History:
The name "Kill Van Kull" has its roots in the early 17th century, when New Jersey was part of New Netherlands and New York was part of New Amsterdam. Kill comes from the Dutch word Kille meaning "riverbed", "water channel", or "stream". This can be found in names all over Staten Island, from Fresh Kills, to Great Kills. Kill Van Kull translates as "channel from the pass". The name of the nearby Arthur Kill is an anglicization of achter kill, meaning "back channel", referring to its location "behind" Staten Island.
If you are at GZ you are standing next to Faber Pool on what was once the home of the Faber family. The Faber family is also known as the Pencil Kings for they opened the first lead pencil factory in the United States. That land was purchased in 1906 by the Department of Water Supply and Gas and later the area was placed under parks jurisdiction in 1928.
Tidal Straits:
The Kill Van Kull is a tidal strait between Staten Island NY and Bayonne NJ. Approximately 1,000 feet wide. Straits are narrow but navigable waterways that connects two larger bodies of water. In this case the Kill van Kull connects New York Upper Harbor with Newark Bay and is one of the most important channels for the commerce in the region, providing a passage for ships to the train yards on the main land off Newark Bay. This is a Tidal Strait which means the water is affected by the Tides of the Ocean, so every day the level of the Kill lowers and rises significantly due to the tides effecting when the larger cargo ship can or cannot make the passage.
The Palisades Underwater?
Do you know Palisades Cliffs or Sill in NJ, up near the George Washington Bridge? The Palisades Sill is composed of Diabase, a rock formed from cooling magma pouring up from the earth’s core during the time Pangea was ripping apart into the land masses we know today. As the earth ripped open, the magma would come up and fill the gap, millions of years later, the soft rocks around the sill eroded away exposing the Diabase sill or rip.
The Palisades Sill actually starts on Staten Island, borders the Hudson River along NJ, back into NY and ends in Pomona NY, near Harriman State Park. The Kill van Kull crosses over the Palisades sill. When the glaciers where melting, the runoff water feeding into Newark Bay and the Hudson River has enough force to rip open what is today the Kill Van Kull and the Verrazano Narrows.
Drudging:
The sea floor of the Kill van Kull is mostly a flat layer of sediment, sand and silt, and black sludge, but there are still some protrusions of the Palisades Sill sticking up from the floor. The tidal current of the Kill Van Kull does not erode the glass like Diabase very fast so humans interfere with nature to prevent the ever larger and larger ships from bottoming out as they pass though the kill.
At any given time you are likely to see a dredging ship in the Kill. These ships mostly scoop up the black sludge build up on the Kill floor and barge it out to the ocean. Some time they will do under water blasting to remove any exposed Diabase they find. From the 1960 to 1990, the Port Authority of NY and NJ tried to keep the depth of the kill at 47 feet. In 1997 the Army Corp of Engineers started a massive drudging project to deepen the whole Kill to 52 feet. This meant exploding the Palisaded Sill which is the underlining floor of the Kill. This was so destructive to the area around it that the cars would drive up and down the nearby blocks with mega phones warning residents before the blast. It was not uncommon for window on buildings to crack during these explosions. This dredging project was completed successfully in 2014.
Pollution:
The local paper once reported the Kill Van Kull was so polluted that it might never come clean. It was little more than an open sewer. Back then, the Kill was taking in over 6 million gallons of sewage every day.
In the early 1900 despite the pollution pouring into the kill, this body of water was a popular swimming spot for many locals trying to escape the heat of the urban summers.The park you are standing in now is part of Faber Pool opened in 1932 to provide children with a safer alternative to swimming in the polluted waters of the Kill Van Kull. Until recently this was one of the only public access points to the Kill Van Kull for Staten Islanders. Today the North Shore Greenway plan as opened up several other public access points. See other caches in this series for more info on the North Shore Greenway.
Today’s Pollution:
Today the flow of pollution has slowed, and nature has taken its course, ultimately improving the condition of the Kull. The water is classified as Class B, not suitable for swimming or drinking but it is approved for recreational boating, kayaking, jet skis and other short term contact activates. With new regulations on industry, and municipal sewer systems, the pollution being added into the water is lessened. The Fresh Kill Landfill has been shut down and is transformed into wetlands and an estuary and the city is opening up many other smaller wetlands along the shores of Staten Island all helping nature to clean the water. Wild life is being reintroduced as well, most notable is the Oyster.
Wiles Life Restoration:
Oysters were the keystone to the original ecosystem of the Kill Van Kull. They provided valuable ecosystem services to the region by filtering water, providing habitat for other marine species and help protect the shore line from erosion. Today, oysters are functionally extinct in the Kill. Restoring oysters and their reefs will, over time, restore the local marine ecosystem’s natural mechanisms for maintaining itself, resulting in cleaner water and greater biodiversity.
These Oysters Reefs are also very important to the geology of the Kill. As you do this cache series you will see section of the abandoned North Shore Railway, and you will see that the majority of it has falling into the kill. This is due to land erosion. Every day as the tieds push water in and pull it back out the force pulls dirt, rock and land with it making the Kill wider. The Oyster Reefs that should form along the banks of the kill would take the brunt of the erosion and help protect the land behind it.
Fish:
Many people think that because of the pollution most of the fish have left or died off, but that is far from the truth. In 1999 a study was published using data from the past 10 years and it showed that almost 70 different species of fish from 47 different families still live in the Kill. On top of fish, sharks, skates, whales and dolphins were found passing through on regular schedules. Some of the most common fish are the Alewife, Weakfish, American eel, Blueback Herring, Atlantic Tomcod, Striped Bass, Bluefish and the Northern Pipefish.
The Atlantic Tomcod is scientifically special since the fish has seemed to evolve to thrive in polluted waters containing high levels of PCB. This chemical has been known to deform fish or turn them sterile, but the Atlantic Tomcod now depends on it for survival.
To Log this Earth Cache, please e-mail me the following info:
1 - From GZ what are some signs of shore erosion that you can see?
2- Is the Shore line at GZ natural or man-made?
3 – What are some causes of water pollution that you can still see today?
4 – The water levels in this Tidal Straight change through out the day, let me know what time of day you visited and how many feet from the rod iron fence the water level is? At high tide the water has been known to splash over and at low tide it can be over 20 feet away.
Please do not post answers in your Log.
Optional: Post in your Log
5 - Post a photo from GZ, I don’t need a photo of your GPS but instead use your artistic abilities with the Kill van Kull as the background, have fun!
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Congratulations:
FTF: Dawnaic
STF: Rant
TTF: SynDaLog