Bronx River Ecomedia Blog

On a Bronx History tour last Saturday, I walked along a pleasant stretch of the Bronx River between Allerton Avenue and Gun Hill Road. Cars whizzed along the Bronx River Parkway to the east, while Metro North trains rumbled on the west, but in between, the woods were tranquil. Tall stalks of pussy willows bloomed yellow along the river bed and the branches of a few weeping willow trees with leaves and flowers of the same hopeful yellow hung over the stream. Tiny yellow flowers hugging the forest floor were said to be alien plants, but I found them charming immigrants.

Along the way, Lloyd Ultan, official historian of the Bronx Historical Society, communicated more information about the Bronx than I could ever tell you. One tidbit that fascinated me was that before the Kensico reservoir captured water that once flowed into the Bronx River, it was wider and deeper. French immigrants who settled in the area opened restaurants on houseboats moored out on the water, accessible only by rowboat. Weary city dwellers who wanted a nice outing in the country would take the train, then the New York & Harlem River RR, to the Bronx and enjoy French cuisine on the boats along with a walk in the woods.

About midway through our walk, we began to follow what was once a piece of the original Bronx River Parkway. Back in the day, it seems the parkway was a narrow road meandering back and forth across the river. It was intended for bicycle travel. When today’s parkway was built to accommodate big cars driven by more people, both the road the river were straightened.

Along the river’s flood plain, Rob Benaton of the Neighborhood Initiative Development Corp. (NIDC) sponsor of the tour, told us about efforts to eradicate Japanese knotweed there. Japanese knotweed is a notorious invasive plant that grows thick and tall, crowding out native vegetation. After pulling some out and hacking it back systematically, the next step is to replant the area. As part of this effort, NIDC is having a spring tree planting next Saturday, April 21, from 10 am to 1 pm. All are welcome. To help, meet in front of the NIDC office at 2523 Olinville Ave., near Mace.

In the peace of the river and woods, it was possible to imagine what the Bronx looked like 100 years ago, all woods, wetlands, and truck farms, before the subway came and the city expanded north along its route.

Take your pick of Earth Day events on Saturday, April 14.  You could enjoy a Bronx River History Walk with noted Bronx historian Lloyd Ultan or participate in a National Day of Climate Action with a Bronx River Tribute.

During the Bronx River History Walk, you will find out about the restaurants that once lined the river, why the Co-ops are historic landmarks and other Northeast Bronx “trivia.”  This is sponsored by the Neighborhood Initiative Development Corp. (NIDC) and will start at 1 pm in front of its office at 2523 Olinville Ave, near Mace Ave.  A RSVP is required — call 718-231-9800 x16.

The Bronx River Tribute is part of a nation-wide call for Congressional action on climate change.  It is sponsored by Step-It-Up, a group created by author Bill McKibben, and it is calling for Congress to enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions and to pledge an 80% reduction of emissions by 2050.  McKibben inisists that ”the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate.” 

The Bronx River Tribute will take place from noon to 2pm.  You meet at the intersection of Allerton Ave. and Bronx Park East and will walk north from there 1/4 mile to a bridge/walkway over the Bronx River.  You can get more information and RSVP to this at http://events.stepitup2007.org/events/show/32.

If you feel like going downtown, Step-It-Up is organizing a “sea of people” that will surge up from Battery Park to mark the areas that would be submerged if the threatened melting of Antarctic and Greenland ice shelves actually takes place.  The event begins at noon at Battery Park — wear blue to be part of the sea of people surge.  For more info, go to http://events.stepitup2007.org/events/show/103. 

Armies of youngsters were making a traditional spring trip to the zoo when I visited one day last week, but around 250 of them were high school students bent on serious scientific investigation. They were there to study macroinvertebrates in an event sponsored by the Bronx River Alliance.

Scientists study macroinvertebrates in streams – insect larvae, aquatic worms, little crustaceans and such — because they provide food for fish and because the type of macroinvertebrates found in a particular river or stream indicates how healthy the water is.

I learned a little about them and got a preview of the event, Macroinvertebrate Day, when I dropped in on a meeting of a Bronx River Alliance Education Team a few weeks ago. There I found teachers delicately probing around in bundles of decaying leaves that had been marinating in a stream upstate. The leaves had been placed in the stream because macroinvertebrates like to eat decomposing matter and would be lured inside the leaf packs.

