In my opinion there should a Great Lakes Green Way and Beach Way. Every U.S. and Canadian citizen should have free and open access to the shorelines of the Great Lakes.
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http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20061112/1023133.asp"
Creating a Niagara River Greenway
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The money has been set aside for this public corridor; now we have to be careful to keep the plan on track
By MARGARET WOOSTER
Special to The News
11/12/2006
John Hickey/Buffalo News
A river-focused plan for the Niagara River Greenway hopefully will provide something very desirable to Western New Yorkers – more waterfront access. The plan will be released for public review in December.
Driving north on the Niagara Thruway from Buffalo to Niagara Falls, you get a glimpse of the challenges ahead. On your left, a semi-abandoned industrial waterfront surrounding the almost-invisible Buffalo River and outer harbor gives way to panoramic views of the great descending river carrying the waters of the four upper Great Lakes down toward the falls.
Generating plants, oil tank farms, a few factories and mountainous waste dumps intermittently, then completely, block the view. This is our waterfront, our palette of opportunity for the dream community restoration project of the century: creating a Niagara River Greenway.
The task of restoring and redeveloping this corridor for quality public access, healthy wildlife habitat, clean water and global tourism based on Niagara's incredibly rich cultural and natural heritage now seems possible because we have a dedicated source of funding to begin it.
In return for a license to operate for another 50 years, expected in 2007, the New York Power Authority (NYPA) will compensate Niagara communities for hosting one of the largest hydroelectric plants in the United States and its thousands of acres of supporting infrastructure. Settlements totaling around $2 billion have been reached, including $9 million per year over the next 50 years for the Niagara Greenway.
Can we do it? The seed money is there. The seed vision is there, expressed in the state law that established a Greenway Commission to produce and implement a plan: "For more than a century there have been those who have expressed a vision for the Niagara River corridor as a necklace of open space and conservation efforts spread along the river. With many areas no longer being used for heavy industry, it is now time to complete that vision." The plan is almost there - due out for public review next month and for municipal approval early next year.
But some host communities entrusted with distributing greenway funds show dangerous signs of thinking the money is theirs to spend as they want. Ambiguous language in NYPA greenway fund settlements is partly to blame, since it establishes no clear accountability to the greenway plan or commission.
For example, the seven municipal and school district representatives in charge of Niagara County greenway monies have agreed to pre-divide the 50-year fund among themselves. Some have begun budgeting their share for projects that have little to do with the public's vision of a greenway, or with the expectation of a competitive process to select the best proposals.
Because they feel their NYPA money is guaranteed with or without a greenway plan, they have no vested interest in approving a regional plan with strong criteria and a clear public process for selecting projects.
This ambiguity has resulted in the still-unresolved issue of the greenway boundary. Niagara County host communities want the boundary to extend all the way inland to their eastern borders to allow the broadest possible latitude in spending. Erie County municipalities, on the other hand - along with Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters and 15 other citizen and conservation groups in both counties - want a river-focused boundary, which they say is consistent with the intent of the law and the vision of the community.
The plan, which requires unanimous sign-on from every town, village and city within the boundary, proposes giving first priority to projects in the near-river core but does not disallow wider spending. At best this allows compromise. At worst it creates the danger that greenway funds will lose their focus, accountability will be lost and the money will be frittered away with no noticeable impact on the region's environmental or economic well being.
Wendel Duchscherer, the architectural and engineering firm hired by the Greenway Commission, is doing an admirable job cobbling together a greenway plan from the goals and lists of projects solicited from the public. But healing the fracture between the state legislation and NYPA seed funding is beyond their scope of service. So how do we ensure a Niagara River Greenway plan in keeping with the legislative vision? What kinds of principles and rules are needed to guide its creation over the next 50 years?
Let's take a walk along a few critical segments of our 40-mile lake-to-lake waterfront and preview some of the ideas proposed in the greenway plan in the context of what is here now and what could be, depending on the rules we choose to play by.
The outer harbor
With almost a mile of shoreline, the outer harbor is Buffalo's biggest piece on the greenway game board. It is currently undeveloped and owned by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, which until recently planned to sell it to Uniland/Opus, private developers whose plan called for high-rise housing, offices and commercial uses, with a narrow strip along the lake for public access.
Now the outer harbor is being transferred to the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corp., a for-profit state authority recently created to facilitate redevelopment of the inner harbor. So the fate of the outer harbor remains uncertain, and the type of development envisioned by Uniland is not necessarily off the table.
This brings us to one of the main goals of the greenway plan - providing greater public access to the waterfront - and a rule that would help get us there.
Rule 1: Do not sell public waterfront land. Otherwise, no matter how much profit we expect to gain on this or that parcel, our "natural capital" will continue to diminish. As cities like Chicago have shown, a well-planned green waterfront significantly increases the value of adjacent land in the downtown core.
How much better outer harbor redevelopment will be if it is part of an overall greenway design that physically, aesthetically and ecologically connects to other green spaces, like the newly refurbished Times Beach, a birder's paradise during the spring and fall migrations, and 280-acre Tifft Nature Preserve, an amazing outdoor education resource managed by the Buffalo Museum of Science.
Recall that landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted wanted a lakeshore park (he lost his location to Bethlehem Steel), and think of what a large public green space at the outer harbor could be like if approached with the design vocabulary of Buffalo's Olmsted parks, taking advantage of the city's greatest natural asset - its position on Lake Erie.
Buffalo-Niagara riverfront
The greenway plan proposes "gateway" and "transition" projects to develop and connect existing resources like the Niagara Riverwalk. Looking east up the Buffalo River from the Erie Basin Marina, we see Buffalo's historic lighthouse and the first of a dozen grain elevators, part of an architectural heritage that could be an international visitor attraction in itself if trails proposed by the Industrial Heritage Society are realized. Here, too, is the link to the developing Buffalo River Greenway, 50 miles of hiking trail and bikeway following the river and its three tributaries.
