Gribbles and Shipworms! A Cleaner NY Harbor Creates a Problem for New Waterfront Parks

Make sure to check out this fascinating article in today’s New York Times about the cleaner water in New York Harbor enabling the return of two sea creatures–gribbles and shipworms–that snack on the wooden pilings supporting several new waterfront parks that are under construction, most notably Brooklyn Bridge Park. Mitigating the problem has added millions to construction costs.

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe is quoted in the piece, pointing to the irony of the situation: “We literally have a clean harbor, but it’s causing incredible devastation to the physical infrastructure of the waterfront, and it’s costly to repair and replace.”