GREAT JOB, ADRIAN!!!!

All I have to say is that you gotta read this entire article about a bike path in a park on Staten Island to understand how truly inept our Parks Department is and why we cannot trust them to do anything where nature is involved:

Bike path plan has some enthused, others rattled

The city Parks Department has commissioned a bike trail to be built through western LaTourette Park.

In a statement released last week, the Sweetbay Magnolia Conservancy alleges that creation of the roadway "has had numerous negative impacts on existing freshwater and tidal wetlands, at least two state-endangered and/or threatened plant species, and a steep slope in the area of a wooded ravine."

And it would appear that the state Department of Environmental Conservation agrees with those allegations, or at least some of them.

After following up on the Sweetbay complaint, the agency issued an administrative summons "to Ravine Contruction for violating the conditions of the Tidal Wetlands permit issued to the Department of Parks & Recreation," according to DEC spokesman Arturo Garcia-Costas.

"The violation involves clearing and grading beyond the scope of the permit," continued Garcia-Costas, who added that the "full nature and extent of the violation is under investigation."

Under the permit, a number of special conditions were put in place to minimize the impact on the wetlands and natural areas through which the bike trails are designed to run.

According to Garcia-Costas, any violation of these conditions represents an unacceptable situation that could damage these sensitive ecosystems.

But according to Sweetbay botanist Richard Lynch, some of that damage has already taken its toll.

"If this were in Central Park, it wouldn't look like this," Lynch said. "The permit allows them to work in a 20-foot-wide space, but in places it stretches out 30, 40, even 50 feet."

Lynch added that the company was also "bulldozing in sensitive areas" and had uncapped a small landfill, used in the 1940s and 1950s, leaving the debris scattered along the trail's edges.

There's MUCH, MUCH more. If you only click one link on the blog this week, let it be this one. See how your tax dollars are wasted destroying NYC's environment. Disgusting and pathetic.