Daily News from New York, New York • 181

ancfA CI Albany llll May Preserve Cove By ROBERT LANE Embattled residents of the Powells Cove area on the Queens North Shore are seentirg victory in their long struggle to save their precious wetlands from landfill burial by bulldozers. Their hopes lie with egislation introduced in Albany that would permanently block development of the cove and neighboring shoreline by creating wet- nre-erve. The fight has ranged from a i land underwater along the shore- several councilmen and Board of Will Rockaway Fall A-sweep in the Deep? By MARY FLAHERTY It's the same story as last spring. Only worse. That's plan to buiM a high school on Estimate members charged that the 1 5 involvement of a r.iys- Mayor Lindsay had failed to in- ttr." whom the resi- itiate the school projects are particularly wary.

proved in previous budgets. Outcry Over School Manes Is Adamant Public furor broke out in De- nj Pnnnrilman Edward the way Deputy Parks Commissioner Theodore Mastroianni describes the Rockaways' losing battle against the ever-pounding ocean along part of its three-mile beach. "And the condition is getting worse," Mastroianni warned, looking ahead to the coming season. "We need from to just to put uacK sana on the beach from about Beach 87th St. to Beach 103d the area of worst erosion.

And we have not got one cent of that. "There's no prospect now of getting the money from city, state or federal government. "We don't know what to do. If we get any severe storms during the rest of the winter or in the spring, more of the beach may be destroyed. Not only the beach, but the boardwalk and the roadway." The sea water is lapping sround the boardwalk supports at high tide and going under the boardwalk, hitting the seawall beyond which lies Shore Front Parkway in this sector of the Rockaways, according to Mastroianni.

Some stairways from the boardwalk to 7 -when the City's Site, Selection Board chose that cove to build a $1.2 million, Mid-Queens High School. The project would fill in the cove a natural wetlands between Whitestone and Malba. Residents protested that pood alternate sites were available at the College Point Industrial Park, the Gutman Swamp and the Garden World site in Bayside. The high school question brought the community's concern over the cove's fate to a peak. The unified protest had been sharpened in earlier fights against illegal landfill operators.

Residents had also been battling efforts made in the name of a so-called "mystery woman" to fill and grade land at Powels Cove for private development. "This area is a principal resting place for waterfowl during the winter months and has been so designated by the Bureau of Fish and ildlife and the Department of Environmental Conservation," said Heinz Rohr, president of the Malba Association of Whitestone, a group that has fought development in the area for 10 years. Rohr said the high school would destroy the area's last remaining natural wetlands. He cited the additional taxpayer expense that would be necessary for building access roads and providing adequate public transportation to the out-of-the-way site on the East River near the Whitestone Bridge. Late last month, City Council members from Queens joined in a move with Borough President Manes to block construction of the high school.

Instead, they urged that funds in next year's capital budget be used to begin building Intermediate School 44 in Rockaway and an athletic field for John Adams High School in Ozone Park. In endorsing the IS 44 project. ici. at that time to balk the bite Selection Board's approval of the Powell3 Cove site and find an alternate spot. The site board is controlled by Lindsay appointees, posing a challenge if the mayor insists on the board's plan for the cove.

But, in a move that could be the clincher for the Manes-led opposition, Assemblyman John Lopresto (D-Flushing) introduced legislation in Albany calling for the creation of a wetlands preserve in the area, which would automatically block the building of the school there. Lopresto said the bill has a good chance of passage in the Assembly because it has the support of the entire 20-member Queens delegation. In presenting his bill, the young legislator blasted the Lindsay administration for consistently trying to force residents of College Point and Malba to subjugate their community's welfare to wanton and unnecessary public projects" such as the high school which "the community neither wants nor needs." Wide Area Affected Under his legislation, the lands, wetlands and waters within and surrounding College Point, Shorefront Park, the entire College Point shoreline, including all of Powels Cove, Fort Little Neck Bay, Udalls Cove and Alley Pond Park, would be condemned for preservation under the Northeastern Queens Nature and Historical Preserve. Powells Cove and the acres of undeveloped shoreline on either side of it have an ecological battleground at least as far back as 1968. Assemblyman Leonard P.

Stavisky (D-Beeehhurst) and State Sen. Jack E. Bronston (D-Jamaica) were successful in their efforts to block passage of three bills that would have transferred uuuuup uy insisting mai, il by East New York and lost its identity. "We want to tell the city that we are a unique community with our own individual problems," said Shutz. "The President's Council was formed so that the civic and community organizations in the area would have a strong block to determine what happens here." The City Planning Commission lists Spring Creek as an area south, of Linden "between Fresh Creek and Old Mill Creek," much of it city-owned tidal marshland adjoining Jamaica Bay.

A r.nmter of existing and planned developments in the com- line to private interests. In 1970, a certain Elizabeth P. Rockman, the "mystery woman," sought permission to fill and grade for future housing, an area she owns on the shoreline. Community groups pleaded with the U.S. General Services Administration to reject her application on the grounds that any interference in the cove's natural setting would menace navigation and threaten the migratory birds and other wildlife attracted there.

