Trash on the street can end up in our waterways when it rains, so the NYC Department of Environmental Protection teamed up with LEAD'INT, the 69th Precinct Explorers, New York Sea Grant, and Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay during #EarthWeek2023 to remove street litter and clear catch basins in Canarsie, Brooklyn. Credit: NYC DEP

Contact:

Katie Graziano, NYSG Coastal Resilience Extension Specialist, E: kag247@cornell.edu, P: 718-951-5415

Brooklyn, NY, April 19, 2023 - Volunteers helped to celebrate #EarthMonth2023 with a Youth Service Project in Canarsie, Brooklyn on Friday, April 14th.

The afternoon event included activities such as storm drain stenciling and rain gardening as a means to build stewardship of catch basins to help prevent flooding and also prevent trash from ending up in Jamaica Bay.

Support for this event came from New York Sea Grant, the Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay, the NYC Department of Environmental Protection's Harbor Protectors Program, and the Canarsie Street Team.

Katie Graziano, New York Sea Grant's Coastal Resilience Extension Specialist, offered some context to the volunteers regarding the local connections to Jamaica Bay and also provided details on MyCoast NY, an app and web portal from which users can assist in the reporting of local flooding.

The Canarsie Street Team is a local organization dedicated to improving the environmental health of Canarsie. Past projects include the NYC Community Flood Watch Project, environmental clean-up campaigns, and bringing attention to flooding on Church Lane.

The Science and Resilience Institute, in partnership with New York Sea Grant, works with residents, researchers and agencies to build collective knowledge about the location, timing and impacts of current and future flooding. This local, science-based information is a critical part of developing resilient solutions.

For more information on flooding in neighborhoods around Jamaica Bay, visit www.srijb.org/flooding or www.nysegrant.org/jamaicabay.


Credit: NYC DEP


Credit: NYC DEP


Credit: NYC DEP

More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Oswego and the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University in Long Island, Brooklyn College and Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC and Kingston in the Hudson Valley.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has RSS, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.