that Jamaica Bay is a natural treasure of singular value. We look forward to continuing to work with you to protect and restore it as a cornerstone of New York City’s and the region’s environmental legacy for generations to come.
Respectfully yours,
| Brad Sewell, Senior AttorneyNatural Resources Defense Council | Mitchell CohenBrooklyn Green Party | Peter Dorosh, President Brooklyn Bird Club |
| Steve Barrison, PresidentBay Improvement Group | Mitchell Cohen, CoordinatorNo Spray Coalition | Jeanne DuPont, DirectorRockaway Waterfront Alliance |
| Alexander R. Brash,Northeast Regional Director National Parks Conservation Association | Geoffrey Croft, PresidentNYC Park Advocates | Kathy Flynn, PresidentSheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Ass’n |
| Brett F. Branco, Ph.D. Aquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY | Judy Davis, Chapter PresidentGreat South Bay Audubon Society | Paul M. Forlano, Ph.D, Associate Director & Assistant Professor of BiologyAquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY |
| Deborah A. Mans, Baykeeper/Executive Director NY/NJ Baykeeper | Glenn Phillips, Executive DirectorNew York City Audubon | Kerry Sullivan, Executive DirectorNatural Resources Protective Association |
| Dan Mundy, Jr., PresidentBroad Channel Civic Association | Tony Pignatello, CommodoreSebago Canoe Club | John T. Tanacredi, Ph.D., Chairman Dep’t of Earth and Marine Sciences, Dowling College |
| Dan Mundy, Sr., President Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers | Don Riepe, DirectorAmerican Littoral Society,Northeast Chapter | Cindy Zipf, Executive Director Clean Ocean Action |
| Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River Program DirectorRiverkeeper, Inc. | Martin P. Schreibman, Ph.D, Founding DirectorAquatic Research & Env’tl Assessment Center (AREAC) Brooklyn College CUNY |
Signatures waived to expedite delivery.
cc:
Senator Charles E. Schumer
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Representative Anthony D. Weiner
Representative Gregory W. Meeks
National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis
Gateway National Recreation Area Superintendent Linda Canzanelli
Federal Aviation Administration Administrator J. Randolph Babbitt
Representative Audrey I. Pheffer
New York State Dep’t of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection Commissioner Caswell F. Holloway
New York City Council Member James F. Gennaro
New York City Council Member Eric Ulrich
Rob Pirani, Regional Planning Association
bcc:
Assistant Commissioner James Tierney, New York State Dep’t of Environmental Conservation
Deputy Commissioner Angela Licata, NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection
Deputy Commissioner Carter Strickland, NYC Dep’t of Environmental Protection
Christopher Zeppie, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Doug Adamo, National Park Service
Aaron Koch, Mayor’s Office of Sustainability
Tim Dillingham, American Littoral Society
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