The application was denied, but by the Attorney General's Office, not General Services. Attorney General Louis J. Lefkowitz said the application was defective because Elizabeth P. Rockman had not served public notice of intent by advertising her plans in a newspaper. Actually, notice of intent had been published in an issue of The Ledger, a Little Neck weekly, but the publication- is not circulated in the College Point area and residents called it a deliberate attempt to decieve the public.

Her Next Move Awaited While the Rockman plan seems to be quiescent, some community residents feel the "mystery woman" who has escaped intensive efforts by civic leaders and legislators to identify her might be waiting for a chance to make another move Residents are highly curious as to whether the name of the mystery woman is a front for backers who would rather not have their names made public. "She apparently hides behind lawyers and real estate firms who refuse to identify her or divulge her whereabouts," said one resident. But a civic leader claims to know her: "We've discovered who she is and we're just waiting to see what the next move made in her name may be before we act." Unless and until Assemblyman Lopresto's bill is passed in Albany, residents of the area say they will maintain a constant vigil over their shorefront to protect it from interests they regard with deep suspicion. on the ue caueu opnng ureeK. munity would incorporate Spring Creek in their names.

Starrett City, a middle-income project now under construction, would become Starrett City of Spring Creek. About 24,000 people are expected to move in when it is completed in 1974. The complex will contain almost 6,000 apartments in 43 buildings on 150 acres off the Belt Parkway west of Kennedy International Airport. Rents are expected to be about $45 a room. Urban Revolution "Our community is a microcosm of the urban revolution in America," said the Rev.

William O'Leary, pastor of St. Laurence Church in Spring Creek and a member of the President's Council. "This is a growing community with a good ethnic and economic mixture of people," said the priest. "We are a community crying out for healthy growth. We are not a dying community.

The new name is symbolic of the new spirit and growth here." Next week, Brooklyn Borough President Leone will issue a proclamation at a dinner-dance at St. Laurence Church calling for a reaffirming of the name Spring Creek. Robert Lane Way A New Spring Creek Is i I not suffered any personal injury -daar i Years ago, the community of Sing Sing changed its name to Ossining to avoid association with a prison. Now residents of an East New York community are trying xi i i i I i Incoming tide washes in under the Rockaway boardwalk at this point. the disappearing beach have been washed away or damaged and parts of the seawall cracked, he said.

"It has cost us a lot of money to go in and make repairs," Mastroianni said. At present, 25 of the beach's 134 stairwells are closed, mostly because sand has been eaten away from under them. The Parks Department is planning to send a crew of carpenters within a few weeks to make repairs and put on extra steps, where necessary, to stretch the stairwells far enough down to wash the sand. Will the added steps survive against the hungry sea's onslaught? "I couldn't answer that," a Queens parks official said. "Were dealing with the elements.

The ocean is a mighty force." The public is permitted on the beach, but during the season there will be "Danger" signs at certain stairwells where, it is feared, water could be three to four feet deep at the bottom at high tid, Mastroianni said. Much is planned in tackling the erosion problem, but no money is available now, state and federal officials agreed. A multi-purpose project is planned by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Rockaway-Jamaica Bay area that would include a hurricane protection complex and a water purification plan for Jamaica Bay. The design is completed, but an investigation requested by the city in connection with improvement of Jamaica Bay's water quality is being made and will probably take another two years, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman said. Still another attempt to speed up attack on the erosion" has been proposed by the Jamaica Bay Council, a community group.

It suggests that beach erosion be made a single-purpose project, separate from the Jamaica Bay phase, and done on a state-local Eldred Rich, director of the Bureau of Water Management in the State Environmental Conservation Department, confirmed yesterday that he has been in contact with the city on this "single-purpose" proposal and will investigate the "possibility" of such an undertaking. Rich stressed there is "nothing definite yet." He also stressed that no state money is available now and he does not know what the next fiscal year, beginning April 1, will hold. He said there is a "possibility some money" might be available after April 1, but there still would not be time for the work to be done this spring or summer. With a state-local plan, the city would have to pay 30. of the cost.

One of the things, Mastroianni said, the Parks Department cannot understand is why it was turned down, about a year ago, when it requested federal emergency funs for beach erosion work in the Rockaways. "It's frustrating. We have a multimillion liar property and it's eroding in front of us," he said. He added that other cities in other states are getting 'small amounts of aid" from the federal government for their beaches. "But," he protested, "we are getting nothing." Parks Administrator Richard M.

Clurman disclosed his agency is 'intensifying" its appeals to Albany and Washington. "The drastic and continual loss of beach in the Rockaways is a calamity which can only be handled at the state or federal iu gi meir area an image have nothing against tne name lork, said Irving Shutz, chairman of the President's Council of Spring Creek, which represents 12 civic and community groups in the area. "But that name conjures up memories of race riots, poverty and blight. People are afraid to move out here." In reaffirming the name Spring Creek, the group wants to say that their area of East New York is a new, developing community and not a section of dilapidated tenements, The name Spring Creek, like the names of numerous other smaller communities within larger communities, is not new. Over the years, Shutz explained, the community has been absorbed levels," Clurman said.

"Furthermore, ending such dangerous conditions is clearly the responsibility of the state or federal BROOKLYN- if iHO "Luckily, so far, we have or loss of life or damage to private property. But the possibility that there will be further damage and greater harm hangs over the area.".