Tuscarora

Environment News 

AUGUST 2001

 Volume 4

Issue 3

Brought  to you  by the

Tuscarora Nation

and

the

Tuscarora

Environment

Program

*

STAFF

 Lynette Printup

Air/ Solid Waste

technician

Rene Rickard

Water Quality

technician

Bryan Printup

GPS/GIS Technician

 Neil Patterson Jr.

Director

*

 2045 Upper MTN RD

Sanborn, NY 14132

 (716) 297 - 5553

(716) 628 - 5498

 FAx (716) 297-3995

 tuscenv@igc.org

WILD STRAWBERRY

  The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has announced a $1 million project to restore the endangered aquatic habitat of Strawberry Island in the upper Niagara River. The plan includes installing erosion prevention measures to stabilize and protect the island. The restoration is being financed with the 1996 Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act and additional support from the State Department of Transportation. The total land mass of Strawberry Island is shrinking, currently down to five acres from a historical 200 acres. The island is highly susceptible gravel dredging and the erosive forces of the upper Niagara’s strong current. The crescent-shaped island is surrounded by extensive beds of aquatic vegetation and a shallow water area that is commonly known as the Strawberry Island/Motor Island Shallows. The restoration project includes creating three acres of wetland habitat along the eastern and western arms of the island and the installation of approximately 2,300 feet of rip-rap breakwall to protect the island from wind and wave damage. Submerged sills will hold wetland soil in place and nearly 5,000 yards of wetland soil will be transported from the Buckhorn Island Marsh State Park restoration project and placed at Strawberry Island. In addition, erosion-resistant plants will be placed on the island to help protect the soil. Once the Strawberry Island wetland is restored, it will be jointly owned by DEC and the NYS Office of Parks. The Project began in July and is expected to be completed in the late summer or early fall of 2002

DOWNSTATE DESTRUCTION OF LAKE ERIE

  The Millennium Pipeline Project would like to transport cheap Canadian natural gas from Alberta, Canada to Westchester County, NY. The project involves the installation of a high pressure, 3’ diameter, natural gas pipeline across the bottom of Lake Erie. The line would connect sources in Port Stanley, Ontario with Ripley, New York, and displace an estimated 2.6 million cubic yards of sediment in Lake Erie. A technique called jet trenching, which has never been used before in a Great Lake, will be used to install the pipeline three to eight feet below the Lake bottom. An intensive twenty-four hour a day trenching schedule for SIX months every day will be subject to seasonal overturns and viscous Erie storms throughout the construction. In addition, the project has the onerous title of being the worlds first high volume natural gas pipeline in a body of water subject to ice scour. Great Lakes United opposes this massive project and has asked the public to address several concerns missing from the proponents’ environmental review. While many western New Yorkers are so transfixed by the recent Lake Erie four-walleye limit proposed by the NYSDEC, the pipeline paperwork moves ahead through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. People concerned about the Lake Erie fishery should seriously consider the consequences of this project rather than their own creel. Visit www.glu.org

  THE DREDGE MAY GO ON

  EPA is moving forward on a plan to clean up PCB pollution from the upper Hudson River that would dredge as many as 2.65 million cubic yards from the river. The EPA intends to incorporate a series of performance standards by which the cleanup will be evaluated regularly. The dredge-as-you-go plan monitors PCB levels in the soil and the water column as well as measuring the percentage of dredged material that gets re-suspended. Based on the data collected after each stage of the cleanup, the EPA will decide whether it is

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