Site Management Plan, Environmental Assessment, Draft, Fort Wadsworth, Gateway National Recreation Area, New York New Jersey

National Park Service

Fort Wadsworth, on Staten Island, New York, is within the boundary of the National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area. Fort Wadsworth is significant within the national context of coastal defense and for the protection it provided our nation's most important harbor. The site represents the evolution in philosophy and technology of American military strategy from 1794 through 1945, when technological advances weaponry rendered coastal defense a less pressing military concern. After 1945 the site illustrates the changing role of former coastal defense facilities through the Cold War and up until the wholesale base closures of the 1990s. Fort Wadsworth was identified in the 1972 legislation that established Gateway National Recreation Area. At that time Fort Wadsworth was an active military installation under the jurisdiction of the US Army, and the 1972 legislation stated that Fort Wadsworth would be transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) when the military vacated the site. After the U.S. Army vacated the site, the U.S. Navy occupied the site until the naval station was decommissioned in August 1994. The U.S. Navy still owns and has been managing the site in a caretaker capacity since August 1994 pending transfer of portions of the site. Expectations are that in 1995 most of the site will be transferred to the National Park Service and some portions of the site will be retained by units of the U.S. Army Reserve and the U.S. Coast Guard. However, the details of this transfer and the actual transfer have not yet taken place. In 1979 the National Park Service completed a General Management Plan for Gateway National Recreation Area (NPS 1979). The plan provides broad recommendations for Fort Wadsworth and calls for more detailed site planning upon transfer of Fort Wadsworth from the Department of Defense to the National Park Service. In preparation for implementing the 1972 legislative directions and 1979 General Management P!an recommendations, the National Park Service has located the Staten Island unit superintendent and a small administrative and maintenance staff at the site, and some funds have been delegated to the site to direct the planning and transition efforts and prepare the site for initial visitor use. After the transfer, the Park Service will seek funding to do even more to make the site available to visitors and preserve and protect the resources, and plans need to be made fur further protection, preservation and visitor use of the site. The purpose of this Site Management Plan / Environmental Assessment is to describe alternatives for this longer-range and more detailed plan. The document describes two alternatives for site management and analyzes and compares the potential effects of implementing each alternative on the site and neighboring communities. This plan will provide policy direction and guidance for visitor use, cultural and natural resource management, appropriate levels of development, and operations at Fort Wadsworth for the next 20 years.