The Big Apple and Beyond: Challenges and Successes of Habitat Restoration in the Long Island Sound Watershed

challenging of sites. One of our greatest success stories is a 37-km stretch of the Bronx River, which runs through a highly populated and industrialized area and has suffered from negative anthropogenic impacts for the past 300 years. The Bronx River flows from the Kensico Dam in Westchester County, New York, to the East River, and finally to the Long Island Sound. The river has been dammed, straightened, and had its banks hardened through bulkheads and rock riprap in order to transform it into an industrial corridor. These changes have degraded the river’s water and soil quality and its native vegetative communities. However, habitats along the banks of the Bronx River are steadily being restored through partnerships and significant support from local legislative leaders such as Congressman José Serrano (D, NY-16). More importantly, restoration projects have encouraged local stewardship as residents are connected to the urban oasis that exists in their backyards. The Wildlife Conservation Society–National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Lower Bronx River Partnership brought the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation’s Natural Resources Group (NRG) together with local groups, such as the Bronx River Alliance, to restore the river back to a functioning ecosystem. One successful project was the conversion of the site of a former concrete plant into a 1.2-ha park with restored wetland and upland slope (Figure 1). Volunteers from over a dozen different local environmental and community organizations, such as Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Sustainable South Bronx, The Point Community Development Center, the Gaia Institute, and area high schools, assisted with site preparation, plantings, and monitoring, enabling local residents to assist with the project while learning about their river. During site preparation, crews removed hundreds of cubic meters of concrete, scrap metal, and other debris, including 46 cubic meters of discarded tires. Marsh plantings began in 2001 and continued through 2007, restoring over 0.1 ha of intertidal marsh (Figure 2). In urbanized areas like the Bronx, these small sections of restored productive marsh are vital to the fish, invertebrates, and birds living in this estuary. During 2006 and 2007, NRG worked with the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection Inland Fisheries Division and researchers from Lehman College to increase species diversity by introducing 600 alewife herring (alosa pseudoharengus) into the Bronx River system. Alewife populations were impacted by dam construction during the 1600s that eliminated anadromous fish access to freshwater breeding grounds. The first two years of fish stocking have led to successful spawning, and stocking will continue on the river through 2011. Monitoring will determine how many The Big Apple and Beyond: Challenges and Successes of Habitat Restoration in the Long Island Sound Watershed Heather Young (new York Dept of conservation, 205 Belle Meade Rd, East setauket, nY 11733, hxyoung@gw.dec.state. ny.us), larissa graham (new York sea grant, 146 suffolk Hall, stony Brook, nY 11720, ljg85@cornell.edu) and Victoria Ruzicka (new York city Dept of Parks & Recreation, natural Resources group, new York, nY 10029, victoria. ruzicka@parks.nyc.gov)