What a super trooper!
A Greenpoint Boy Scout led a team of locals volunteers in beautifying the Williamsburg shoreline on Sunday as part of his quest for the ultimate scout’s honor — the Eagle Scout badge — and the young outdoorsman said the project went off without a hitch.
“Everything was one fluid motion,” said 17-year-old Liam Creegan. “There were no problems, no one got hurt — everything just flowed.”
Creegan decided to dedicate his Eagle Scout service project — the final hurdle for scouts in obtaining the coveted rank — to improving East River State Park after noticing it had no plant life along the water and nothing to protect it from junk that washes up on the shore.
He worked with the park’s manager to put together a plan to sow a fresh row of sea grass as well as a barrier to protect it.
Creegan rounded up 21 volunteers for the undertaking — a handful of family members including his Eagle Scout brother Eric, plus local Williamsburg scouts, and members of his own Troop 469 — to drive stakes into the sand with cement cinder blocks and wrap them with netting that will block the water and wind off the river.
Creegan and his crew will return in a few months to add the plants — a picturesque improvement that will benefit the entire community, he said.
“What we did was more pleasing to the eye,” said Creegan. “After planting the sea grass, it’ll be great.”
The Boy Scout board of review still needs to evaluate the project — and Creegan’s leadership in running it — to determine whether he will get his badge.
But the nature lover said either way, he and his fellow scouts had a great time giving back to the community, and he is confident their efforts will do wonders for the park by preventing the tide from beating down the shoreline.
“It’ll really help the park and it’ll stop erosion,” he said. “Overall, I think it was a great project.”
