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 New York - New Jersey Harbor Estuary |
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 The Harbor Estuary has a geographic and ecological complexity that is unique in North American estuaries. In fact, the harbor estuary is more rightly understand as an estuarine complex, a meeting places of estuaries. There is the Hudson River, North America's fjord. There is the Hackensack River and Meadowlands, a drowned glacial valley; Jamaica Bay, a classic barrier beach wetland complex; the Arthur Kill and the Harlem Rivers, tidal straits; Raritan Bay, the northernmost Piedmont province river bay; Pelham Bay, the southernmost point of the New England rocky coast; and the East River, which connects the Harbor Estuary to another Estuary, Long Island Sound, a semi-enclosed arm of the ocean shaped by the glacial moraines of Long Island. The natural resources and physical characteristics of the harbor estuary first drew European settlers to New York and then made New York America's and now the world's leading metropolis. Today twenty million people live within a fifty mile radius of the estuary. Yet despite this density of human settlement and the trillion dollar economy that surrounds it, critical ecosystems of national significance are hanging on around the estuary. The most notable ones are Jamaica Bay, the Hackensack Meadowlands, the wetland complexes along the Arthur Kill, the shorelines of Lower Raritan Bay, and important patches of remnant wetlands along the East River. Preservation and restoration of these sites is critical to the ecological health and future of the Region. RPA is taking a lead in promoting the preservation of the estuary environment and played the leading role in obtaining a commitment of $60m from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for the purchase of critical habitat around the estuary. RPA also just completed compiling the recommendations of estuary stakeholders into a Needs and Opportunities Report to guide the United States Army Corps of Engineers in its harbor restoration efforts and to establish a framework for pursuing those efforts collaboratively with other public and private partners. |
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