Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visits Bronx’s Roberto  Clemente State Park to launch Urban Waters program 

The Urban Waters Federal Partnership is a new initiative to create local jobs and bring nature to Americans in cities

BY DANIEL BEEKMAN 
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, October 30 2011, 4:05 PM

ED ANDRIESKI/AP

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar visited the Bronx’s Roberto Clemente State Park in Morris Heights on Friday, to launch the New York component of the Urban Waters Federal Partnership, a new initiative to create local jobs and bring nature to Americans in cities.

President Obama’s natural resources czar swapped the Beltway for the Bronx to highlight new federal efforts to improve life along the Bronx River and Harlem River.

U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited Roberto Clemente State Park in Morris Heights last Friday to launch the New York component of the Urban Waters Federal Partnership, a new initiative to create local jobs and bring nature to Americans in cities.

Waving to young boaters rowing past the park, he also announced that restoring public access to the Harlem River will be among 100 projects nationwide to benefit from the President’s Great Outdoors program.

“For so many decades, people turned their backs on the rivers of

America,” said Salazar. “We want to rediscover them.”

He toured the park with U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano (D-South Bronx), who has allocated more than $30 million since 1990 to restore the Bronx River.

Serrano said the Urban Waters Federal Partnership was partly inspired by the success of local groups working to clean up the Bronx River.

The waterway was severely polluted decades ago but now boasts beavers and herring.

Environmental advocacy related to the Bronx River has spawned community projects throughout the borough, said Serrano. “The Bronx River is a huge success,” he said. “The Harlem River is next.”

The federal government’s emphasis on Bronx waterways is just beginning, but the Department of the Interior has already made a splash in the borough.

Salazar brokered a meeting on Oct. 14 between Amtrak and the state Department of Transportation to help resolve a problem related to the Bronx River.

The rail company and the DOT have squabbled for years over a segment of the Bronx River Greenway, a new walking and bicycling route that must cross an Amtrak rail line.

Meanwhile, the Harlem River Working Group, a coalition of community groups along the waterway, is preparing plans for a greenway along the Bronx bank of Harlem River as well.

The federal government has yet to commit funds to the restoration of the river, but Chauncy Young, coordinator of the working group, called the flood of attention to the river “awesome.”

“We need more programs that get people out on the water," said Harlem River boater Javier Diaz, 22. "We need to clean up the river.