Alley Pond getting new nature center

From the Queens Chronicle:

After years of delays and cramped quarters, Alley Pond Environmental Center in Douglaston will be getting a new headquarters, with work expected to begin next year.

Irene Scheid, executive director of APEC, told the Chronicle exclusively, that years of planning and soliciting funds have finally paid off. “We are very excited,” Scheid said. “This will meet our needs for the future and will provide a better laid-out facility.”

Plans call for a $9 million building that will be constructed behind the existing facility at 228-06 Northern Blvd. It now houses one of APEC’s parking lots. Once the new facility is completed, the old building, which started out as an outdoor furniture store, will be razed to create additional parking space.

Parks Department spokesman Zach Feder said the exterior of the new structure will be clad in brick, glass and steel. The landscape work includes grading, paving and planting, as well as constructing the new parking lot along Northern Boulevard.

The parking lot will be designed to capture and retain storm water on site.

Alley Creek meeting

From Bayside Patch:

In an ongoing effort to limit the amount of storm runoff draining into Alley Creek in northeast Queens, the city Parks Department is holding a community forum to bring residents into the decision-making process.

At the end of this month, Parks will host a meeting in Douglaston to discuss Alley Creek’s watershed management plan to protect and enhance the area’s ecological resources, a spokesman said. The meeting, scheduled for Jan. 31 at 6 p.m. at Alley Pond Environmental Center, will focus primarily on open space parkland surrounding Alley Creek, where storm water runoff naturally drains into the creek and nearby Little Neck Bay.

The city Parks Natural Resources Group will seek community input as it develops its goals for a watershed-wide management plan to keep water at Alley Creek clean, Parks said. Residents of northeast Queens will have their chance to weigh in on issues of flooding, sewage runoff, environmental habitats and water quality.

The discussion comes more than a year after the city Department of Environmental Protection announced the completion of a $130 million Combined Sewer Overflow facility at Alley Creek, which keeps sewage from running off into the nearby waters.

Rehabilitated owl released at Alley Pond

From the Queens Courier:

The Alley Pond Environmental Center has an extra pair of wings in its skies, thanks to the caring work provided by one Queens- and Nassau- based veterinary center.

An adult female screech owl was found by police officers on Friday, January 22, lying on the street on Union Turnpike. They immediately brought her in to the Central Veterinary Associates’ (CVA) 24-hour hospital in Valley Stream. She was thought to have been hit by a car on the turnpike.

Dr. John Charos, who works for the CVA, which has an office on Bell Boulevard in Bayside as well as others throughout the borough, admitted the bird for care and monitored her rehabilitation. Dr. Karina Salvo looked after the daily treatment of the bird, as well as the CVA’s various other veterinarians.

“The owl was brought in a state of shock with head trauma,” said Charos. “Its right eye was closed and there was swelling to the right side of its head.”

Charos immediately treated the owl for shock. He and Salvo then kept the bird on injectable antibiotics to help heal her wounds, and had her tube fed three to four times a day until her soft tissue trauma had healed and she was able to eat on her own.

During her stay, they also gave her a name - Athena.

Fully healed and after a long goodbye, Athena was released in the Alley Pond Environmental Center, near where she was found, on the morning of Tuesday, February 9. Charos is an active board member with the environmental center, which he called “a little known gem of our city parks system,” and arranged for the release, which took place in front of five classes of kindergarten students.