By Scott Brinton
Richard and Lisa Schary, North Bellmore environmentalists and retired teachers, recently took this reporter on a tour through the Nassau County preserve.
The trails started out relatively small but grew and grew, and now form an expansive maze. The trouble is, whoever is clearing the trails is doing an enormous amount of environmental damage, the Scharys say. The vandal -- or vandals -- is ripping out loads of underbrush by hand.
The Scharys had thought teenagers might be the culprits. Many trails lead from one deep-woods hangout to another, where teens are known to drink, do drugs and have sex. But many of the trails go nowhere, looping around in circles. So the Scharys haven't been able to say with certainty that young people were to blame.
Last weekend, Richard Schary said he got a tip that a man who rests on benches at the preserve and feeds the birds may be clearing the trails, which measure as wide as six feet in many places. Schary said he spotted the man laying sticks on the trails over the weekend.
Schary doesn't know much about him. By his dress, he doesn't appear to be homeless. "We think it might be an older gentleman. We're investigating it," said Schary, who recently helped clear a sanctioned Long Island Greenbelt Conference trail through Mill Pond Park and the Town of Hempstead's Twin Lakes Preserve to the north. He said he planned to contact police and report the man's alleged activities.
At least some people apparently believe the Greenbelt Conference is responsible for the ever-increasing trail network. During the recent tour of Mill Pond, Schary met a woman walking in the middle of the woods. He asked whether she knew who was making the trails. The woman said she believed it was the Greenbelt Conference.
"You see, we get blamed for this," said Schary, who noted that it's illegal to clear unauthorized trails through a county or town park.
Sgt. William Field, of the Nassau County Police Department's 7th Precinct, said police haven't gotten many calls about Mill Pond Park of late. In fact, only one 911 call has been recorded there since Jan. 1. In that incident, a man thought teenagers were shooting BB's at his car from the park. But his vehicle suffered no damage, and the man couldn't describe the teens.
Field said people should feel free to call police if they observe a crime at Mill Pond. "If they see what they believe is illegal activity, by all means call the police," he said.
The sergeant noted that police have conducted raids in the preserve to round up teenagers holding drug parties. After dark, he said, officers use night-vision goggles to track the teens down. Field said police "are concerned with anything that's going on there," adding that the county preserves are "relatively quiet places."
County Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat of Merrick, said the Scharys had alerted him about the trails. "We're aware that people have been trespassing, not only in Mill Pond, but also into Twin Lakes," Denenberg said.
The legislator said the county Parks Department would send in investigators to look into the problem. He also said the police department is "stepping up its surveillance" of Mill Pond, which has fallen prey to vandals in other ways.
An abandoned pump house in the park, just south of Sunrise Highway, is now covered with graffiti. Surrounding the pump house are empty cases of beer, drug paraphernalia and used condoms.
At another such hangout farther south, this reporter found several homemade bongs used to smoke marijuana. They were made with parts of plastic soda bottles and milk cartons. There were also empty cans of solvent, which teens use to get high. On an old oak tree, someone had spray-painted "blunt," which is a cigar wrapper stuffed with marijuana.
"Unfortunately, there's been vandalism" at Mill Pond, Denenberg said, noting that teenagers use several preserves as drug hangouts, including Twin Lakes.
Denenberg said the county plans to spend $2 million to dredge Mill Pond this summer. The project was supposed to start last fall, but the state Department of Environmental Conservation held up the permits for the work, the legislator said. The county will also refurbish the paved paths through the preserve, install catch basins to capture floating garbage in the pond, add water-quality monitoring devices and strengthen the shoreline.
Denenberg said the project would beautify Mill Pond Park and, he hopes, attract more people to it. With a greater number of concerned people flowing through the preserve, it's hoped that vandalism will decrease, because it will be reported more promptly. Moreover, Denenberg said, vandals tend to stay away from heavily trafficked areas.
Eliminating vandalism at Mill Pond and other preserves, though, is a tough proposition, because most of it occurs after dark when the park is closed, Denenberg said. "How do you police the entire Wantagh [Parkway] corridor in the middle of the night?" he wondered.
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
