FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE01-10
April
27, 2001
Contact: Geoff Ryan
(718/595-6600)
Students
From New York City And Watershed Work Together On Stream Restoration In Greene
County
On Tuesday May 1, approximately sixty students from New York City's High
School for Environmental Studies will join students from Margaretville Central
School and South Kortright Central School to work on a stream restoration
project on the East Kill in Greene County, according to Commissioner Joel
A. Miele Sr., P.E., of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.
The East Kill originates in the Town of Jewett and flows into the Schoharie
Creek about ten miles above the City's Schoharie Reservoir.
"This is a wonderful opportunity for students from City and watershed
schools to get hands-on experience in stream restoration and in learning about
the importance of protecting stream habitats and drinking water at the source,"
said Commissioner Miele.
The students will assist the Greene County Soil and Water Conservation
District (GCSWCD) staff in planting live willow posts and tree seedlings on
a restored stream reach near Beaches Corners in the Town of Jewett. This type
of planting or "bioengineering" utilizes roots of woody plants to
anchor soil and to provide additional bank stability. Native species of willows
will be harvested nearby and transplanted to streamsides along with tree seedlings
provided by the State Tree Nursery in Saratoga.
DEP's Stream Management Program and the GCSWCD have developed a multi-year
partnership to restore stream stability on the Batavia Kill, another tributary
of the Schoharie. This site on the East Kill is one of several that have been
restored recently to stable channel dimensions, thereby reducing stream bank
erosion and the resultant turbidity in the water. Riparian vegetation is critical
to restoring aquatic habitat, which is beneficial to fish and other stream
life.
"We are pleased that we can provide an outdoor classroom for high school
students that demonstrates our current knowledge about stream restoration
and the long term protection of water quality," said Rene Van Schaack,
GCSWCD Executive Director. "In our years of experience constructing this
kind of stream restoration project, we've seen that the vegetation component
really sets the project up for longer-term stability, just like in naturally
stable streams. Without it, the project just isn't finished."
"We are excited about working with upstate students on a cooperative
project in the New York City Watershed," said Michael Zamm, Director
of Education at the Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC).
The Council is a privately funded citizens' organization in the Office
of the Mayor. The students from the City are involved in the Council's Water
Conservation/Watershed Education Program, which received funding for this
upstate-downstate educational project from the Catskill Watershed Corporation
(CWC) Public Education Grants Program. The CWC is a non-profit organization
that administers many of the partnership programs set forth in the Watershed
Memorandum of Agreement of January 1997. As part of that Agreement, DEP helps
to fund CWC, the Watershed Agricultural Council and other programs in the
watershed that benefit both the community and drinking water quality.