NYC Parks didn't hire enough lifeguards this summer

 NY Post

A staffing shortage is causing some Rockaway Beach lifeguards to fly solo, creating a potentially dangerous situation, guards told The Post.

Lifeguards at the city beach said the long hours on the stand alone compromise safety as they become fatigued or have to deal with multiple rescues. Some staged a protest on Friday.

“If you were out in the water drowning, four of us (have) a lot better chance of seeing you than if I’m by myself on that chair. Especially on a day like today: foggy, muggy,” one lifeguard in his 10th year said Saturday.

Others said they were not even allowed to take bathroom breaks, a distraction that made it harder to focus on swimmers. They said supervisors were not sympathetic.

“All they do when we try to explain to them that we need help and we need the manpower is just, like, ‘Well, you get paid for eight hours.’ ” one guard said.

The Parks Department is missing one-third of its lifeguards which also forced the cancellation of swimming lessons, water exercise classes and swim teams as pools opened for the season Saturday.

The department said it “expected” to have 950 lifeguards ready to go as 49 outdoor pools welcomed swimmers. Beaches already opened May 29.

Mayor de Blasio opens the beaches for only the surfers to play in

NY Post

Wipe out!
 
City beaches will be a surfers’ paradise, but swimmers will be sidelined under a wishy-washy set of rules dropped by the city and the NYPD on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend.
 
“The beaches are open, but the water is not for swimming,” said Brian Conroy, assistant chief of the NYPD’s Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, in a press briefing at the Abe Stark Sports Center in Coney Island.
 
“You can go in ankle deep, wade in the water,” Conroy continued. “Surfers will be allowed into the water.”
 
The half-measure move was swiftly blasted as all wet.
 
“This is just more mixed messaging,” said City Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn). “We need to have very clear guidelines here, because if you don’t you’re just setting yourself up for tragedy and-or confrontation.
 
“If I carry a surfboard, can I go in the water even if I don’t know how to surf?”
 
City Councilman Donovan Richards, a Queens Democrat representing sandy Far Rockaway, said that he was left “scratching my head” over the gnarly policy.
 
“Are they going to give swim tests to surfers before they go into the water?” asked Richards. “If you’re saying the water is closed to anyone then they have to be closed for everyone.


 “It sends a bad message. It says the waters are open.”
 
Politicians weren’t the only ones who feared that the rules would confuse beachgoers trying to enjoy a little sea air and sunshine amid the coronavirus pandemic.
 
“It’s the same water. If you’re surfing, you have to go out and swim first, right?” pointed out Pat Singer, head of Brooklyn’s Brighton Neighborhood Association. “The mayor ought to rethink that one. It’s going to cause mixed messages.”

de Blasio has been exploiting this pandemic and confusing his constituents since the day he told everyone to go to the movies when the outbreak began.


But there is nothing mixed about this. As seen in multiple viral videos, there is a caste system with enforcing pandemic protocols. This is another blatant act of favoritism to the only citizens the mayor appreciates the most, the frivolous spending hipsters.

Overdevelopment leads to shitty beaches

From the NY Post:

The waters at three beaches in southeast Brooklyn were festering with so much fecal bacteria, they were deemed unsafe for swimming on 101 days over the past two summers, according to city Health Department records.

The filthy surf plagued the roughly mile-long stretch covered by Kiddie, Manhattan and Kingsborough Community College beaches, which are concentrated around Rockaway Inlet.

They accrued more than triple the total bacteria warnings issued at the city’s seven other public beaches. Ocean beaches have less stagnant water than inlet beaches.

The Health Department attributed the bacteria uptick to “increased rainfall.”

A clean-water advocate explained that the city has 460 points along its shoreline where about 27 billion gallons of raw sewage and storm water are dumped into New York Harbor every year when combined sanitary-storm sewers overflow during heavy storms.

“That’s the product of hundreds of years of overdevelopment in the city,” said Dan Shapley, the water-quality program director for Riverkeeper. He explained that certain city sewer designs date back to “when people were dying of cholera and the goal was to get [the sewage] out and away from the neighborhood as fast as possible.”

Parks gives permit to bizarre booze bazaar in Rockaway

I don't know if you go to the beach, but I do. It's the Riis Park section of the article. For some reason the parks dept. gave a multiyear deal to some collective called the Brooklyn Night Bazaar to organize an all summer long market and concert series in a location that does not have the room for it. The worst of it is that they are going to provide patrons with apps so they can have food from their "bazaar" brought to them via an app, which will probably include booze.

