At today's meeting Councilman James Gennaro (D-Fresh Meadows) plans to present three bills aimed at safeguarding the vanishing wetlands and award a central agency to protect them.

The bills would create a trinity of preservation and renewal: a bay watershed protection plan, a task force to study the feasibility of transferring all wetlands to the responsibility of the city Parks Department, and limits to the total maximum daily load of nitrogen flushed into the bay.

At present, Jamaica Bay loses 40 acres of wetland a year. About 1,000 acres are all that remain. It has been predicted that the bay's marshland may be entirely lost in 20 years.

Scientists and environmental agencies and groups are conducting experiments in the bay to save and renew marshland, but no one is certain why the shrinkage is happening.

The three bills are all sponsored by committee chairman Gennaro. Introduction Number 565 addresses control of storm runoff, strengthening buffers - and public education.

Introduction Number 566 would require the transfer of all governmental responsibilities for the bay to one agency, the city Parks Department.

The third piece of legislation, Resolution Number 830, calls on the state to implement a total maximum daily load for nitrogen deposited into the bay through facilities that control storm water runoff.

Nitrogen is suspected to be the major cause of the bay's erosion. Tests have shown that the water's nitrogen levels are over limits established by the Federal Clean Water Act.

The Council Committee on Environmental Protection today will meet in the City Hall committee room at 10 a.m. to discuss the legislation.

Originally published on March 31, 2005