http://www.newsday.com/long-island/new-rules-to-better-track-saltwater-catch-1.3480063
New rules to better track saltwater catchOriginally published: January 25, 2012 9:31 PM
Updated: January 25, 2012 9:34 PM
By MARK HARRINGTON mark.harrington@newsday.com Federal regulators Wednesday corrected years of faulty data in unveiling a new system for estimating recreational saltwater fishing activity, but some fishermen weren't biting. The changes, which follow years of angry skepticism from fishing boat captains and dockside anglers as limits tightened, seek to get a truer picture of fish populations. The improvements "better reflect what is happening on the water," said Eric Schwaab, acting assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. One big change is in how regulators extrapolate the annual fishing take based on samplings at marinas and calls to anglers. Some boats that caught no fish were sometimes excluded from the sample, artificially raising estimates. The new formulas give those factors the proper weight. Next steps include more accurate surveys of anglers using state fishing registries, and more thorough dockside samples of fishing trips. Pat Augustine, a commissioner representing New York for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, called the effort a "major improvement in helping us find out what the real status of our stocks are, and bringing credibility to the process." But Jim Hutchinson, managing director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, an angler and industry group, said the problem is that new formulas continue to use data from sometimes faulty samples. "Tear down a rickety house and try to rebuild it using the same old rotted A-frame and you're still left with a rickety old house," he said.Steve Witthuhn, captain of the charter boat Top Hook out of Montauk, said, "It's the same people running it," referring to federal regulators who are implementing the changes, which took six years to develop, test and implement.Still, Witthuhn said, "We'd like to think where there's light there's hope, and they learned from their mistakes." Schwaab said the agency is trying to improve fishing surveys, too. It's experimenting with calls and mailings to licensed anglers in state registries to do its samples, rather than random calls to homes in coastal communities. It's also improving dockside surveys by making sure that ports and boats that typically underfish are counted, not just those with high fishing activity. There are also changes made that prevent those who conduct the dockside surveys from falsifying reports.
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State suspends fishing fee for 2 yearsPublished: March 23, 2011 10:09 PM
By JENNIFER SMITH jennifer.smith@newsday.com New York saltwater fishermen will get a free pass for two years under a budget agreement between Senate and Assembly leaders and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo that would suspend a controversial $10 state license. The agreement hammered out Tuesday night would deprive New York of $2.4 million in annual revenue, as well as $1.4 million in federal sportfishing aid that was anticipated in 2012-13, according to Cuomo's budget office. A free registry will replace the license program. The license program was set up in 2009 to satisfy federal reporting requirements intended to improve data on the number of fish anglers catch. Long Island's recreational fishing industry vigorously opposed the license, which costs residents $10 per year. They called it a tax on a previously free resource and said the requirement hurt local tackle shops and party and charter boats. "It's a bright sunny day for saltwater fishermen," state Sen. Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) said Wednesday. He has sponsored bills that would have repealed the saltwater licensing. In December, seven Long Island towns won a lawsuit against the state over the program. They said the license infringed on their jurisdiction over town waters as conferred by historic patents. But conservation advocates and some recreational anglers defend the license. They say the fees are equivalent to those paid by other sportsmen, and support fisheries research, artificial reefs and other programs that serve saltwater fishermen. The change came out of a Senate budget provision that proposed to repeal the program. Cuomo's office confirmed the agreement Wednesday. The changes include issuing refunds to anglers who already shelled out $150 for a lifetime license -- a total of $0.7 million, state environmental officials said. Lost revenue would be made up by the general fund, according to Zeldin and Stephen Liss, counsel to Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst), the Assembly environmental chair and a staunch defender of the license. New York will also forfeit $1.4 million in federal sportfishing aid because, Liss said, the money only goes to states with license programs that make at least $1 more than they cost to administer -- criteria the free registry does not meet. Charles Witek of West Babylon, a member of the Coastal Conservation Association angler group, said the decision would hurt the state's ability to safeguard marine resources. "It's embarrassing that saltwater anglers are coming out and saying that it's fine for freshwater fishermen and hunters and trappers to pay for licenses and for us to fish for free," Witek said.
