A battle is growing over the condition of a county-owned Long Island nature preserve that some describe as neglected, unsafe and in need of urgent attention.<\/p>\n
The sign leading into Brookside Preserve, a 20-acre park in Freeport owned by Nassau County, states the land is intended “for the enjoyment of nature.” <\/p>\n
But it has fallen into disrepair and become an eye sore \u2014 not to mention a public safety hazard, locals say, with garbage, broken walking paths and debris scattered throughout the property.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis looks like a war zone,\u201d said Jose Cuevas, who first noticed the extent of the problem while hiking in the preserve with his children. “I just couldn\u2019t get over it and I said \u2018You know what, we need to go, we cannot continue.’\u00a0And my kids were a little sad and they asked me, \u2018Dad, what happened here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Lifelong Freeport resident Erica DeVargas said the the space should be an open-space jewel for the community, but it’s far from that.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes we come across needles. We come across condoms. It\u2019s very disgusting,\u201d DeVargas said.<\/p>\n
Rather than simply raising complaints, Cuevas and DeVargas organized community cleanup efforts and created a nonprofit group. They say the organization volunteered to help maintain the preserve at no cost to the county.<\/p>\n
But Nassau County has yet to formally respond to the proposal for a partnership, despite repeated outreach over the past several years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came to the county with a simple offer: Let us take care of it and we\u2019ll do it for free,\u201d said county legislator Debra Mule.<\/p>\n
She voiced support for the residents, whose offer has been ignored by the county for almost three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be very frustrating, yes, because you go to other preserves in the area and they\u2019re getting all the attention it needs, and we\u2019re not,\u201d DeVargas said.<\/p>\n
The office of Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman did not respond to repeated requests for comment on Monday.<\/p>\n
Residents said they will continue their volunteer cleanup efforts, but stress that meaningful improvements will require action from the county.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the county doesn\u2019t want us, fine,\u201d Cuevas said. \u201cBut take care of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC New York. AI tools helped convert the story to a digital article, and an NBC New York journalist edited the article for publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A battle is growing over the condition of a county-owned Long Island nature preserve that some describe as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[776,774,5883,9,11,10],"class_list":{"0":"post-180333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-long-island","9":"tag-nassau-county","10":"tag-nature","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}