The teachers gently teased wormlike crane fly larvae and tiny stone fly larvae out of the leaves with little brushes and carefully spooned them into plastic petri dishes where the larvae could wiggle around in some water. One teacher excitedly located a leech. For Macroinvertebrate Day, bundles of leaves would be placed in the Bronx River so the students could follow the same procedure to find out which of the little critters are living in the Bronx.

The number and type of macroinvertebrates in a river are indicators of water quality. When the teachers found crane fly larvae in the leaf pack from the upstate stream it was a good sign because crane flies can’t survive in polluted water. In polluted water, only more resistant species can survive. At the teachers’ meeting I wondered: Will the students find crane flies in leaf packs from the Bronx River?

At Macroinvertebrates Day there were several activities introducing the students to the lives and habits of invertebrates. In a food web activity, students made an actual web by tossing a ball of yarn from student to student. Some of the students represented decaying leaves, some represented crane flies, may flies, stone flies, caddis flies and other macroinvertebrates, some represented fish or birds. Through the web thus created, the facilitating teacher taught about a food chain where plants (decaying leaves) furnish food for small animals (macroinvertebrates) that in turn are eaten by larger ones (fish and birds).

In another activity, students got a picture of how macroinvertebrates indicate water quality. Where there is pollution or loss of habitat, an animal has only three options: It can move, adapt or die (MAD). The activity demonstrated that since macroinvertebrates cannot move out of polluted waters or quickly adapt to them, pollution will kill them off. It led to the conclusion that if macroinvertebrates die off because of pollution, so will all the other creatures that depend on them for food.

After these and other introductory activities, the students were seated at tables where they were given leaf packs where they could hunt for living macroinvertebrates. I was eager to find out which ones the students would find in the leaf packs that had been soaking in the Bronx River. In the dishes I examined, they did not find any crane flies or stone flies or leeches. They found tiny shrimp-like creatures called scuds. Finding scuds indicates that the Bronx River is not the sewer it was for many years, but, though greatly improved, it’s still not in the condition of the cleaner upstate waters.

Later in the day, the students walked along an interpretive trail in the zoo. There they were to keep an eye out for a beaver that has recently been spotted swimming in the Bronx River. Beavers are also a biological indicator because they can’t survive in severely polluted water. I later learned that two groups actually did spot the beaver, near the “twin dams” area. I missed it on Macroinvertebrate Day, but maybe I’ll get back to the zoo another time to take a look.

Van Cortlandt OUTDOORS!
Spring 2007 Teacher Workshop Series
The Friends are excited to be offering another teacher workshop series
this spring.  These workshops are designed to train teachers in using
the park as an outdoor lab where lessons come alive for students.  We
will demonstrate how teachers can use the 1,146 acres of parkland as an
outdoor classroom and how you can bring the park inside.

*Project WET: Saturday March 17th from 11am-5pm Project WET (Water
Education for Teachers) is a collection of innovative, water-related
activities that are hands-on, east to use and fun!  Project WET
activities are geared for students from K-12th grade and are easily
incorporated into a school’s existing curricula. Held in partnership
with the Bronx River Alliance.  **This workshop will be held at Fannie
Lou Hamer Freedom High School at 1021 Jennings Street, Bronx, NY, 10460.

*Project Wild: Thursday April 19th from 5-8pm Project WILD provides
lesson plans that will help students learn basic concepts about wildlife
and their needs. Project WILD is an award-winning education program
designed for teachers and youth leaders of students from kindergarten
through 12th grade.

*Aquatic Wild: Tuesday April 24th from 5-8pm Project Aquatic Wild helps
to explore and understand the fascinating world of water and the aquatic
habitats it supports. The goal of all Project WILD workshops is to help
teachers and youth leaders prepare students to develop problem-solving
skills in exploring responsible human actions toward wildlife and the
environment.

*Flying Wild: Thursday May 3rd from 5-8pm Flying WILD is an exciting
environmental education program of the Council for Environmental
Education (the creators of Project WILD) designed for middle school
students. The materials introduce students to bird conservation through
hands-on classroom activities and school bird festivals.

HELP: Wetlands: Sunday May 6th from 11am-4pm The Habitat Ecology
Learning Program (HELP) is an exciting interdisciplinary curriculum
designed by the Wildlife Conservation Society for students in grades
3rd-6th.  HELP encourages students to use language arts, life sciences,
social studies and math to explore the richness of ecology.  This
program was validated by the US Dept of Education as an exemplary
program in life science and the program covers the animals, plants and
indigenous people of specific habitats. This hands-on program consists
of six modules with Wetlands being the focus of this workshop.
Participants will have an opportunity to purchase lesson plan book for
$20 (regular purchase price is $40).