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Towns win fishing license suit against stateOriginally published: December 15, 2010 10:12 PM
By ZACHARY R. DOWDY zachary.dowdy@newsday.com Seven Long Island towns have won a lawsuit against the state Department of Conservation preventing the agency from requiring that recreational anglers obtain a saltwater fishing license to fish town waters. The decision by State Supreme Court Justice Patrick A. Sweeney follows a one-day trial last month, in which the towns contested a law that required any angler older than 16 to get the $10 license. The law, which took effect in October 2009, was designed in part to enable the collection of statistical data for the federal government. The towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island,Brookhaven, Southold, Huntington and Oyster Bay opposed the law arguing it encroached on their pre-existing authority to regulate town waters - patent rights the towns have enjoyed since the colonial era. Sweeney's decision said those rights give the towns full control over their fisheries. "Concerning the issuance of a saltwater fishing license, the statute as applied to the respective plaintiffs is in violation of the rights of the people of the respective Towns and may not be enforced upon those who seek to fish in the waters regulated by the respective towns," read the decision. "This was a tax, nothing more than a tax," said Joseph Lombardo, assistant town attorney for Southampton, which led the effort. "We allow people to go shellfishing for free. We don't charge you if you're a resident. We've never made people get a fishing license to go saltwater fishing. These are rights that we have to protect." A spokesman for the DEC declined to comment. Lombardo said Sweeney's decision may apply only to the seven towns that mounted the lawsuit because the constitutionality of the law itself wasn't challenged. He said the towns in the lawsuit obtained an injunction from the fees for the duration of the dispute and that they will not be required to obey the law unless the decision is overturned on appeal. Average user rating: (Click to rate)
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Cops: Car break-in suspects nabbed after chase at Robert MosesOriginally published: August 3, 2010 2:45 PM
Updated: August 3, 2010 2:52 PM
By JOHN VALENTI john.valenti@newsday.com QUICK SUMMARYTwo men who broke into five cars in a parking lot at Robert Moses State Park Monday afternoon were arrested.  Photo credit: Civil Air Patrol | The Robert Moses Monument and Captree Bridge are seen at Robert Moses State Park following the weekend nor'easter. The beach took a hard hit from fierce waves. (March 16, 2010) Two men who broke into five cars in a parking lot at Robert Moses State Park Monday afternoon were arrested after a chase through the dunes that involved canine and aviation search teams, authorities said. Police said the break-ins were reported at Field 5 at about 2 p.m. and uniformed park officers responded to the scene at the eastern-most field - located closest to the Fire Island lighthouse. Witnesses told the officers the two men had been seen breaking a window on a BMW and discovered the men had stolen the navigation system, police said. Police said the duo led officers on a chase into the dunes between Field 4 and Field 5. Suffolk County Police K-9 and aviation assisted park police. One of the suspects was arrested as he fled onto the parkway, police said. The other was arrested near the concession stand at Field 5. Police said Ricardo Rodriguez, 31, of Hemlock Drive in Bay Shore, was charged with fourth-degree grand larceny, fourth-degree criminal mischief, fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and obstructing governmental administration. Joel Morales, 20, of West Drive in Bay Shore, was charged with fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth-degree criminal mischief and obstructing governmental administration. Both were scheduled for arraignment Tuesday in First District Court in Central Islip. Police said they recovered GPS units, cell phones and other items stolen from five different cars in the lot.
