State Constitution Evoked in Lawsuit Against Two Bridges Luxury Public Housing Mega-Development

 

StreetsblogNYC

A controversial development that has been tied up in court for more than six years ago is now facing yet another lawsuit from residents of the Lower East Side and Chinatown — this time arguing that the Two Bridges mega-project will infringe upon the new constitutional right to clean air and water in a low-income community of color that already suffers from high rates of asthma.

The latest lawsuit was filed last month by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund on behalf of 12 plaintiffs from the Lower East Side and Chinatown, and Council Member Christopher Marte, who represents the area.

Marte says his constituents face enough pollution and exhaust from the FDR Drive, and that construction of the planned towers along the East River would result in more fumes, while also unearthing toxic chemicals from old petroleum tanks that sit under one of the development lots. 

“This construction is gonna really hurt a lot of the people who historically have health issues. This area is an environmental justice neighborhood that’s already had to bear the brunt of development,” said Marte. “Their whole livelihood, where they go to school, where they go for a walk is going to be a construction site.”

But is a super-dense development atop an already toxic site what the so-called “green amendment” to the state constitution was meant to block … or to allow?

Just one year ago, environmental attorneys and activists pushed hard for Proposition 2 — also known as the Green Amendment — on the November ballot, arguing that it would give New Yorkers legal standing to stop the environmental harms caused by highway expansions or the placement of waste transfer stations. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, supported by 69 percent of state voters.

For many, the purpose was obvious: stop environmental degradation.

“Say there was a defined pollution hotspot with a heavy volume of diesel-truck traffic — the community could petition to the City Council to ask for relief,” Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of Environmental Advocates NY, told Streetsblog at the time. “The government would then have to weigh [the] individual right to breathe air that doesn’t cut lives short or make people sick. If they ignore the plea, people can say, ‘I’m taking you to court. I think you’re violating my right to clean air.’”

The lawsuit against the Two Bridges project is the first in the five boroughs to cite the green amendment, though others have already been filed upstate, including against the permitting of a waste transfer station in upstate Cayuta.

Similar green amendments exist now only in Pennsylvania and Montana, but there’s been no parallel suit against a development project in those states, according to Maya van Rossum, founder of the Pennsylvania-based Green Amendments For The Generations, which helped write and pass New York’s law.

As such, there’s no way to know if courts will rule against urban development — which by definition is far more polluting than, say, an open field of trees — or rule in favor of urban development on the grounds that dense housing with limited parking is far better for the environment than suburban sprawl, over which there is very little environmental oversight.

To lawyer Jack Lester, who is representing the plaintiffs, the green amendment is clear.

“It enshrines in law the right to every citizen of New York State to have environmental justice,” said Lester, who is also suing on behalf of plaintiffs hoping to stop the SoHo/NoHo rezoning. “The development at that location will destroy both air quality and statutory mandates for air and sunshine. It will set a precedent that developers must abide by constitutional rights.”

But others are pushing back, saying the lawsuit is part of a kitchen-sink effort to defeat an affordable housing project and, worse, could set a dangerous precedent for other much-needed projects. And as feared, that it’s a perversion of the amendment by NIMBYs who are not invoking it in good faith. 

Words from Tenantnet who sent this here:

Jack Lester? Is he even still alive?
Guess where DSA is on this? (I'm blocked so I can't see it-JQ) What about Lincoln Restler? What about Cea?
Of course, this BS is in TA's Streetsblog

Correction: Streetsblog is run by Open Plans. And it's hilarious and also very expected that this yellow journalism digital rag (since when did they do stories about real estate, oh wait, this is also about the parked car menace they bloviate about) and the Demorcat Fauxcialists of America would support something like this that's highly antithetical to what their alleged environmental platforms are about. Didn't know the Green New Deal included cloud piercing iron and glass luxury beanstalks.-JQ LLC

 

College Point sewer dirt finally removed

  

Queens Chronicle

 Just two months ago, a pile of potentially contaminated, excavated dirt stood at least three stories high at 119th Street and 20th Avenue, towering over Flushing Bay.

Now, it seems, the pile, is gone — but only after the state Department of Conservation issued nine different violations to city Department of Design and Construction-hired contractor EIC Associates for its failure to adhere to environmental protection guidelines.

Community Board 7’s environmental chair, visiting scientist and faculty member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution James Cervino, who not only filed complaints with the state but also with the Environmental Protection Agency, is thrilled.

“They got the pile down to a manageable minimum,” Cervino said. “[That’s what happens] when the DEC comes in.”

The pile’s disappearance comes after the Chronicle reported extensively on the environmental concerns at the site in question. Cervino credited the change in large part to the Chronicle’s work.

The site is part of the College Point sewer update, a project that has been ongoing for more than five years now, and had effectively functioned as a transfer station for demolition dirt from the entire 20-block project.

That excavated material was found to have contained creosote timbers, which can be harmful when in contact with soil and water, which, considering its proximity to Flushing Bay, raised some red flags.

When the Chronicle previously asked Joseph A. Branco, a founding partner of EIC, whether the site was a transfer station, he said, “What we have is the materials that are disposed of [for the whole project], every two or three days, we have materials going out. I mean, these are the excavated material[s] going out, but it’s not a transfer station, per se.”

EIC could not be reached for comment for this story.

Since the Chronicle last reported on the issue in mid-February, a DEC spokesperson has said that the site is not a transfer station, as the permits issued for the project do not allow for one.

