Bergen Basin

About

Bergen Basin is a tributary inlet to Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York, at the northern extremity of Grassy Bay, along the western boundary of John F. Kennedy International Airport. The airport was built on the marshes of Jamaica Bay surrounding Bergen Basin in 1942. Bergen Basin was previously known as Bergen's Landing Aqueduct or Bergen Creek.

Originally Bergen Basin had been fed by a stream that emerged from the ground near 131st Street at Conduit Avenue. Bergen Basin is about 300 to 350 feet wide along its entire length and under 20 feet deep at mean low water. The Jamaica Water Pollution Control Facility discharges into Bergen Basin. The Interstate Sanitation Commission (ISC) reports that it discharges an average of 82.8 million gallons per day of secondary treated wastewater. It is classified as an estuarine subtidal open waters permanently flooded by tidal water. The entrance is marked by buoys. Conspicuous are a yellow brick circular tank about 40' high on the SW side of the entrance, and the numerous oil storage tanks at the head of the basin on the east shore. Coastal tankers and sand-and-gravel barge tows account for most of the commerce in the basin.