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Red tide arrives on East End early, spurred by heatOriginally published: July 29, 2010 8:04 PM
Updated: July 29, 2010 9:52 PM
By JENNIFER SMITH jennifer.smith@newsday.com  Photo credit: Office of Ecology | An algae bloom, known as Red tide, has returned to the East End. A Red tide is seen in Cutchogue Harbor in August 2008. The ominous red streaks showed up early this year - patches of rust-colored water as big as an acre spotted this week near the Shinnecock Canal and in Noyack Bay. East End baymen call it red tide, blooms of harmful algae that can kill captive fish and shellfish. It typically arrives in late August; researchers think this summer's heat wave may have spurred an earlier bloom. The algae is not harmful to humans, and no large-scale fish kills have been reported since Cochlodinium polykrikoides was first documented in the Peconic Estuary in 2004. But scientists who have witnessed its lethal effects in the lab say it poses a risk to the bay's recovering scallop population. Stony Brook University researcher Chris Gobler described red tide as a "killing cloud" of tiny organisms that, massed together, slays competing plankton by releasing harmful compounds that burst cell membranes. Lab experiments show similarly fatal effects on larger marine life. "Coming in close proximity to the fish gills, it just tears them apart," Gobler said. In the wild, fish who can swim away seem to escape unscathed. But outbreaks have wreaked havoc on aquaculture off Korea and Japan because confined fish have nowhere to go. That's what bayman Ken Mades of Hampton Bays suspects happened to summer flounder he found dead in his nets inShinnecock Bay last fall. Mades fishes using pound traps - nets suspended from poles in the bay bottom that trap everything from blue claw crabs to butterfish. "On the north side of the bay where the bloom was heavy, the fluke were dead in the traps," said Mades, 72. "If they could have left, they would have - but they couldn't." Other Southampton baymen are worried about how the blooms are affecting scallops, only now starting to come back from a crash in the 1980s caused by the onset of a different harmful algal bloom. Red tide rises to the top of the water column during the day, clumping to create rusty stripes that can stretch several hundred yards. But at night it drops to the bay bottoms, where shellfish cannot escape its reach. Ed Warner Jr., a Southampton Town trustee and bayman, blames red tide for wiping out a promising set of juvenile scallops he saw two years ago in Noyack Bay. The following November, "we were pulling up dredges and a lot of the shells were just empty," he said. "Only about a half dozen were live." The blooms don't yet appear to have hurt scallops at a Suffolk-funded restoration project further east, off Orient. There, fast-moving tides sweep the algae quickly past scallop beds, said Chris Smith, a senior educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County. But Smith says red tide could jeopardize the species' nascent comeback. "We built the bay scallop back from no landings to over 18,000 pounds of meat," Smith said. "Those landings are worth over $1.3 million to the regional economy."
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MONTAUK, N.Y.—Fishing hasn't changed much over the years. Then along came Paul Melnyk. During a surfcasting tournament here in the mid-1990s, Mr. Melnyk landed a striped bass large enough to be in contention. Then word got around that he was swimming offshore in a wetsuit with a fishing rod when he caught it. Paul Melnyk believes that the best way to catch a bass off of Montauk, Long Island, is to jump in after it. He invented a form of fishing in which the fish pulls him through the water, as if he were skiing. Thus was born, Skishing. Christopher Rhoads reports. The tournament committee responded by banning fish caught while swimming. Later—after an incident involving an irate Mr. Melnyk in pirate garb, Captain Morgan rum and floating his baited line hundreds of yards from shore with a kite—it banned Mr. Melnyk. "They called it a crooked playing field," says Mr. Melnyk, a 55-year-old who works in construction. "I don't care about that—I care about winning." Instead of complying with the rules, Mr. Melnyk went rogue. He committed himself to his fishing method, attracting others with a penchant for the extreme. Today, they're challenging what it means to fish. A recent YouTube video shows a man swimming in Florida with a mask, snorkel and flyrod, catching a tarpon. ZeeBaaS, a fishing-gear company in Stratford, Conn., recently added a section to its product line and website devoted to the activity. Cable channels, like National Geographic, have featured it. Enthusiasts sharing tales on websites hail from the U.K., Turkey and South Africa. "There used to be a whole bunch of people against this concept," says Mr. Melnyk, whose right shoulder is covered with a tattoo of a skeleton, holding up a massive skeleton of a fish. "But there's a new generation of fishermen out there." ![[SKISHING]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/HC-GO442_Melnyk_BV_20100725145719.gif) PAUL MELNYK