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Overcast State eyes fishing at Mullener Pond
County plans ‘Envirothon’ to raise awareness of ponds, forests
Shaped like a footprint, Mullener Pond abuts the Meadowbrook Parkway amid a stand of oaks and maples just south of Jerusalem Avenue in North Merrick. It is a quiet place, hemmed in by a six-foot chain-link fence.
The New York State Department of Parks owns the property and for years has prohibited people from entering it. So, environmental advocates say, local folks have only been able to marvel at it
from afar.
That, it appears increasingly likely, is about to change. The Department of Parks and the state Department of Environmental Conservation are now in the final stages of approving a plan that would allow public access to the woodland, where fishing would be permitted in Mullener Pond.
If the state OKs the plan, Mullener Pond would join a list of 13 other ponds and lakes across Nassau County, many on the South Shore, where catch-and-release fishing is allowed.
Heidi O’Riordan, a DEC aquatic biologist, discussed the Mullener Pond plan during a meeting of the Nassau County Unprotected Woodlands Task Force, headed by county Legislator Norma Gonsalves, a Republican from East Meadow, and Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick. The meeting took place at the Nassau County Legislature and Executive Building in Mineola on Monday.
O’Riordan said the plan would be announced during an educational “Envirothon,” tentatively scheduled for April 30 at 9 a.m. at the Brookside School on Meadowbrook Road in North Merrick. The event is aimed at raising awareness of the dire condition into which the forests along the Meadowbrook have fallen after years of abuse by vandals and all-terrain vehicle riders.
Bob Young, a Merrick environmental activist and a member of the woodlands task force who has advocated for public access to the forests along the Meadowbrook for nearly a decade, said, “I would say that the most important thing is getting people to use the woodlands in a positive way.”
Young and North Bellmore environmental activists Richard and Lisa Schary have pushed for a plan to create a series of hiking and mountain-biking trails along the Meadowbrook, starting at Mullener Pond and stretching to the Norman J. Levy Park and Preserve in south Merrick.
