CNY Environment: 2014

Monday, December 22, 2014

Onondaga County Fishing Website

Onondaga County's new, $35,000 website dedicated to fishing is up and running, but county officials don't plan to promote it until the county Parks Department "conducts a final review."
Sarah Powers from the Parks Department attended a recent meeting of the county Fisheries Advisory Board. She presented the latest version of the fishonondagacounty.com website and took input from advisory board members.

According to published minutes from that meeting, board members noticed a few minor descrepancies, but were "generally quite pleased with the site and congratulated the Parks staff members who had compiled the information for the website."

Read more on Syracuse.Com

Friday, November 14, 2014

Central New York Environment News Nov 7- 14

Nov 14, 2014

Residents in CNY town avoid possible $38,500 daily fines by signing sewer agreement

From Syracuse.com; A group of residents from the town of Onondaga have avoided county and state fines of $38,500 a day by agreeing to create a new sewer district.

The deadline to sign the agreement to form the sewer district to avoid fines for Whedon Road residents was today.

On Thursday, Ron Ryan, the town's code enforcement officer, had 43 percent of the assessed value of properties agreeing with the new sewer system. He needed 51 percent to move forward.

Late Friday afternoon, Ryan said he had secured 63 percent approval, or 23 of the 34 affected homeowners. Click here to read more

OCRRA approves 20-year renewal of trash plant contract, will burn 9 percent more

Nov 12

The public agency that owns Onondaga County's trash-burning energy plant today approved a 20-year contract extension with operator Covanta Energy Corp. that calls for burning about 9 percent more garbage, an extra 30,000 tons a year.

The deal, approved unanimously today by the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency board of directors, will increase pressure on Onondaga County to import garbage from Cortland County under a proposed "ash-for-trash'' agreement.

Under the ash-for-trash deal, Onondaga County would import 25,000 tons of garbage from Cortland County and send ash residue from the OCRRA facility to Cortland's landfill.

click here to read more on Syracuse.Com

Round Up of Interesting National and International News Articles

Saving the Salton Sea -
A mandate body of water, and its drying out and If its not saved - "Over 30 years, the cost of inaction, the Pacific Institute report argues, will be $29 billion to $70 billion." read more:
http://nyti.ms/1uUSKXK

Fishermen in Brazil Save a River Goliath, and Their Livelihoods TEFÉ, Brazil — As the howler monkeys roared near this outpost in the far reaches of the Amazon rain forest, Valdenor da Silva grasped his harpoon and guided his canoe through the dazzling floodplain mosaic of lakes and channels in a quest for his prey. “The river giants are plentiful this year,” said Mr. da Silva, 44, a father of eight who puts food on his family’s table by hunting down the pirarucu, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish. Flashing a smile, the fisherman, standing 5 feet 7 and weighing 160 pounds, added, “Every pirarucu I’ve harpooned this season is bigger than I am.” read more. http://nyti.ms/1sFNpNq

Desalination Plan Draws Ire in Rockland County

By JOSEPH BERGER

Opponents of a $150 million plant that would convert the saltwater of the lower Hudson River into drinking water say the project is unnecessary and potentially dangerous.

Politics, Elections and Lost Money for the Environment Effort

Nov 6, 2014 Meager Returns for the Democrats’ Biggest Donor

By CORAL DAVENPORT

Tom Steyer, the billionaire environmentalist who spent at least $57 million of his own money to influence Tuesday’s outcome, appears to have largely wasted his time and money.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

County Amphitheater Hearing 7/23

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD

ON THE COUNTY’S LAKEVIEW AMPHITHEATER PROPOSAL

PUBLIC HEARING WEDNESDAY 7/23, 11AM

What: Tell the County that the public needs more time to review the lengthy and complex proposal for the Lakeview Amphitheater project. Attend the public hearing and ask for:

1) an extension of the public comment period on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement to 90 days

2) at least 2 additional public hearings accessible to working people

When: Wednesday, July 23rd 11AM

Where: Onondaga County Court House Legislative Chambers (Room 407, 401 Montgomery St, Syracuse)

Background: Onondaga County is planning to construct an amphitheater with covered and lawn seating (capacity 17,500 people) atop a massive industrial wastebed site (“Wastebeds 1-8”, part of the Onondaga Lake Superfund site) on the west shore of Onondaga Lake. Before work can start, the County is legally required to evaluate the project’s potential environmental impacts. July 9th marked the start of a 30-day comment period for the public to read and provide input on the County’s highly technical, 654-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Only one public hearing (July 23) is scheduled. Citizens for a Better Plan, a growing coalition of civic and environmental groups, is calling for the County to extend the comment period and provide additional hearings to provide citizens more opportunities to weigh in and ask questions about this publicly-funded project.

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Lakeview Amphitheater can be accessed at: http://www.ongov.net/environment/amphitheaterdocs.html.

Can’t make it to the public hearing? Please send an email to the Onondaga County Legislature and County Executive Mahoney: http://www.citizenscampaign.org/alerts/alert-2014-07-d.htm

from : The Law Office of Joe Heath has drafted the above announcement about tomorrow's public hearing for widespread circulation - please feel free to use or edit as you wish. The text

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Environment History

How were the Ancient Persians and Modern Japan were impacted by a powerful wave of energy

Be sure to take quiz at end

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Monday, March 24, 2014

Cats and Birds

Excerpt

What’s driving this trend is a growing sense of alarm about the dramatic decline in wildlife, and especially bird, populations, combined with a new awareness that cats bear a significant share of the blame.

The National Audubon Society tracks 20 common North American bird species — Eastern meadowlarks, field sparrows and the like — that are now in decline. Their numbers have dropped by 68 percent on average since 1967, because of a variety of factors. In Britain, likewise, farmland bird populations have plummeted just since 1995, with turtle doves, for instance, down by 85 percent, cuckoos by 50 percent, and lapwings by 41 percent.

If these were stock market numbers, people would be leaping from buildings. But the peculiar thing about what biologists have called “the second Silent Spring” is that people tend not to hear it.

Read Op-Ed in NYTimes