Practitioners interviewed agree he coined the sport's name: "skishing." It's a mix of skiing and fishing. The idea is to hook a fish big enough to tow the angler through the water. Stripers can reach more than 50 pounds; the record caught with rod-and-reel weighed 78-1/2 pounds. Without the benefit of a boat or land, the fight is considered to be, by the fisherman anyway, on more equal terms. Skishers swim sometimes hundreds of yards from shore to water well over their head, with their flippers and the buoyancy of their wetsuits keeping them afloat. Some have come to skishing by persevering to become a protégé of Mr. Melnyk, who prefers skishing alone. Frank Blasko, a 39-year-old in the motion-picture lighting business in Bayport, Long Island, pestered Mr. Melnyk for several years with phone calls and emails, even offering him $300 if he would show him the ropes. Mr. Melnyk finally relented. "I needed a new carburetor on my chopper," he says. Mr. Blasko, who's making a documentary on the sport called "The Skisherman," describes the attraction this way: "I just like to get out in the middle of the night, catch a monster and have it splash its tail in my face." Acceptance of skishing—and of Mr. Melnyk—has its limits. "I hope you get eaten by a shark," wrote one commenter on Mr. Melnyk's website, calling him a cheater. Mr. Melnyk says he receives hate mail, admonishing him for promoting such a dangerous activity. Among other risks: boats and strong currents whipping skishers out to sea. Skishing is typically done at night, when bass are thought to do most of their feeding. Since skishers can catch fish just beyond the reach of traditional surfcasters in waders, the skishers are sometimes blamed for scaring fish away or catching what might otherwise belong to the purists closer to shore. Mr. Blasko, Mr. Melnyk's protégé, says he's been hooked twice by surfcasters, probably intentionally. Cursing is common. Christopher Rhoads/The Wall Street JournalAs he prepares to head out to sea, Paul Melnyk shows off the eels he uses as bait to catch striped bass. Before suiting up, he usually drives along the beach in his pickup truck in the pre-dawn hours, looking for good spots to fish. Gary Stephens, a 54-year-old landscaper nicknamed "The Toad" for his ability to jump over car hoods, is a traditional surfcaster and is considered Mr. Melnyk's main rival for bragging rights among locals. "Wetsuiters have a clear advantage," says Mr. Stephens. "If they think that's fun, that's fine. I stick with the fishing." Once, when Mr. Melnyk was skishing far from shore, a fishing-boat captain, startled to see a person in the water with a fishing rod, came up alongside him and derided him as a "menace to navigation," Mr. Melnyk recalls. "That's when I started carrying a knife," he says. The annual surfcasting tournaments, held from spring to late fall here on the eastern end of Long Island—a place some locals call a drinking town with a fishing problem—forbid skishing. The rules read like they were written for Mr. Melnyk. "Feet must be on mother earth or rock when you hook up," reads Rule No. 4. "No free-floating, drifting or swimming while actually fishing. No boats, prams, kayaks, balloons or kites." Fred Kalkstein, a member of the executive committee for the locals-only tournament, says skishing "will never be allowed." It gives the practitioner too much of an advantage, he says. "It's not surfcasting," says Mr. Kalkstein, an East Hampton stockbroker nicknamed "Eelman" for using only eels as bait when striper fishing. "They're using their body as a boat." But some views have softened. About ten years ago, a separate wetsuit division was created. Old-timers protested, but today about 15 of the customary 50 participants don wetsuits, allowing them to swim to rocks from which to cast. Mr. Melnyk was eventually invited back, though he's mostly declined. Maneuvering his pickup along a beach here one night in the pre-dawn cold, Mr. Melnyk spotted waves crashing about 200 yards from shore. He crammed his thick frame into a wetsuit, strapped on a ziploc bag of live eels and, with a fishing rod under his arm, clomped past startled fishermen on shore in his yellow flippers and swam out to sea. Within minutes, as dawn broke, he bobbed in the swells in about 15 feet of frigid water. Birds dove at the baitfish around him. After some casts, he reeled in a small bass. He put a short rope from his waist through its gills, so he could continue to fish. Finally, he made his way through the heavy surf back to the beach, just in time to see one of the surfcasters from shore trudge by with a 25-pounder. "Hey!" Mr. Melnyk shouted. "That should've been mine!" Write to Christopher Rhoads at christopher.rhoads@wsj.com
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http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/jones-beach-july-4th-fireworks-show-still-fizzles-1.2029111
Jones Beach July 4th fireworks show still fizzles
Originally published: June 16, 2010 8:04 PM
Updated: June 16, 2010 9:48 PM
By MICHAEL AMON
michael.amon@newsday.com
Photo credit: Newsday File/ Ana P. Gutierrez | The
4th of July fireworks show is held at Jones Beach in Wantagh on July 4,
2009.
