By Scott Brinton
Nassau County Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick) called on the county Parks Department to destroy the course after reading about it in the Herald.
North Bellmore environmentalist Richard Schary says young people cause "immeasurable" damage to the environment by building such stunt-biking courses, as they cut down hundreds of trees to do so. The trees are split into logs, which are piled high and then buried to form bike jumps.
The bulldozer flattened the main section of the Mill Pond course, and workers dismantled remaining jumps along paths that were too narrow for the bulldozer to reach.
County workers also welded shut a metal door leading into an abandoned pump house at Mill Pond. Schary pointed out that uncovered manholes inside the pump house lead to a miles-long maze of underground, unused water tunnels. The pump house thus represented a liability for the county. A child could have been seriously hurt or even killed had he or she gotten into the tunnels.
With the pump house now sealed, however, the tunnels are inaccessible from Mill Pond.
Last Thursday, the county was also restoring the fence line at Mill Pond just south of Sunrise Highway. Vandals had ripped a gaping hole in it, allowing access into the park by stunt-bikers.
The only trouble is, there is no fence on the park's northern edge, and the bikers continue to get into Mill Pond from there.
Legislator seeking
woodland summit
Nassau County Legis. Norma Gonsalves (R-East Meadow) wants to host a summit over central Nassau's endangered parkway woodlands in the near future.
Her intent is to gather local elected leaders, civic activists and environmentalists to discuss long-term solutions to preserving the woodlands.
The legislator said several people have approached her about the forests after reading about them in the Herald's ongoing series examining their plight.
"People have spoken to me about the series," Gonsalves said. "And they are pleased that open space is getting attention."
Gonsalves said the Wantagh woodlands are in better condition than Merrick's, but both require immediate attention. Holding the conference "sooner is better than later," she said.
Gonsalves also said that she has spoken with Dr. Thomas Caramore, superintendent of the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District, regarding the numerous bike jumps that teenagers have built at the rear of the Brookside School property. Caramore, she said, "assured me that they [the district] would take steps to do away with them [the jumps]."
