Another 270 feet of Greenpoint waterfront would open to the public
August 21, 2026
A permit application under review at the DEC would rebuild roughly 270 feet of shoreline at 2 Noble Street on Greenpoint's East River waterfront, between Noble and Oak Streets, and carry a public waterfront walkway along with it. Alongside reconstructing the bulkhead and riprap revetment, the project would open a stretch of tidal shoreline that has been closed off to the public. Greenpoint's waterfront has been opening up gradually, parcel by parcel, as old industrial sites are rebuilt and each one adds its own segment of public edge. This is another step in that sequence: 270 more feet of a shoreline that is slowly becoming reachable. What that offers is a chance for people to reconnect with the estuary at their doorstep. Most residents here live a block from tidal water they can only see through a fence, and there is a good deal on the other side of it. Double-crested cormorants , black-crowned and yellow-crowned night herons , great egrets , ospreys , Atlantic horseshoe crabs , Atlantic blue crabs , striped killifish , Atlantic silversides and ribbed mussels have all been recorded around this part of the harbor in the past two months, cormorants among them on Quay and Franklin Streets, a few blocks from the site. A walkway is what turns all of that from something happening out of sight into something people can watch, learn and speak up for. The DEC is accepting comments through August 27. Comments go to Jeanette Rodriguez at DEC Region 2 ( dep.r2@dec.ny.gov , 718-482-4997 ). This is the window to shape how the space gets built: where the walkway meets the water, whether the edge invites people to stop and look at the river or just pass by it, and what habitat the new bulkhead and riprap offer below the waterline. The Newtown Creek Alliance , a watershed group based nearby at the Newtown Creek-East River confluence, works this exact stretch of shoreline and would be a natural voice on how the access is designed. Anyone who uses this waterfront has until August 27 to weigh in.
Wastewater discharge worsens Jamaica Bay's oxygen crisis
July 6, 2026
Jamaica Bay's creek systems are already struggling under decades of nitrogen enrichment. Eelgrass beds that once stabilized sediment and provided nursery habitat for fish have nearly vanished, and the shallow waters now oscillate between hypoxic and anoxic with each tide cycle. Late July is precisely when bay waters warm, oxygen solubility plummets, and tidal flushing becomes slowest — this week's tides are running 0.2 meters above predicted normal, which reduces water exchange even further. A major wastewater treatment facility discharging into these same creeks is currently in significant permit violation. The timing and location could not be worse: adding treated but still nitrogen-laden effluent to an already impaired system during peak summer heat extends the window of stress for whatever finfish and shellfish juveniles remain. The bay's recovery window is already narrow. Each violation tightens it further.
Horseshoe crabs and their shorebird partners
May 21, 2026
The warm sand along Jamaica Bay holds the weight of an ancient ritual. Atlantic horseshoe crabs emerge from deeper waters as the spring tides peak, their dome-shaped shells catching the late afternoon light. These are not crabs at all, but arthropods older than the trees, older than the flowers, carrying in their bodies a design that has worked for hundreds of millions of years. The females, heavy with eggs, lumber toward the high tide line while smaller males cluster around them, their movements deliberate and unhurried. Each female horseshoe crab digs shallow nests in the wet sand, depositing thousands of pale green eggs the size of caviar. The eggs lie in clusters just beneath the surface, warmed by sand that holds the day's heat. What seems like a simple reproductive act becomes the foundation for one of the coast's most critical feeding relationships. The timing is everything. These eggs appear precisely when exhausted shorebirds arrive from their long journey north, their fat reserves depleted, their bodies demanding the specific proteins that will fuel the final push to Arctic breeding grounds. Northern parulas, small warblers with blue-gray backs and yellow throats, drop from the canopy to feed along the wrack line where storm waves have scattered horseshoe crab eggs like scattered pearls. Laughing gulls wheel overhead, their harsh calls echoing across the water as they dive for the protein-rich clusters. The eggs contain exactly what these migrants need: concentrated energy in a form their bodies can process quickly. A single female horseshoe crab may lay twenty thousand eggs. Most will feed the birds that depend on this seasonal abundance. The relationship works because it has worked for so long. The horseshoe crabs spawn in numbers that can sustain both their own reproduction and the appetites of arriving migrants. The shorebirds time their journey to coincide with this brief window of plenty. The evening light shifts from gold to amber across Jamaica Bay. Horseshoe crabs continue their ancient procession along the tide line, their tracks crisscrossing in the wet sand. Above them, northern parulas call from the newly leafed oaks, their thin notes carrying across water that reflects the deepening sky. The laughing gulls have settled for the night, but their presence lingers in the scattered shells and the small depressions where they landed to feed. Tomorrow the cycle continues, eggs and appetite meeting at the edge of land and water, where the rhythm of tides measures time in the oldest currency the coast knows.
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