The Jones Beach
Fourth of
July fireworks show has been canceled - again.
Gov. David A. Paterson
tried to revive the show on Monday, a month after its cancellation for
money and staffing problems, a spokesman said.
State parks officials even told
business owners around Jones Beach that the show could return, and soon
after many believed the show was back on, said Kathy Heinlein-Risi,
president of the Captree Fleet, which was organizing charter boats to
watch the fireworks show from the water.
But by Tuesday evening,
administration officials decided it couldn't be done, said spokesman
Morgan Hook.
"We've turned over every stone," Hook
said. "The money is just not there."
The cancellation should bring more
attention to the Fourth of July pyrotechnic show over the Great South
Bay near Patchogue, organized by Fireworks by Grucci. The Captree
Fleet and other businesses have begun making arrangements around that
show.
A more insurmountable problem than
funding was staffing, said Assemb. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket), who
followed the discussions. The number of state park police and rangers,
who patrol Jones Beach and other state grounds, has fallen from 117 in
2004 to 85. The agency has gone without a police academy class for three
years.
Corporate sponsors had stepped up to
pay for the Jones Beach show, but officers couldn't be trained fast
enough to provide adequate security, Englebright said.
"I think [the administration] came
close to going to a thumbs-up," Englebright said. "But at the final
moment of decision, I think they felt there would be a real downside."
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http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/deal-struck-to-keep-55-state-parks-open-1.1956884 Deal struck to keep 55 state parks open
Originally published: May 27, 2010 9:55 PM
Updated: May 27, 2010 10:33 PM
By BART JONES
bart.jones@newsday.com
Photo credit: Newsday file / Joseph D. Sullivan | Montauk
Downs State Park
Pool will not open unless the legislature restores funding.
A deal has been
struck
to keep open 55 state parks and facilities slated for
closure, Gov. David A. Paterson said
Thursday, though the State Senate and Assembly were still working to
finalize the pact Thursday night.
"The legislature has made the tough
choices to my satisfaction that will enable us to open the parks" in
time for the Memorial
Day weekend, Paterson said on WOR radio's "The John Gambling Show."
His administration had listed 41 parks
and 14 of the state's 35 historic sites to close, along with service
cuts at others, to help bridge the state budget gap. Two are on Long Island:
the Nissequogue
River and Brookhaven
state parks.
Austin Shafran, majority
Democratic conference spokesman, said Thursday, "We have an agreement
on a bill to fully restore parks funding, keeping them open for the
remainder of the year. We just received a draft from the governor's
office and are reviewing the specific details. We anticipate passing it
tomorrow."
Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst)
said officials had agreed to approve $11 million to open the parks. He
said the money would come from the Environmental Protection Fund.
Negotiations that started Wednesday
went on until 2 a.m. Thursday, Sweeney said, with some staff members
remaining until 5 a.m. Thursday night, officials were talking again.
Paterson said the Environmental
Protection Fund would be cut by about $74 million. The measure is also
expected to keep the historic sites open this year, as well as Department
of Environmental Conservation campgrounds targeted for closing.
"We've come to a deal to approximately
cut about what I proposed in the original budget," Paterson said. "The
bad news is it has taken about four days to find $11 million to keep the
parks open."
Lawmakers wanted smaller cuts in the
fund dedicated to conservation programs like buying land and recycling.
They balked earlier in
the week at Paterson's proposal linking those cuts to restored park
funding. Meanwhile, they've been getting calls from constituents unhappy
about park closings, especially with the warm weather and approaching
holiday weekend.
