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Hackensack Meadowlands

Ecoregion in NJ, NY

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A portion of New Jersey’s Hackensack Meadowlands continues in New York State on the west side of Staten Island. The Meadowlands occur in a former Pleistocene glacial lake basin that contains a mix of salt, brackish, and freshwater marshland, freshwater ponds, brackish lagoons, and tidal creeks. Sand, muck, and peat deposits once supported Atlantic white cedar swamps and floodplain forests of pin oak, red maple, and swamp white oak. Today, cattail, phragmites, and saltmarsh cordgrass dominate the remaining marshy areas in the heavily disturbed Meadowlands. Much of the original marsh has been ditched and diked, burned, filled for industrial and commercial development, or used for landfills. Development pressures continue despite the fact that the Meadowlands provide a critical feeding area for migratory waterfowl and shorebirds along the Atlantic Flyway. The region is recognized as having national ecological importance by state and federal environmental agencies.

— EPA

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