By Scott Brinton
that runs along the Freeport reservoir last Saturday morning. Fisene, of Baldwin, a 10-year member of SPLASH (Stop Polluting Littering and Save Our Harbors), spotted Richard Smith, a Merrick resident who was cleaning up a broken garbage bag full of table scraps and dirty diapers nearby.
"You missed a spot," Fisene good-naturedly called over to Smith, grinning widely. Smith looked up and acknowledged Fisene's wisecrack with a smile.
And so went the morning for the 50 or so volunteers who turned out for a major cleanup of the lush woodlands on the west side of the Meadowbrook Parkway on April 21. Folks chatted and joked as they hauled off big plastic bags of trash.
The Nassau County Unprotected Woodlands Task Force, headed by Legislator David Denenberg, a Democrat from Merrick, and Norma Gonsalves, a Republican from East Meadow, organized the cleanup, which took place at the Freeport reservoir and the county-owned Roosevelt Preserve. Local environmental activists Bob Young of Merrick and Richard and Lisa Schary of North Bellmore, who serve on the task force, helped plan the cleanup and volunteered themselves. The New York State Department of Parks lent its support to the 3 1/2-hour event by providing personnel to direct volunteers and load trucks with the mounds of collected garbage.
The task force, which comprises New York state, county and Town of Hempstead representatives, formed five years ago to develop long-range plans to preserve the Meadowbrook woodlands for future generations. The group developed a management plan that called on the state parks department to declare the woodlands a passive recreational area for hiking, mountain biking and fishing.
The woodlands have suffered years of damage from vandalism and dumping. The cleanup was intended, in part, to raise awareness of the forests' plight.
The state parks department has had a copy of the memorandum of understanding that would create the recreational area for more than a year, but has balked on signing it, Denenberg and Gonsalves said. The county and town have both agreed to sign the MOU.
To protest the state's inaction on the memorandum, the task force held the cleanup only in the woodlands on the west side of the Meadowbrook, which are primarily county-owned lands. The state owns most of the forests on the east side.
Smith said he turned out for the cleanup because he would like to see the recreational area created. "I want this place to look as nice as the [county-owned] Massapequa Preserve," he said.
The Meadowbrook Parkway woodlands, Smith added, are "one of the hidden treasures of Long Island. I'd like to fish in these lakes one day and see the kids fishing in these lakes."
As a member of SPLASH, Fisene said he regularly collects garbage in the bays that hug the South Shore. He learned about the Meadowbrook Parkway cleanup in last week's Herald editorial, "Help save our parkway woodlands." "I just don't like slobbery," Fisene said. "Cleanliness is next to godliness. Nothing detracts from an area as much as garbage."
In a nearby thicket of locust trees, Paul Tusa, a Merrick resident with an accounting practice in Bellmore, was removing garbage with his daughter, Sondra, a senior at Kennedy High School in Bellmore. Sondra, who plans to major in international business at George Washington University in the fall, has become increasingly active in Democratic politics, and learned about the cleanup through the local Democratic Action Committee.
Sondra encouraged her dad to come. She wants to help the world, she said, especially after viewing a PowerPoint presentation at Kennedy earlier in the week on the genocide in Darfur, which four classmates produced.
"People don't care about the environment, and that's sad," she said.
Her father said that his family is growing more aware of the environment. They recently switched from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs to save on energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, and they are considering buying a hybrid vehicle. Taking part in the cleanup, Paul said, "is part of a comprehensive package."
At the Roosevelt Preserve, members of Nassau County Police Explorers Troop No. 1000, attached to the 1st Precinct, carried out numerous bags of garbage, as well as the barren frame of a stolen car that apparently had been stripped for parts. Police officer Dan Johannessen, the troop's adviser, said, "We do a lot of community service in the 1st Precinct."
Ron Krisch of North Merrick, a member of the environmental and fly-fishing group Trout Unlimited, was standing ankle-deep in mud, surrounded by briers and fallen tree branches, pulling garbage out of a stream bed. A hundred or so feet to the east, cars whizzed by on the Meadowbrook.
"The limited space we have, we need to keep clean," said Krisch. "Maybe people will say they can help by not throwing so much [garbage]. I'm really impressed by what's been done. You have some really hard-working people."
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