According to administration officials,
lawmakers still need to find another $2 billion to $2.5 billion in
spending cuts to close the deficit and adopt a balanced budget of about
$136 billion for this year. The budget is 58 days late, as of today.
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http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/swimmer-drowns-suv-strikes-sunbather-in-long-beach-1.1952142
Swimmer drowns, SUV strikes sunbather in Long Beach
Originally published: May 26, 2010 8:46 PM
Updated: May 26, 2010 9:22 PM
By LAURA RIVERA AND MATTHEW CHAYES
laura.rivera@newsday.com,
matthew.chayes@newsday.com
Photo credit: Kevin P Coughlin | Police, ocean
rescue, and scuba divers search for a missing swimmer. The 19-year-old
man officials presumed drowned was a student at CUNY’s Baruch College
in Manhattan,
friends said. (May 26, 2010)
A Brooklyn
teen likely
drowned off the coast of Long Beach Wednesday and a
sunbather was critically injured after a city police officer driving
along the beach struck the man, a city official said.
Rip currents swept at least a dozen
swimmers into the surf Wednesday, local authorities said.
The 19-year-old swimmer, who friends
said was a student at CUNY's Baruch College
in Manhattan, was
last seen some 100 feet from the beach in the water beyond a jetty.
PHOTOS: 1
drowns, others rescued in Long Beach surf
Rescue crews answered a call
for swimmers in distress between Edwards and Riverside boulevards around
1:50 p.m., said Scott Kemins, the city's fire department chief.
Emergency responders pulled from the
rough water two of the young man's friends, who told authorities that
the young man had "mentioned to them that he didn't know how to swim,"
said city manager Charles Theofan.
The suspected drowning victim's name
was not released Wednesday.
"Last time he was seen, unfortunately,
he was floating face down in the water," Kemins said. "An experienced
swimmer would easily get in trouble in that kind of water."
Fire rescue and police pulled about 10
people from the water Wednesday, according to Kemins, while surfers and others
helped several more.
The missing teen's friends said the
group had initially entered the water about knee-deep, but the strong
current off the jetty soon sucked them out to sea, Theofan said.
Beachgoer Nelo Asadi, of
Flushing, Queens, said she was on the sand when she heard screams for
help, and then saw "a guy and a girl" being plucked from the ocean.
Joe Son, 22, of Jamaica, Queens, a
friend of the rescued swimmers, said the girl suffered cuts from the
rocks.
The search for the young man's body
was called off in the afternoon because the water was too rough, Theofan
said.
The two accidents came amid a busy day
for Long Beach emergency personnel as steamy weather drove swimmers and
surfers to the
beach and into the water ahead of the beach's official opening this
weekend.
During one rescue, a Long Beach police
officer responding to a call about a swimmer in distress ran his police
SUV over a sunbather on the beach, city officials said.
The victim, Marshall Starkman, 43,
suffered a broken spine and was taken by helicopter to Nassau
University Medical Center in East Meadow,
said City Manager Charles Theofan.
According to Theofan, police officer
Paul DeMarco struck Starkman as he sat in a lounge chair around noon
near Laurelton
Boulevard.
DeMarco could not be reached
Wednesday. DeMarco declined to make any official statements Westerday,
according to Theofan.
Stackman, interviewed at NUMC, said he
was in "a lot of pain. I'm alive, but a lot of pain."
He described the accident, saying, "I
was literally just sitting on my chaise lounge on the beach" while
talking on the phone and playing the radio.
"Honestly, it hit me out of the blue,"
he said, adding that he heard no sirens or horn."The only thing I can
remember is getting hit. Not knowing what it was. Realizing that I'm
alive."
Stackman, who said he had no
information yet from doctors about his condition, recalled sitting far
back from the beach, closer to the boardwalk, but near other people.
"There were people all around me," he said.
The city asked the Nassau
County police accident investigation unit to conduct an independent
probe, Theofan said.
For Rob Catell, a frequent beachgoer,
Wednesday's likely drowning was an all too common seasonal occurrence.
"It's the same thing that happens every year," Catell said as he watched
the rescue.