Riverwalk also connects inland to Buffalo's Olmsted Parks system via the Scajaquada Pathway. Like the Buffalo River Greenway, the Scajaquada Pathway is limited in its uses by ongoing sewage overflows and industrial contaminants in the sediments and along the creek banks, reminding us that poor water quality remains a barrier to waterfront revitalization. And so,
Rule 2: Use greenway funds to leverage the major investments needed to restore clean water and healthy habitats.
Greenway projects should be integrated with and help leverage available state and federal dollars for completing the work of eliminating sewage overflows and toxic contaminants from our waterways. (Note that the estimated cost for cleaning up Buffalo River sediments is $30 million; for reducing our region's raw sewage overflows to the Buffalo and Niagara rivers, $1 billion.)
Tonawanda
Heading north into the Town of Tonawanda, we find ourselves on a ghostly stretch of Riverwalk dominated on both sides by the grassy capped mounds of municipal landfills and old Superfund sites like the old "Cherry Farm." Here soils over the clay cap have been laid thick enough to plant trees and shrubs, supporting the town's favored greenway project - a riverside park. This is one of many waterfront sites that will be in recovery for a long time, calling for light use respectful of the healing going on above ground and below.
North of the Grand Island Bridge, Riverwalk returns us to the river and its breezes, reminding us how much we benefit on hot summer days from our lake and river air conditioning. Along with hundreds of others, I walk the 3-mile stretch up to Tonawanda Creek often and in all seasons. It's one of the few places where you can actually see what is remarkable about the Niagara River apart from the falls - why, for example, it is one of a handful of internationally recognized "Important Bird Areas" in North America.
The greenway plan supports ecological projects like Buffalo Ornithological Society's proposed Niagara River Ecology Center, featuring the river's unique diversity of plant, bird and fish species, and the Buffalo Audubon Society's proposed Birds of Prey Center, focused on outdoor education for kids. But this support could be strengthened with rule 3.
Rule 3: Economic development projects within the greenway boundary should enhance and showcase the natural, cultural and industrial heritage of the Niagara River. Proposals that do both, such as the proposal to house the Niagara Ecology Center in the historic buildings and surrounding old-growth forest at DeVeaux Woods in Niagara County, would gain extra points for funding. Projects unrelated to Niagara's unique heritage, such as the "Land of Oz" theme park proposed in the Town of Wheatfield, should not qualify for greenway funds.
Niagara Falls
Of all Niagara River communities, the City of Niagara Falls probably has the most at stake in the greenway transformation project. On the one hand, it has the burden of a depressed economy and a riverfront colonized by chemical industries and their waste. On the other, it has the model of its sister city across the river, where development appears to be out of control, with more high-rises in the works.
Buried somewhere in the middle of all this is the Niagara Reservation, our local and national access to Niagara Falls. In the late 1800s New York State tore down 150 buildings here "for the purpose of preserving the scenery of the Falls of Niagara, and of restoring said scenery to its natural condition," according to the plan developed by Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
Over time, roads, parking lots, concession buildings and other tourist apparatus have crept back in, leading many, including Niagara County's Environmental Management Council, to one fundamental greenway recommendation: Restore Olmsted's plan in the Niagara Reservation - especially on Goat Island, where botanists once found the greatest variety of plant species in North America.
The experts believe that restoring a world icon according to the plans of a world-renowned landscape architect makes sense not only for the river but also for the city - that there is potentially more economic benefit in high quality stewardship of the original resource than in, say, adding another bleach plant or gambling casino.
Lewiston and Porter
From the City of Niagara Falls to the Village of Lewiston, the gorge offers the most spectacular views to be had of the Niagara. Here, unlike at the falls, the river is in its natural element, not dwarfed by surrounding tourist distractions.
Unfortunately, the Robert Moses Parkway limits the greenway value of this six miles of river gorge, forcing most visitors to whiz right by, catching a frustrated glimpse when they can. Built in tandem with the power plant in the 1960s, the parkway is a relic of the Robert Moses aesthetic that treated the natural gorge as a drive-by experience between his Power Vista to the north and his Observation Tower to the south.
The Niagara Heritage Partnership has spearheaded a popular campaign to reroute this section of the parkway and to remove its four lanes of pavement from the gorge rim. Restoring the ecology of this last remaining undeveloped stretch of gorge would complement a similar effort on the Canadian side and support many of the low-impact heritage tourism proposals put forward on this side, including the Native heritage trail and interpretive programs proposed by the Tuscarora Nation.
This stretch perhaps best illustrates the need for ongoing community participation in creating a sustainable greenway grounded in the true wealth of this region. Our two final rules address some of the physical and political barriers to this involvement:
Rule 4. Where possible, remove or relocate infrastructure that cuts communities off from the waterfront.
Rule 5. Ensure a meaningful citizen/stakeholder role in all greenway decision-making, from project selection through implementation and management.
This is where we are today. We have some dedicated money, an almost-completed plan, many committed community groups and a wealth of material to work with. We needn't bring in the Munchkins or the world's biggest mall or make anything up. It is all right here. On the other hand, we could spend our greenway funds on returfing high school football fields or otherwise filling endless budget gaps - depending on the rules of the game.
Please plan to attend the December public hearings and urge your local and state representatives to support a greenway plan worthy of our magnificent Niagara River.
Margaret Wooster is the Niagara River Greenway campaign coordinator for the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper, a group dedicated to the preservation and restoration of the Buffalo and Niagara River watershed.
