Can Industry Save A Staten Island Marsh?

Port Richmond —

Much of the argument for the expansion, though, involves the cleanup of the toxins that have been detected in the land. Sacrificing the 16.3 acres of marshland to be paved in the expansion, container port supporters maintain, is the only way to clean up the marshland that isn't being paved.

The adjacent land that the port's leadership favors for mitigation, at the mouth of Arlington Marsh, has been under the control of the city parks and sanitation departments for years but is closed to the public. Without the port expansion, "It's going to be fenced off, because the city's bankrupt," Devine said, adding, "It's not an idyllic situation that you can just do everything you want to do. That's why I'm saying we're the best alternative to help. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes. I sure in hell don't."

Molinaro, who has been borough president since 2002 and was deputy borough president for 12 years before that, dismissed the idea of a government-sponsored cleanup of the marsh. "The city government doesn't have that money, the state government doesn't have that kind of money, the federal government doesn't have that kind of money," he said. "It's a process that needs to be done very slowly. You know who's going to do it? Private industry, when they want to use the land."

With local government firmly behind the project, Lynch said he may soon take a different approach in opposing the current port expansion proposal. It involves putting pressure on the container terminal's unlikely owner: the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, which administers the pensions of 271,000 active and retired Canadian teachers, and which bought the company in 2007.

"Maybe their membership can take a vote on whether they want to be known as a union that supports destroying wetlands in New York City," he said.

This article is the second in a three-part series about the environment on Staten Island. To read part one, click here.To read part three, click here.