The Coalition for Wetlands and Forests (CWF), founded in August 2020, strives to protect the Graniteville community on Staten Island, particularly focused on safeguarding the Graniteville Swamp, including vital wetlands, which played a crucial role in preventing flooding during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. When these wetlands are destroyed and replaced by impermeable surfaces such as parking lots and big box stores, water has nowhere to go, causing extreme flooding. In turn, fresh waterways are polluted, endangering residents.This predominantly Black and brown community sits in harm’s way. As encroaching development threatens, CWF demands the state Department of Environmental Conservation to conduct comprehensive Environmental Impact Statements and ensure public participation. Uniting, energizing and mobilizing Graniteville residents, CWF uses community organizing, expert analysis, and legal assistance to preserve the wetlands – as the wetlands have preserved their home for centuries.
Forty-four people died in NYC during Hurricane Sandy – no one died in Graniteville. It was protected from flooding by the 30-acre Graniteville Swamp. Despite its obvious value to life and property, the wetland was later targeted for use as a strip mall. Though co-founder Gabriella Velardi-Ward and hundreds of CWF members partnered with the Sierra Club, Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, Natural Resources Protective Association, and other environmental groups to prevent development of the wetland, more than 1,700 trees were downed in 2022. If development continues as planned, parking spaces and stores will cover absorbent soil, replacement trees will have but a fraction of the water-absorbing power of the large trees that have been sacrificed, and Graniteville will almost certainly flood. CWF continues to fight hard for Graniteville, and they ask an important question: “Why is it that we who are poor, working class, struggling middle class and/or of color have to absorb all that is not wanted elsewhere?”
David Rothenberg Photograph