“Day of Outrage” Rally at MacNeil Park

CPN, community leaders, environmentalists, marine scientists, kayakers and elected officials will join together for a “Day of Outrage” rally and press conference to stop the city DEP’s destructive plan to install a stormwater outfall pipe in the middle of MacNeil Park’s thriving wetlands & oyster reef that we have been restoring for a decade, and in the middle of an official NYC kayak launch site – the town’s only free waterfront access point.

We are also protesting the fact that the crumbling seawall/waterfront path reconstruction work hasn’t yet begun. It is years behind schedule and at last report, was supposed to begin in “late summer/early fall.” A contract has still not been awarded although bids were opened in January and a low bidder was identified.

On this “Day of Outrage,” we urge the community to gather in opposition to this plan and to sign two petitions urging:
• that this outfall be relocated to an area other than this highly sensitive environment; and,
• that we be given detailed answers as to why the seawall and pathway restoration has not been awarded, 10 months after bids were unsealed.

Timeline for Oct. 15:
2 pm Cleanup: Come help us clean the MacNeil Park beach, and bring your kayaks (if you have one) and get set to launch in the cove.
WE NEED KAYAKERS TO COME AND PADDLE IN THE COVE TO DRAW ATTENTION TO FIGHTING THIS PLAN!!! (Paddlers: Email kathryncervino @ gmail.com).

3 pm Press Conference: Elected officials including State Senator Tony Avella will address the crowd, kayakers will paddle, and media will be on hand.
COME SHOW YOUR SUPPORT — BIGGER CROWD WILL GET MORE ATTENTION!!

Location: Northeast corner of MacNeil Park, on Poppenhusen Ave. just beyond College Place intersection
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This city’s outfall plan would bring polluted street runoff into our seagrasses and oyster reefs. The DEP claims “it’s only rain water.” But obviously, the rain also washes asphalt debris, roadsalt, deicing chemicals, sediment, oil from vehicles, cooking oil from restaurants, cigarette butts and the gamut onto our coast. It should not be placed here. The site is already inundated with pollution; we clean trash from the area several times yearly and there is always more, in part because it is a cove where tides bring trash in, but don’t carry it out. Installing this large pipe and concrete support structure would mean digging up and destroying years worth of successful environmental rehabilitation.

Volunteers will clean the beach beginning at 2 pm prior to the press conference. This will continue CPN’s 14-year tradition of cleaning the MacNeil’s East River beach, to help seagrasses and oysters flourish. Our efforts in this capacity, and in holding public kayaking events at the site, led to creation of a kayak launch there that has been officially named part of the NYC Water Trail.