*These workshops will be held with the NYS Department of Environmental
Conservation and participants will receive a book with plenty of lesson
plans and background info.
**All workshops are being held at the Van Cortlandt House Museum except
where noted.

Fee of $5 per workshop (or $20 for all five) is required to cover cost
of food and beverages.

For more information contact Christina at or email
http://www.bronxriverart.org/ecomedia/cj/fvcpeducation@hotmail.com.

Christina Taylor
Interim Executive Director
Friends of Van Cortlandt Park
124 Gale Place, Apt. GrA
Bronx, NY 10463
ph-
fax-

Channel 4 (wnbc-tv) coverage of the ongoing cleanup of NYC’s “Bronx River”. Aired Friday 29-Dec-2006.

Great news!!!

No more raw sewage dumped in the Bronx River!

I also found this very good video produced for the American Museum of Natural History about the Bronx River and ecological initiatives.

Portions of a lecture by Professor Joe Rachlin on fish in the Bronx River and sounds along the river were recorded by students in a Bronx River Art Center class taught by Ricardo Arias. To hear them, click “Bronx River Sound Environment, Fall 2006.”

From the beginning, Olivia Metellus, 9, and Nia Brown, 12 enjoyed taking pictures with digital cameras during photography classes for children and parent teams. More difficult was learning to edit them on Macintosh computers.

The class, sponsored by the Bronx River Art Center, challenged the parent/child teams to take interesting microphotographs of natural subjects, zooming in on flowers, parts of trees, and waterfalls, for example. The idea was to bring the teams into their natural surroundings close up. BRAC provided the cameras and an engaging teacher, Marisol Diaz.

Nia liked taking nature pictures because they are beautiful and because “we’re in nature, and if we don’t have nature we don’t have anything all.” She didn’t like doing the close-ups at first, though. She had to exchange the Olympus camera she loved for a Nikon, and she had to exclude from her pictures aspects that interested her. But her teacher, Marisol Diaz, explained that professional photographers have to focus on whatever subject is assigned to them, and Nia liked being professional about her work. She’s really good at it, and it’s her best way of being creative, she thought.

The first weeks of the class were spent learning to use the cameras and uploading and filing their pictures into the computers. They also talked about elements of composition. In the next weeks, they learned to sharpen and size the pictures on Macintoshes using Adobe Photoshop.

Selecting which pictures to edit was hard for Olivia because all were “so good.” She had to pick 10 or so to show on Dec. 15 for a special exhibition at BRAC.

The exhibit will include the work of this class along with that of the documentary and computer games classes for teen-agers, and the adult class making this blog. Olivia’s favorite pictures were of a raindrop of water on a flower and a pine tree.

Nia, called “the brain” by Marisol because she remembers everything she is told about using the cameras and computer, said she tried to tell a story with her pictures. Her favorites were of a waterfall and of a red rose she saw near an old house.

Both Olivia and Nia were full of enthusiasm for the class and for their teacher. Nia said that besides taking the photographs she enjoyed learning all about the river and about the garden where they took many pictures. In addition, Marisol was “the best teacher you could have. She’s funny, and she tells you everything.” Olivia said the class was not only fun but also a way for mothers and daughters to spend “quality time” together.

The children will receive prints of selected pictures at the exhibition and ceremony December 15.

All are invited to this event at the Bronx River Art Center, 1087 E. Tremont Ave. from 4 pm to 7 pm.

When he was a child, Professor Joe Rachlin fished for carp in the Bronx River with his friends, then ran to a nearby fish market where he sold them for 25 cents apiece. He believes fishing taught him to love the river and the creatures that live in it, and he wants you to go fishing, too – after snipping the barb off your hook so you can easily remove it from the fish’s mouth and return it to its home. In 2006, the idea is to enjoy being outdoors and fishing, but to conserve, rather than serve up, the fish.

On Nov. 18, Professor Rachlin, who nowadays teaches at Lehman College, gave a workshop on fish in the river as part of the Bronx River Art Center fall program. He explained to the children and adults present how to identify fish by the number and shape of their fins and talked about the importance of the river, which contains both fresh and saltwater fish. Since the lower part is a tidal estuary, it is a nursery for many fish that live in the ocean but come here to lay their eggs for a new generation. Just think: Considering recent reports that the oceans will be fished out in coming decades if present rates continue, keeping our Bronx River nursery healthy could help to restore the health of the entire western Atlantic coastal zone!

