Question over FAA requirements on College Point station

From the NY Post:

City Hall and the feds are overlooking rules meant to keep airplanes safe from birds in their planning of a controversial trash facility, activists say.

Three years after a bird-struck airliner splash-landed in the Hudson River, the city has not sought the OK required by federal law to build a bird-magnet trash-transfer station on the Upper East Side, says air-safety advocate Ken Paskar.

And the feds are deliberately overlooking the Bloomberg administration’s lapse, Paskar says.

Because the project on the East River at East 91st Street is less than five miles from La Guardia Airport and two Manhattan heliports, it needs Federal Aviation Administration approval, according to Paskar’s reading of federal rules.

The rules clearly say those planning trash facilities near airports “must establish convincingly” to the FAA that they will be built and operated in a way that won’t attract birds.

But the city never sought the FAA’s approval for the site, which won’t be fully enclosed — and thus could attract birds, Paskar explained.

City and FAA officials say Paskar’s interpretation of the laws and regulations about any FAA approval is simply wrong.

Rare Rockaway gull has underwear fetish

From The City Birder:

Robin had worn her bathing suit under her cycling gear. Lying in the sun, she had placed her cycling gear, which included a sports bra, in a neat pile on the wall. I was eating a plum when I noticed that the tern was slowly waddling over towards her clothes. I watched in disbelief as he grabbed the corner of her bra (must have been a "he") and prepared to make off with it. Robin yelled, "HEY", and grabbed the opposite end of the bra. There was a brief tug-o-war. One might think that Robin's ire would have chased him off, but it didn't. He hung around a few feet from us for about 20 minutes. Eventually he took off and joined some other royals down the beach.

It's fairly unusual to see Royal Terns in NYC, but to see the rare subspecies Sterna maxima fetishi is really special. Unless of course it makes off with your underwear.

The incredible shrinking safety zone

From the NY Post:

Birdbrained federal bigwigs quietly shrunk the safety zone around a high-traffic La Guardia Airport runway to make way for a massive trash facility -- a bird magnet that will put airliners on a crash course with engine-clogging fowl, The Post has learned.

By secretly reducing the zone, officials will allow flocks of garbage-grubbing birds to swarm within a half-mile of the runway -- setting up another possible "Miracle on the Hudson" that may not have such a happy ending.

The zone switch, made possible by the Federal Aviation Administration, was revealed in an explosive court case contesting the 100-foot-tall trash-transfer station set to open in 2013.

The "protection zone" around La Guardia's Runway 31 used to extend 2,500 feet across Flushing Bay, taking in the city's proposed trash-transfer station site in College Point and therefore preventing its construction.

But 800 feet were mysteriously chopped from the zone by FAA execs, allowing the Department of Sanitation's trash station to be built just outside its boundary, documents in the court case before the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals show.

Biologist to monitor garbage gulls

From the Queens Gazette:

Newly-released records indicate the city Department of Sanitation (DOS) is spending $700,000 over the next four years to hire a wildlife biologist to monitor seagulls and other birds that could interfere with air traffic around LaGuardia Airport after construction of a new marine trash transfer station near the East Elmhurst airport.
City records indicate the money will pay for services provided by a biologist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Administration officials say the transfer station on the College Point waterfront will not present a hazard to LaGuardia Airport because the facility will be fully enclosed. Officials said trash would also be fully enclosed when it is transferred to the station via barge, thus eliminating any bird threat to the airport.

A 2010 federal study into the bird issue agreed that the transfer station would not pose a hazard to LaGuardia, but recommended that the city hire the wildlife biologist to manage the gulls and other birds that would likely gather there.
–Liz Goff

New safety measures for College Point transfer facility

From the Times Ledger:

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced last week new safeguards to prevent airplanes from hitting birds over and near the trash transfer station the city Sanitation Department is currently building in the College Point Corporate Park, about 2,000 feet from LaGuardia Airport’s eastern runway.

The additional safety measures come in response to a June 2009 meeting between U.S. Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-Bayside) and Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights) and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, during which the congressmen warned LaHood of the dangers the facility could pose to aircraft.

New safeguards will be instituted during construction and operation of the facility. They include creating a wildlife hazards management plan, eliminating perching sites, a no-feeding policy for nearby animals, use of landscaping plants unattractive to wildlife, providing a dedicated wildlife-control professional, monitoring of trash containers and monitoring of barge activity.

