What Worries Me

I had the privilege a couple of nights ago to hear Thomas Elmqvist speak. He talked about ecosystem services and cost-benefit analysis of restoring and maintaining greenspace specifically in Urban areas. One of the areas he touched upon was Wetland Restoration. I grew up exploring the rivers and swamps and marshes of Northwestern CT. Wetlands are something incredibly dear to me, and I guess my concern would be for the identification, protection and restoration of New York City's wetland areas. I was reading the PLANYC report on wetland areas in and around the metropolitan area, and it stated that wetlands under certain amount of acreage are not protected under federal protection iniatives. According to the report, PLANYC was about to start mapping those areas in 2008 when the iniative was started. My question would be, where is this iniative now? What steps have been made to protect existing wetland areas, of all sizes? Also, work is being done to restore areas like the Fresh Kills Landfill and areas of the Meadowlands, but those are major impact areas, what about smaller, equally important areas? I'm reminded of the swampy contaminated areas around the Staten Island Container Port, what about areas like that?

AHHH, its enough to make a fella go CRAZY!

http://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2009/pr050-09.pdf

http://www.harborestuary.org/pdf/HabitatSiteList.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Kills_Landfill

http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5120.html

http://soilandwater.bee.cornell.edu/publications/MontaltoW04.pdf