Professor Rachlin provided a key for identifying around 20 fish that can be found in the river and about 30 invertebrates like the scuds and mollusks that children collected in their nets at last month’s workshop on creatures that live in the river. He mentioned that the American eel, a fish that was also captured last month, has a history unlike most other fish that spend time in the ocean. It spawns in the Atlantic, in the Sargasso Sea, and the newborn young migrate back to coastal river systems, including the Bronx River, to grow up. It arrives as a small, transparent glass eel, grows into a brownish elver, then lives happily in the river for 12 years before returning to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.

Right now, after many years of work by Bronx River restoration groups, the river is pretty healthy and stable, he said. The Clean Water Act of the 1970s made a big difference, and people don’t dump so much junk into it any more, although some garbage, especially soda bottles, finds its way there. Automobile oil washed off the streets is also a problem, along with raw sewage washed into it after a heavy rain.

Nevertheless, a study Professor Rachlin has been conducting comparing surveys of fish that were found in the river as far back as 1936 with fish found there today shows that only two species are missing.

A student in a Bronx River Art Center class on documentary-making, 13-year-old Adam Rodriguez, interviewed Professor Rachlin after his presentation. You can see part of the interview by clicking on YouTube above.

Last week-end, as just about everyone in the city knows by now, 23-year-old Sean Bell, a black man, was killed when police fired 50 shots into his car. Two others were wounded, one described in the press as “a convicted felon.” None of the three were armed. Most (I forget how many exactly) of the five police involved were either black or Hispanic.

From what I hear, most black people see this as yet another expression of racist fears of black men. Many white people take more a “we don’t know all the facts yet” point of view. I would like to hear comments from residents of the Bronx, particularly the West Farms area. What is your experience with police conduct? Do you think young blacks and Hispanics are particularly targeted by police? How? What is your opinion of the actions of police in this case? What do you make of the fact that some of the police officers were black?
–Peggy

The children shrieked when Brandon Ballengee held up the two-foot eel he had captured in the Bronx River, but when it slipped out of his hands back into a plastic box they wanted him to get it out and show it to them again.

The slippery eel, however, squirmed vigorously, refusing to be gripped once again by human hands. Brandon explained that the mucous covering that makes an eel slippery is a protective coating. If he handled it too much, the mucous would be rubbed off and the eel would die when returned to the river. He also said he was surprised to find an eel that size at Drew Gardens, because they usually kept to the ocean as adults.

Brandon, an environmental educator, had captured the eel in a long, brown net that he and an assistant stretched across the river during one of the series of workshops being sponsored by the Bronx River Art Center. This workshop, conducted Oct. 21 in Drew Gardens, featured studying creatures that live in the Bronx River.

The children learned that the long net Brendon used to capture the eel is called a seine, named after a river in France where it was first used. When he asked what the name of that river could be, he praised the child who guessed correctly that the river in question was the river Seine. Some college students he’d taught didn’t get that answer, he told them.

Earlier, some children had themselves caught baby eels along the river’s edge in small nets. They also scooped up scuds, tiny shrimp-like creatures, and small mollusks. In addition to using nets, children had an opportunity to cast for fish using fishing rods with reels. The rods were baited with worms the children had dug up in the compost heap and in garden beds.

I attended with workshop with my friend Sally, who was visiting me from Buffalo, N.Y. She grew up along a river in Illinois called the Fox River and was digging worms and wading in the river’s shallows from an early age. She enjoyed seeing the delight the children had in working with soil and water, especially how surprised and excited they were to find the worms. Some children had never had the opportunity to hold a worm in their hands before.

A teacher all her life, Sally was impressed with the hands-on educational process of the workshop illustrated by the worm-digging. “By having the children dig for worms in the composted matter, they could see how the compost gets broken down,” she said.

Sally called Brandon “a wonderful educator.” For instance, she was impressed with the careful and respectful way he handled the eel, and the way he explained “mucous” by comparing it to the mucous we all have in our noses and eyes. She liked the way he integrated new vocabulary into his talks, asking the children if they knew the words “predator,” “cannibal” and “carnivore.”

“During the day, I kept seeing what the Bronx must have been when it was farmland. I thought about the work it must have taken to reclaim Drew Gardens from an industrial junkyard to the beautiful little haven it is today. It lifted my heart that Bronx children got a chance to do things that I loved when I was growing up,” she said.

The concluding activity of the day was to have the children document the creatures of the river by drawing pictures of the eel and other creatures they had found. These will be kept at the art center as a basis for comparison the next time students explore the river to find out who is living there.

–Peggy Ray