Open Space on Long Island

Above: New York's pre-eminent open space, the Fulton Lakes Chain in the Adirondacks.

WSHU had an interesting story about open space on Long Island, and why we should care about it:

http://www.wshu.org/news/story.php?ID=6692

The report mentions that Suffolk County is buying up farm land to preserve as open space. More such open space would have been persevered if the Open Space proposal hadn't been defeated by voters this past fall.

A Golden Opportunity for Conservation on the East End

If you’ve ever taken the picturesque ferry across Long Island Sound from New London, CT to Orient Point, NY then you’ve seen Plum Island up close. Plum Island sits only a mile or so to the north and east of Orient Point, which is the easternmost point on Long Island’s North Fork. Chances are however that you’ve never been to Plum Island as the island has been closed off to the public since before World War II.


Plum Island, its location highlighted with a red square, sits between Orient Point and Fishers Island at the eastern terminus of Long Island Sound. It is currently home to the Department of Homeland Security’s Plum Island Animal Disease Laboratory, but is set to be decommissioned starting in 2014.

Perhaps that will change in the next decade or so, as the island’s current occupants are set to move out. Since the end of World War II the island has been home to the United States Animal Disease Laboratory, run by the Agriculture Department until its transfer to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Now however DHS has plans to replace the Plum Island facility with a larger, state of the art facility in Kansas.


Above is a view of Plum Island, courtesy of the US Department of Agriculture’s website.

While state and federal politicians are campaigning to keep Plum Island functioning as a animal disease research laboratory even after the new laboratory in Kansas opens, it’s worth considering what to do the island in the case that is decommissioned.

According to the Times article, local residents are already salivating at the prospect of turning the island into another suite of expensive homes, in the traditional Hampton’s style.

Enzo Morabito, the director of real estate development for Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in Bridgehampton, which deals exclusively in luxury property, said a two-acre lot of bare waterfront property on the south side of Plum Island would likely go for about $2 million.

He also said the entire island would be suitable for a golf course and luxury homes.

“That’s what I would do with it,” Mr. Morabito said. “That’s the highest and best use.”

With all due respect to Mr. Morabito, perhaps there is a more egalitarian approach to the land that could be taken. Why not consider opening the island up as a national or state park? The island fits the criteria that many set for designation as national park, it is both strikingly beautiful terrain and also of a historic value.

It is thought that Plum Island is the location of the first confrontation between British soldiers and members of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. The British Army and Navy had taken to raiding coastal Long Island for provisions and supplies at the onset of the conflict. So it is told, the first organized confrontation between the two armies occurred as American soldiers attempted to evacuate livestock from Plum Island to more secure locations on the mainland.

Additionally, Plum Island is a green haven in an increasingly developed region. Fishers Island to the northeast is an island which has been developed extensively for residential use. Plum Island could be developed only modestly, and still provide the infrastructure necessary for an exceptional national park.

As Long Island steadily looses its remaining open space to sub-division after sub-division, turning Plum Island into a national park represents a tangible opportunity to protect the environment, increase parkland and preserve local heritage.

Walden...er Emerson Pond

A major coup was scored in New York State in the name of conservation, when the Nature Conservancy purchased a large tract of previously held private land for preservation. But before we get there, here are a few random comments I’d like to share with the general blog reading audience.

• Okay, so baseball season is drawing to a close. And that means the droning, grating tones of John Sterling, and worse Suzyn Waldman will cease permeating my car. But honestly after being subjected to Dan Dierdorf for 3 hours during the Giants game on Sunday, I take back everything bad I ever said about baseball announcers. Listening to him is pure misery.

• I advise you strongly to not ever write anything negative about Geo Metros. It turns out that Geo Metro drivers are very much so pleased with their cars, and do not take kindly to you calling them “ugly,” “hideous” or “deathtrap.” The validity of these statements evidently doesn’t change their minds.

* Have you ever been set up to fail? Given an assignment or task that you are woefully unqualified to complete? This happened to me this past week. I was to give a lecture on subject matter that I’m totally uncomfortable with to fellow graduate students. Best case scenario is I look like an idiot. Worst case scenario, I am an idiot. Despite the feeling of impending doom, it was frighteningly liberating. When you know you are going to bomb at something, you can do so with flair. I feel like this morning when I gave the worst lecture on the Coreolis Force in the history of lecturing, at least I went down swinging.

Okay – back to the blog. Take a gander at this video. Breathe it in.


The property in the above video was recently acquired by the Nature Conservancy. The idea behind the property acquisition is to eventually turn the property over to the state of New York for inclusion in the Adirondack State Park. The property in question is known as “Follensby Pond” and checks in at 14,600 acres. The 14,600 acres includes a 1,000 acre stretch around Follensby Pond where Ralph Waldo Emerson and crew chilled out. Prior to acquisition the Pond was the largest such pond in private possession in the Northeastern United States.

From the Nature Conservancy Website:

Follensby Pond drains into the Raquette River where a 20-mile stretch of silver maple floodplain forest is considered to be the best example of that natural community type in the Adirondacks and among the best in the state. The quiet, slow-moving backwater pools associated with that largely undisturbed stretch of river also earned high ranks in a three-year Nature Conservancy study which assigned local, state, and global rankings to approximately 102 natural community types found in the Adirondacks.

This is a very exciting acquisition for the Nature Conservancy, and eventually for New York State. In addition to being beautiful lands, the region is also ecologically unique, being chosen as the site of Bald Eagle re-introduction.

Follensby Pond was selected as the only site in the Adirondack Park where bald eagles were reintroduced, a process known as “hacking.” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation endangered species unit leader Peter Nye led the effort in the 1980s. “Follensby was an ideal location because it had suitable habitat for current and future use by the eagles, was free from human disturbance, and good for nesting,” he said, adding that it was “a place where eagles could be eagles.”

In 1981 Nye traveled to Alaska, one of the few places in the nation where eagles were abundant, to collect eaglets unable to fly, but old enough to regulate their temperature and tear and eat fish without parental assistance. As many as 60 eaglets were released at Follensby Pond over several years, including one the McCormick grandchildren named “Emerson.” Today, the 12 nesting pairs of bald eagles in the Adirondacks are a testament to the success of those efforts.

It will be some time for New York residents to gain access to the property, as parts of it are currently being leased out for individual recreational use. Full details on the acquisition are available in this New York Times article.