The Environment

Merokean reviving the woodlands campaign

Wants paved bike path through Meadowbrook forests

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Merrick environmental activist Bob Young is reviving a nearly decade-long campaign to protect and preserve the fragile woodlands that line the Meadowbrook Parkway.

From 2002 to 2011, hundreds of volunteers conducted cleanups, environmental studies and community forums aimed at raising awareness of the forests’ deteriorating health in the hope that New York state, which owns them, would commit to maintaining them better and allowing public access to them. Trespassing in most of the forests is now forbidden.

Though the state provided workers and trucks to support the many cleanups over the years, it balked at regularly cleaning up the woodlands and opening them to the public.

Now Young, who was among the leaders of a local movement to preserve the forests as a “passive recreation area,” is planning a cleanup in the woodlands on the east side of the parkway, likely between Sunrise Highway and Meadowbrook Road. An exact location is to be determined.

The cleanup is to take place on Sunday, April 26, from 10 a.m. to noon. Nassau County Legislator Laura Curran, a Democrat from Baldwin who represents part of Merrick, said she will attend. “I love doing cleanups,” she remarked.

Check next week’s Herald Life for further details.

For decades, miscreants have wreaked havoc in the woodlands, racing ATVs, tearing up vegetation, uprooting trees, and frightening and even killing wildlife. Teenagers partying in the woods have left campfires unattended and set fire to the forests. And then there is all the garbage that passing motorists toss onto the sides of the Meadowbrook Parkway, which collects in streams and ponds.

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