I commented before on your site about the city's plan to gentrify rockaway and here it is. Despite the millenials interest in Fort Tilden, on the east side dubbed "the people's beach" the majority of beachgoers are black and hispanic. This has the makings of a culture clash, and will probably lead aggressive supposed quality of life enforcement against the folks who will not have an interest in what the Brooklyn Night Bazaar has to offer, who prefer to bring their own food, drinks (Booze and Soft) and beach chairs.

Sorry to bother you about this, but you're good at this sort of thing. I also plan to write to Walk in the park about this too and do my own research since their website is unreadable. Something stinks about this group, similar to those slimy scumbags that run the knockdown center.

have a good weekend.- JQ

Brooklyn Night Bazaar gentrified themselves out of Greenpoint, so their next frontier to help destroy is Rockaway.

You might want to stay on the sand...

From PIX11:

If you’re thinking about taking a dip at the beach this summer, you may want to think again.

Turns out the water on New York’s beaches is pretty dirty.

According to a study done by the Environmental Protection Agency, New York ranks 20th out of 30 states tested in beach water quality.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has created charts for people to see how much bacteria is in the water they are swimming in.

Looks like the Rockaways are pretty clean. But don't take a dip in Douglaston!

Many beaches still not open in Rockaway

From the Queens Courier:

Just because a beach is open doesn’t mean people are allowed to swim there.

As of Thursday, only 29 of the more than 100 beaches in the Rockaways are open to swimming because of damage caused by Superstorm Sandy coupled with a dearth of lifeguards, the Parks Department said.

The rest have “normal access,” which, according to the Parks Department, means people are allowed to walk in the sand.

“Swimming is only permitted where there are lifeguards, which is never the entire seven mile beach,” said Zachary Feder, a Parks Department spokesman. “But walking is permitted along the entire length.”

Superstorm Sandy caused major damage to the beaches along Rockaway, which now has the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers working to repair many of them. They are using large pipes to pump sand from the ocean floor on to certain beaches which makes those specific locations closed to swimming.

Rockaway still a hot mess

From NY1:

The mayor stayed away as city officials announced beaches are open.

In the Rockaways, long stretches of sand are less weekend paradise and more construction zone. Forget your sun visor. This is hard-hat territory.

"It looks like hell," said Kevin Boyle, a Rockaway community activist. "It's not exactly ready for the top 10 list anywhere, but it's coming along. I'm pretty sure by 2020, the boardwalk will be there and the beach will look good."

Now, bulldozer tracks are everywhere. The Army Corps of engineers is dredging sand to lengthen beaches, which will soften waves.

Ongoing work means spots will open and shut at times, though new Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver can't say exactly where and when.

But hey, don't despair! You're getting WiFi!

Rockaway bathrooms already falling apart

From DNA Info:

The multimillion dollar bathrooms and lifeguard stations placed along city beaches as part of a post-Hurricane Sandy fix have already begun rusting and leaking, DNAinfo New York has learned.

The city spent $105 million to place the 35 modular units, which were designed by Garrison Architects and built by Triton Construction, along beaches on Rockaway Beach, Staten Island and Brooklyn in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Of the 35 stations, 21 are lifeguard shacks, 10 are public bathrooms and four are used for maintenance and operations, according to the Parks Department.

But while the shacks were intended to be strong enough to withstand the next superstorm, those who have used them say they are already falling apart — including at least one structure that has duct tape securing its railings for the handicapped-accessible ramp.

Rockaway coast restoration underway

From the Daily News:

By next summer, the beaches in the Rockaways will have as much sand as they did in the 1970s, but it remains to be seen how long they will stay that way.

Officials gathered near the surf Thursday to highlight the coastal restoration program, while concerned residents complained that another tropical storm would return the beaches — along with their coastal neighborhoods — to the condition they were in last fall, after Superstorm Sandy.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has started a $36.4 million project to pump 3.5 million cubic yards of sand onto the peninsula’s badly eroded beaches, fortifying them against future superstorms and the raging Atlantic Ocean.

Rockaway residents, who lost their homes and businesses to superstorm Sandy, have been anxiously awaiting the sand replenishment, boardwalk reconstruction and other protection measures as another storm season looms.

Those who have taken an active interest in the work say the new sand is good, but they remain critical of the fact that rock jetties and other permanent structures, also important to shielding the coastal neighborhoods from the ravages of a superstorm, will not be built for at least three years.

There's also a research center at Jamaica Bay now to study the ecosystem.

