Join HarborLAB in the St. Pat’s For All Parade this Sunday!

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Erik Baard

St. Pat’s for All Parade (http://www.stpatsforall.com/).

Thank you all so much for your kind words about my experience with a hate crime (http://gothamist.com/2014/02/27/cops_seek_suspect_in_7_train_bias_a.php) last Sunday. Well, THIS SUNDAY please join HarborLAB in joyfully marching for “cherishing all the children of the nation equally” in the St. Pat’s for All Parade!

Meet us at 1PM at:

45-18 Skillman Avenue, Sunnyside, NY 11104

Join us through the event linked here!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1399842456940289/

Erik Baard, Founder and Executive Director

Types of Fog

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Erik Baard

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

— Carl Sandburg, 1916

Gothamist has been obsessing over fog this season, and for good reason. These beautiful cloud colonizations of the understory highlight our city’s skyscraper peaks and shroud our harbor in mystery and danger.

The National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, explains that what we experience is called “advection fog,” which is generated by “the horizontal movement of warm moist air over a cold surface. This means that advection fog can sometimes be distinguished from radiation fog by its horizontal motion along the ground. Sea fogs are always advection fogs, because the oceans don’t radiate heat in the same way as land and so never cool sufficiently to produce radiation fog. Fog forms at sea when warm air associated with a warm current drifts over a cold current and condensation takes place.”

Learn about the different types of fog from this National Weather Service educational page.

Shooters Island, Along the Staten Island Circ

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Erik Baard

Shooters Island in the Arthur Kill, from Bayonne Bridge. Wikimedia Commons.

One highlight of the summer will be HarborLAB’s circumnavigation of Staten Island. This video about Shooters Island illuminates the “secret” historical significance of even one little harbor heron refuge along the way. Drifting past that sleepy island today, it’s hard to imagine that mobs surrounding a Prussian prince, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Edison bent its planks. Many thanks to artist and kayaker Harry Spitz for pointing out this video.

Neversink Reservoir: FREE Kayaking and Hiking Permits!

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Erik Baard

Get your free five-year access permit to paddle and hike our reservoir system!

Link here:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/recreation/access.shtml

If you want to volunteer for HarborLAB’s Watershed Wonder Tours (aka ReservoirLAB), or even just participate, you’ll need this permit. Our watershed programs at the Neversink Reservoir begin Memorial Day, but we’d like volunteers, and potential partners and participants, to square this paperwork away early.

It’s quick and easy! Learn more from the full NYC Department of Environmental Protection Neversink Reservoir brochure and the watershed boating website. Watershed Wonder Tours are made possible by NYCDEP permission and a grant from the Catskill Watershed Corporation.

After completing the form, please email edu@harborlab.org with the subject line “Watershed,” telling us that you’ve applied for your permit and how you’d like to help. We also have a Facebook event for the permits. We’ll have educational partnerships fostered by the NYCDEP and perhaps eventually community “walk-up” days with educational and activity booths promoting other water ecology causes.