The new protections come in addition to a new bird-strike plan Ackerman and Crowley recently helped get the FAA to agree to implement. That plan will require the USDA to monitor all bird activity around the trash facility by bringing an on-site biologist to visit the spot once a week for the first two years it is in operation.

If the biologist discovers there is an increase in bird activity, the site will be shut down by the FAA until the bird volume is reduced again.

Pigeon birth control is also now on the market and available without a prescription!

Concern over artificial turf at Hunters Point South

From the Times Ledger:

The blueprint for Hunters Point South’s waterfront park was unveiled to the public last Thursday to mostly positive reviews, although plans for an artificial turf common area were met with skepticism.

The 10-acre park is also slated to include dog runs for both large and small canines, a children’s playground, hard-surface ball courts, a canopied pavilion area with staff offices and a concession kitchen, sloped picnic areas, running paths, a raised beach area and a small boat launch at the extreme south end of the park.

The plan now comes up for a vote at next month’s Community Board 2 meeting.

But Long Island City resident Peter Johnson asked if the Parks Department had considered the environmental impact of droppings from the seagulls he believed the turf would attract.

“It’s going to be an area of warmth,” he said, warning that artificial turf cannot absorb and break down the birds’ fecal matter like natural grass. “They’re going to be perching there.”

Charles McKinney, design chief for the Parks Department, said they would have to wash the turf regularly. The agency is switching to turf for active recreation fields because grass is too expensive to maintain in heavily trafficked areas.

Tom Paino, an architect and advocate for controlled development, complimented the Parks Department on the design but also urged the agency to use grass for the common area.

“The new products still produce VOC’s,” he said, referring to the gasses released by the turf materials.

Paino also warned about the heat from the turf being in direct sunlight. “This green, this common space will be unusable during the summer months,” he said.

Question: How do you wash artificial grass? Do you shampoo it like a carpet?

Concern over siting of transfer stations

From the Brooklyn Eagle:

Opponents of the city’s plan to construct and operate a waste transfer station at the former Southwest Brooklyn incinerator site in Bensonhurst have focused their sights on the governor’s mansion.

Assemblyman William Colton (D-Bensonhurst/Gravesend) blasted the ruling given down by the Department of Environmental Conservation, asserting that the DEC cannot withhold the permit for the waste transfer station.

Colton is now calling upon Gov. David Paterson to step in, saying that the DEC has an obligation to protect the public health and its environmental surroundings.

The Department of Sanitation says it will have to dredge the bottom of Gravesend Bay, near Bay 41st Street and Shore Parkway, in order to allow waste barges to travel to and from the waste transfer station. Many in Southern Brooklyn fear that this dredging will unearth toxins.

And from NY1:

Business owners say a plan to allow more trucks at a waste transfer plant in Long Island City would be devastating to their bottom line.

These 2 sites are part of the city's solid waste management program, along with the College Point Marine Transfer Station that pols fear will attract gulls that may down planes.

Rockaway Beach poem

From the NY Times:

A BRIEF VISIT

Warm air flies in on

The flapping wings of gulls

As they scream like fishwives

Crossing Rockaway Beach

Seeming to fight

Over someone’s leftover lunch

Taking time for a rest

Before flying on to

The next meal.

Ellen Fuchs

Gull strikes plane: What will Bloomberg do now?

From the NY Post:

A "reasonably large bird" struck and damaged the landing gear at the nose of an incoming American Airlines plane landing at LaGuardia this morning, FAA and airline officials said.

Flight 1256 from Miami landed safely on Runway 22 and taxied to Gate 10, said FAA spokesman Jim Peters. There were no reported injuries.

It's uncertain what type of birds hit the plane, though sources said it was likely some type of gull. Those birds are statistically most likely to hit planes at this time of year at LaGuardia, federal data shows.

Canada geese are molting at this time of year and are generally grounded. Since 2000, there's been only one Canada goose strike at LaGuardia in June and July.

No worry about geese at College Point

From the Queens Courier:

Despite calls to abandon the project, the city’s Department of Sanitation is continuing plans to construct a Marine Transfer, according to a recent statement by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

According to a statement from the Mayor’s office, “Canada geese, which are herbivores, are not known to gather at waste transfer stations.” Bloomberg also cited findings by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA.)

No, but gulls do, brainiac. And they also get sucked into plane engines.