Rockaway paramedics will get a GATOR

From WPIX:

There was little question since Hurricane Sandy hit, beach access for paramedics and their ambulance was somewhat restricted this summer season.

It’s exactly why paramedics want a John Deere GATOR, a beach accessible vehicle, used in Coney Island for patient transport.

Instead, Rockaway paramedics would use what’s known as a SKED, a roll up pallet meant for mass casualty situations and hitch it to the axle of a Parks and Recreation ATV. That ATV, driven by a park employee, would then drag patients through the sand to get to an ambulance in the Rockaways. Concerns only grew when they learned the patient could also be taking in fumes during that ride.

“We carry CO meters and the CO meters at 35, they go ballistic. They go off. It measured at 980 parts per million so now you’re not only dragging the patient through the sand, you’re blowing CO on them for a block or two before you even get them to an ambulance,” said Israel Miranda, Union President representing EMS and Paramedics.

After complaints, petitions, and with PIX11′s help, it seems there was a change of heart and the Rockaways will be getting exactly what it needs.

The FDNY said after a review of the procedure the SKED policy will not be used. Instead, the Fire Commissioner instructed the Bureau of EMS to place one of the city’s GATORS in the Rockaways.

Keeping trash off the beach

From CBS New York:

The city has hired 100 young New Yorkers to help clean up trash on surrounding streets and storm drains that end up in the ocean.

“We remind people to clean up their litter. And one consequence of littering is that it can get to the beaches,” New York City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Carter Strickland told Miller. ”People don’t think about it and they think that it’s a harmless activity. Of course, it makes the street look bad but also can end up on the beach where they spend their weekends.”

And even though superstorm Sandy hit almost nine months ago there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Beach bill pulled

From the Brooklyn Daily:

Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz claimed on Thursday that he will pull back a controversial bill he quietly introduced this month that would remove an important check on the city’s power to develop — or overdevelop — its public beaches.

Right now, for the city to build anything on beaches in places such as Coney Island and Manhattan Beach, it needs to first check with the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which would make sure what goes up doesn’t interfere with the public’s ability to freely enjoy the waterfront.

But the bill Cymbrowitz (D–Brighton Beach) introduced would give the city the right to do whatever it wants on the land that the parks department would control — which could allow the city to build whatever it wants there.

That, along with the fear that an underfunded Parks Department would let the beaches fall apart, scared some beach advocates worried about its repercussions on the beaches in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

What's going on here?

http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&bn=A07168&term=2013&Summary=Y&Text=Y

Hi folks,

Someone gave me a heads up re: the NYS Assembly/Senate bill above. It is very disturbing.

Currently, the boardwalks on NYC's beaches are under the jurisdiction of the Parks Dept. Parks also maintains the public beaches by removing trash, staffing with lifeguards (though NYS law dictates how many lifeguards, how far apart lifeguard stations should be, etc). Parks can also allow temporary structures (i.e. removable handicapped access mats) volleyball courts, etc. on the beach. But the beach itself - the sand - is also under the jurisdiction of NYS DEC which ensures compliance with the Coastal Zone Management Act, among other things. Also, under Public Trust Doctrine, the shoreline and intertidal area is held, in trust, for the people, by the state. So in essence, there is a very nice checks & balances system that has been in place for years and that has worked very well. Brighton/Coney/the Rockaways/Orchard Beach/Midland Beach/Manhattan Beach, etc. are all governed by IDENTICAL guidelines.

All of a sudden, very, very, VERY quietly, the above piece of legislation has been proposed, by Assemblymembers Cymbrowitz & Brook-Krasny. It would take the beaches of Brighton & Coney Island - and ONLY those beaches, and give jurisdiction to the NYC Parks Dept, for 250 feet south of the Boardwalk. Basically, ALL OF THE BEACH, would now be turned over to the NYC Parks Dept. the most woefully underfunded city agency.

Interestingly, Manhattan Beach, which is within spitting distance of Brighton Beach, is also in Assemblyman Cymbrowitz's district. Yet he has NOT proposed a similar set up for Manhattan Beach. Why not?

This smacks of a special interest deal that will ultimately impact the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who live in a flood zone. The implications are enormous. And the fact that there has not been a single word in the media or anywhere else about this, is even more upsetting. Things that are done behind closed doors are usually kept hidden for a reason.

AGAIN, NOT A WORD OF THIS PROPOSAL HAS BEEN MADE PUBLIC. WHY???

Please call your NYS Assembly & Senate representatives and urge them to vote against these bills: A 07168 & S 04787.

Thanks,
Ida Sanoff