Saving the Bay

The decaying marsh islands of Jamaica Bay are coming back to life - plant by plant, at significant effort and expense.

Restoration project brings marshlands of Jamaica Bay back from the brink

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently concluded a bold and backbreaking feat of environmental engineering, recreating 38 acres of vanished tidal wetland on Elders East Marsh in the northern portion of Jamaica Bay.

"It's thriving," said Len Houston, chief of the corps' environmental analysis branch in New York. "It's actually doing better than we anticipated."

Before the $13 million project began in spring 2006, small, fragmented pieces were all that remained of the once-vibrant marsh. The area had fallen victim to worsening dieoffs that some scientists predicted could eradicate all of the bay's tidal marshes by 2012.