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After Memorial Day the Inwood Canoe Club returned to their boat house to find both sides of the access path sprayed with chemicals.
The plants on the sides of a forested path near the Hudson River in Inwood are wilted, almost burned. Dead birds, snakes and rats have been found among the withered vegetation, and members of the Inwood Canoe Club wants some answers.
“Everything got killed,” said Ilya Bernstein, club secretary. “It looks like the whole area is sort of burned.”
The gravel path is used by the century-old club, the Parks Department and Amtrak which uses the road to access the nearby train tracks. Bernstein said sometime the week before Memorial Day someone sprayed the path with chemicals. He’s checked with the Parks Department and Department of Environmental Conservation – both agencies said they had nothing to do with the incident.
“We think Amtrak did this,” he said.
Amtrak spokesperson Clifford Cole confirmed that an herbicide was used.
"the last time any herbicide spraying was conducted was done along our right of way and was conducted on April 21," he said.
ToBernstein's knowledge, the path itself has never been treated – and didn’t have to. The Parks Department mows the sides of the path, Bernstein said, and by late spring the plants hadn’t encroached at all.
The use of chemicals so close to the river worries Bernstein, but he’s also worried about people who walk their dogs on the path and the small garden the club planted near the area sprayed.
“No signs were posted before or after,” Bernstein said. “I’d like to know what kind of herbicide they used.”
Club members have complained to city agencies and contacted their local representatives.
“Everybody’s pissed off out there,” Bernstein said.
Calls to the Parks Department and Department of Environmental Protection were not returned in time for this report.
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