In July 2008, three swimmers died in
Long Beach over a two-day period. In June 2005, a Flushing teen, 15,
drowned while swimming with friends near Long Beach Boulevard.
Swimming is not allowed in Long Beach
when beaches are closed, so those who enter the water do so at their own
risk, Theofan said. He said police will issue summonses to those caught
swimming before the official beach season opens Saturday and lifeguards
are assigned to posts.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/region-state/state-senate-votes-to-force-paterson-to-reopen-55-parks-1.1949703 State Senate votes to force Paterson to reopen 55 parks
Originally published: May 25, 2010 9:10 PM
Updated: May 25, 2010 10:47 PM
By BILL BLEYER AND REID J. EPSTEIN.
bill.bleyer@newsday.com,,
reid.epstein@newsday.com
Nissequogue River State Park
Four days before the
Memorial
Day weekend marks the unofficial beginning of the summer parks
season, the state Senate Tuesday voted 59-0 to force Gov. David A. Paterson
to reopen 55 state parks closed in the state's budget crisis.
The legislation, which would keep
parks open until Albany lawmakers pass a state budget - now 57 days
overdue - has to be passed by the Assembly and signed by Paterson to
become law. The governor has signaled his opposition.
Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook said
the Senate bill is unconstitutional and the governor would veto it.
WHICH
PARKS?: See
the map | Photos
VIDEO: LIers
now paying more at the park
On Monday, Paterson proposed
legislation that would reopen 41 state parks and 14 historic sites
closed last week - including two on Long Island -
by taking $6 million from environmental programs funded by the
Environmental Protection Fund. The Senate took no action on that bill.
"If the Senate really wants to address
the parks issue, they should pass the governor's bill," Hook said.
Nissequogue
River and Brookhaven
state parks on Long Island
are now shuttered due to the stalemate.
Assemb. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket) said
Assembly leaders are negotiating with Paterson to avoid a vote on the
Senate bill. "With the Memorial Day
weekend, the Legislature is prepared to take action in both houses
before the end of the week," he said.
Sen. John Sampson (D-Brooklyn),
the Democratic conference leader, said park closures would devastate
small businesses that depend on park traffic. "We need a fair and
responsible budget, and cutting our parks is neither a fair nor
responsible solution to the fiscal crisis," Sampson said.
Democrats
want Paterson to spend money they say was included for parks operations
in emergency spending bills that are keeping the state government
functioning. Paterson says the bills do not include money for parks.
His plan has angered
legislators, environmentalists and park advocates, who say the
Environmental Protection Fund has never been used for daily park
operations.
Park advocates and some legislators
said if the legislators' bills don't pass quickly, Paterson's proposal
might become law as lawmakers face mounting public pressure to reopen
the parks.
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Samaritans save 4 of 6 LI parks from closing
Originally published: May 14, 2010 8:05 PM
Updated: May 15, 2010 12:18 AM
By BILL BLEYER
bill.bleyer@newsday.com
Quick Summary
Four of six Long Island state parks slated to
close Monday will remain open thanks to last-minute donations.
Photo credit: Bill Davis | The state's budget crisis
will close all of Brookhaven and most of Nissequogue River state parks
because no one has come to their rescue. (Aug. 2, 2009)
Four of six Long
Island
state parks set to close Monday will remain open thanks to
last-minute donations from corporations and nonprofit groups and
maintenance by a mountain-biking club.
But the state's budget crisis will
still claim all of Brookhaven and
most of Nissequogue
River state parks, because no one has come to their rescue.
The parks saved by donations are Orient Beach and
Caleb Smith. The mountain biking club, CLIMB, saved Trail View and Cold
Spring Harbor by agreeing to take over all maintenance.
With no budget in place,
the state parks agency said Friday it would proceed with closing 41
parks and 14 historic sites Monday to save $11.3 million, as proposed by
Gov. David A.
Paterson.
Eileen Larrabee, spokeswoman for the
state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said the
agency decided to close the parks now because "warmer weather is upon
us" and staff needs to be reassigned to those parks that will open to
get them ready for the summer.
