Newsday from New York, New York • 42

Phone Items to (718) 520-0505 CANAffSIE.Public Hearing On Paerdegat Basin Water DOWNTOWN Chancellor To Address Teacher Seminar The 18-month, $2JS-million prqject was started in August, 1986, and the planning is for completion in January, 1986. "This first phase of the prqject is structured to work with the community to select the best, most environmentally sound and cost-effective plan to solve the water quality problem and achieve state -water quality standards in the basin," said DEP Commissioner Harvey W. Schultz. Paerdegat Basin a 114-mile-long rfi.wwl that empties into Jamaica Bay and borders the communities of.Canarsie, Flatlands, Bergen Beach. Mill ml Georsetown.

It is one of 18 tributaries identified by the PEP' as having' significant water quality problems. Like other tributaries, the basin ia beset by the presence of combinerd sewer overflows after heavy rains and poor tidal flushing of inlet The city Department of Envionmental Protec-tion will hold its second public h-ving on the Paerdegat Basin Water Quality Facility Planning Project at 7:30 p.m. Oct 29 in the auditorium of PS 276, 1070 E. 83rd St At the meetihg.the DEP will present proposed engineering plans reduce sewage overflows now polluting Paerdegat Basin, discuss the upgrading of the Paerdegat pumping station at the head of the basin at Ralphg and Flatlands Avenues and review the' Overall progress of the project and related public participation. A discussion session with community members will follow.

Schools Chancellor Nathan Quinones will speak at an Open House-Career Day Seminar for teachers and prospective teachers at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 28 in Room 116 of the Library Learning Center of Long Island University. Six hundred Brooklyn educators are expected at a conference Oct 30, cosponsored by LIU and the State Education Department" There will be 20 workshops dealing with effective leadership, time management parent involvement and other factors in achieving excellence in education. The conference will be flan 8:30 am to 8:80 p.m.

in the Conference Hall df the Humanities Btdlding. For more information, call (718) 403-1103. BROOKLYN CLOSEUP FMo by Jobs Muo Pier A In Battery Park, which is to be the site of a $3-milllon visitors center. Projects in Brooklyn are to be funded through the same bond Issue. Funds to Make Parks Better, If Not Bigger NEWSOAY, MONDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1987 A fa-million visitors center for Pier A in Battery Park in Manhattan ig among the prqjeets to be financed with $6.4 million in state parks funds that recently became available.

The money, the first to be disbursed under the states 1986 Environmental Quality Bond Act, also will go to prqjeets in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Staten Island. The funds were part of $21.6 million awarded to urban parks prqjeets statewide. The act established a fiind for the cleanup of toxic waste sites and set aside an amount for park acquisition or improvement. Under the act, citiee around the state are entitled to apply for Parkway in Brooklyn. The path is part of a city environmental groups proposal to create a 45-mile greenway across Brooklyn and Queens linking the Atlantic Ocean to Long Island Sound, said the city Parks Departments deputy commisioner for planning, Diana Chapin.

A $900,000 chunk of the state funds are to go toward the purchase of 23-acres along the Bronx River. The city hopes that eventually all the land along tire river will be parkland, Chapin said. The land is now a mix of city owned proper-tv and Drivate residences. And $700,000 is to be uaed in Staten Island to buy a house built in 1843 and four acrae of land that will Hnk Lemon Creek Park to Lemon Creek, said Clara Beckhardt, regional director of state parks office. However, critics of the proposals, including Councilman Sheldon Lsffler (D-Queens), chairman of the Environment Committee, said that city administrators sought fluids for the wrong prqjeets.

They said the city should have limited the proposals to land acquisition and not included such things bike path improvements, mon-ay for which could have come from the city tree- sury. Le flier's committee was not consulted about the choices, he said." City parks administrators said they have applied for fluids for improvements because 'such prqjeets were already in the works, while few acquistion prqjeets exist. To justify fluids for acquition the city must present a long-range plan, which it now does not have, officials said. A report last month by the Mayors Open Space Taskfprce recommended that the tity develop a plan to acquire new parkland. But the critics said the tity administration should have acted faster on land acquisition plans.

Lefflar said there was little money in the mayors 1987 budget for land acquisition, but plenty for things such as the bike-path project. Tom Fox, director of the nonprofit Neighborhood Open Space Coalition, also panned the projects because federal and tity money already exist for some improvements, he said. Fox said the state rejected suggestions his group had made through the tity to buy small parcels in a variety of neighborhoods. City Parks Commissioner Henry Stern defended the prqjeets. "Theae are the states decisions on applications we submitted, he said.

"We asked for what there was a need for, and we are very happy with what they chose. money either to purchase public recreation or to improve current parklands. The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation selects the prqject to be funded. The $3 million is to go to build the visitors center on Pier A at Battery Park, and a smaller center aboard a 150-foot Surry dry-docked at the 00 South Street Seaport Both are to be part of the Harbor. six city parks planned for New.

Yon The Board of Estimate has approved the six-park prqject, but it still must peas, the City Council. Some $1.88 million will be uaed to restore 2.75 miles of the 20-mile Surre Bikeway along Shore ULi -UJ- zir-rnr ili IMU I i lit) Si.