The decision infuriated Assemb. Steven
Englebright (D-Setauket),
chairman of the parks committee. "That they're doing this without even
consulting the legislature is very troubling," he said. Englebright is
sponsoring a bill to force the governor to keep the parks open until the
budget is resolved and the same bill is pending in the Senate.
"I think it's a shame that after we
went through so much to get it open to then see it close," Cathy Sosik,
president of the Ridge
Civic Association, said of Brookhaven
State Park, where she hikes. "It's really a low maintenance park" with
minimal facilities and staff.
Parks regional director Ronald Foley
said discussions with potential donors have been going on since the
governor's proposed budget was released but commitments did not gel
until this week. "For the people of Long Island and the park-using
public, it's terrific that these corporations and organizations have
come forward," he said.
Connetquot River State Park Preserve
was to close weekdays but now will stay open all week because of a
donation.
Nissequogue
will be closed except for two marinas, which have to open as a result of
litigation by yacht clubs previously based there, he said.
Linda Arymn, senior vice president for
corporate development for Bethpage
Federal Credit Union, which is already the primary sponsor of the Memorial Day
weekend air show at Jones Beach, said the company decided to bail out
Caleb Smith State Park in Smithtown "to
keep a local park open for the residents of the communities that we
serve."
CLIMB president Michael Vitti said the
group helped create the Nassau-Suffolk
Greenbelt Trail that runs through the two parks and has done upkeep ever
since, so it won't take much more work to maintain them without state
help.
Parks closed and saved.
*******************************
Closed:
Brookhaven
State Park.
Attendance last year: 6,693
-
Nissequogue
River.
Attendance last year: 87,516.
Park closed except
for the two marinas. But public will not be prohibited from the entering
the grounds. The five full-time staff members will remain to operate
the marinas but no seasonal staff will be hired. There would usually be
six seasonal staffers working in April and May.
***
Saved:
Caleb
Smith
Attendance last year: 30,690
Donations will allow
park to remain open five days a week, the current schedule, and
flyfishing and school programs that were halted April 1 will resume.
Donations:
The Foundation for Long Island State Parks, $35,000; Bethpage
Federal Credit Union, $25,000; Friends of Caleb Smith, $15,000
tentatively promised.
Orient BeachAttendance
last year: 111,160 Donations: New York State Parks Fishing Advisory
Board, $25,000; another $50,000 is expected from two corporations but
details not worked out.
Connetquot RiverAttendance
weekdays last year: 101,005 Donations: New York State Parks Fishing
Advisory Board, $15,000. - Cold
Spring Harbor and Trail View,Attendance last year:
151,438 and 111,068, respectively Will remain open because mountain
biking group CLIMB will take over all maintenance.
Beach fees increase this year from $8
to $10 per vehicle when lifeguards are on duty.
At “flagship” parks — such as Bayard
Cutting Arboretum, Belmont
Lake, Bethpage, Captree, Caumsett, Connetquot, Hempstead Lake,
Montauk
Point, Planting Fields Arboretum and Valley Stream
— entrance fees jump from $6 or $7 per vehicle to $8.
Golf fees at the Bethpage Black Course
rose by $15 per round. Other courses at Bethpage, Hither Hills and
Sunken Meadow increased up to $3 per round.
Jones Beach July Fourth fireworks
canceled.
All state park pools would not open
unless Legislature restores funding.
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No Fireworks On Jones BeachUpdated: Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 7:24 AM EDT
Published : Tuesday, 11 May 2010, 7:22 AM EDT
JONES BEACH, N.Y. (AP) -- There will be no
July 4th fireworks display on Jones Beach this summer. The state parks
department says it doesn't have enough police officers to patrol the
popular event because of state cuts to its budget. Even if additional funds were found, there would be no time to train police officers for the 15-year-old annual display. State
parks regional director Ronald Foley says Albany's budget problems have
eliminated a park police training academy class for three consecutive
years. The number of park police and rangers on Long Island has fallen from 117 in 2004 to about 85 now. Information from: Newsday, http://www.newsday.com
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