However, the Chronicle also obtained documentation of the alleged DDC and EIC violations at the 119th Street location. Among the nine different violations are a “substantially inadequate” Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan. More specifically, that violation notes that the “construction staging/stockpiling area” is not in the SWPPP.

Down in the hole

 

 THE CITY

Clement Bailey didn’t know what to expect when he moved from Flatbush just as the city shut down in March 2020

He’d bought a two-family house in The Hole, a low-lying neighborhood wedged between South Conduit Avenue and Linden Boulevard that straddles the border lines of East New York, Brooklyn, and Lindenwood, Queens.

Some call it the “Jewel Streets” neighborhood, for thoroughfares with sparkling names like Sapphire, Emerald, Amber and Ruby. But the area sits below the city’s municipal sewer network. With swampy flooding, septic seepage and illegal dumping, the atmosphere is lackluster.

“I can’t stand these conditions, honestly. I’m not used to living like this,” said Bailey, 29. “Everything inside the house is pretty peaceful, but when you step outside the door, you have to deal with all the water issues, the garbage issues. It’s not really appealing.”

A construction worker, he bought the house for his mother and sister to live in. But his mother died last year, and so he’s been living there with his sister.

In The Hole, many homes aren’t serviced by the city’s sewers and instead use septic tanks, which tend to overflow when there’s rain. There are no stormwater drains, so Bailey and his neighbors often navigate lakes of standing water in the streets. Abandoned vehicles sit in empty lots. Paved roads are inconsistent. Strewn trash abounds.

And it’s been this way for decades.

Plans to address the issues have long been stuck in the muck: Twenty years ago, the Giuliani administration proposed elevating the streets and installing sewers in the area. The plan’s been included in the city’s capital budget for at least two decades. Yet nothing was ever done. The most recent “request for proposals” on the project went out in 2019, but remains on hold, according to the Department of Environmental Protection.

Endangered Spaces

New York Times 

Don Riepe pointed to the line on the wall five and a half feet above his kitchen floor. That was where floodwaters reached during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

His home, a humble two-story wooden structure, is decorated with nautical maps, horseshoe crabs and assorted maritime paraphernalia. It sits right on Jamaica Bay, with a small dock at the water’s edge, where he moors his 22-foot boat. He has a spectacular view of the east end of the bay with the spires of Manhattan in the distance.

Mr. Riepe, a former manager of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, considers himself blessed to be surrounded by nature and still have all the perks of a big city a subway ride away. But he knows his neighbors’ time there may be coming to an end. During his four decades living in the area, Hurricane Sandy was the worst Mr. Riepe has seen; the flooring and all the electrical appliances on the first floor of his house were destroyed. Since then, during lesser storms and even high tides, he moves his computer and furniture upstairs, where he sleeps — and he hopes for the best.

Mr. Riepe is just one of tens of thousands of residents who live on the wild fringes of Queens, in communities like Hamilton Beach, Edgemere and Howard Beach, where the ocean threatens to encroach as sea level rises and coastal storms intensify owing to climate change. It is also the focal point of a major environmental restoration project that aims to protect the area — and in fact the whole city — by returning salt marshes and sand dunes to their natural states. How this will affect the community of Broad Channel (the only inhabited island in Jamaica Bay) remains to be seen.

Already, Mr. Riepe’s neighbors are scrambling to adjust to their new climate-changed reality — moving their cars to higher ground on high-tide days, and in some cases converting their ground floors into garages and shifting their living quarters upstairs and out of harm’s way. One thing that they are not yet prepared to do, however, is move out.

 

Crains New York 

Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, one of the most frequently flooded green spaces in the city, is getting a comprehensive plan on how best to adapt Queens’ largest park to climate change.

This month a congressional spending bill green-lit a $530,322 grant for the Waterfront Alliance to lead a climate resilience plan for the 897-acre park. Those federal dollars, which Queens Rep. Grace Meng requested from Congress last year, will enable the alliance to develop a road map of infrastructure projects and priorities to stymie prolific park flooding, which is only expected to worsen with increasingly heavy rains and sea level rise.

After heavy rainfall, it’s common for huge puddles to transform park basketball courts and fields into ponds for days. Overflow from both Meadow and Willow lakes frequently engulfs trails, making the park a challenge to navigate. Hurricane Ida laid those challenges bare with torrential rains that flooded the park and overflowed onto the Van Wyck Expressway and Grand Central Parkway, which spurred emergency rescues for drivers trapped on the roads.

That’s nothing compared to what’s on the horizon. Without upgrades, much of the green space, which is a former tidal wetland, could be permanently inundated by 2080, the New York Panel on Climate Change said.

Karen Imas, vice president of programs at the Waterfront Alliance, said the city must ensure the park is “prepared for our climate future.” The best way to do that, she said, is by developing a plan with those who know the park best.

“This is really an opportunity to work hand in hand with the community in and around the park and with city agencies to identify what are the greatest hazards and vulnerabilities, and how they can be addressed,” Imas said. That will likely be through a mix of projects, including wetland restoration, bioswales and revamped sewage infrastructure, she added.

 

 

 

Odorama drama in Howard Beach

Queens Chronicle  

Linda Miranti decorated most of her house for Christmas already but now she does not know if she will be able to have her family over for the holidays, or if she will even be there herself, because of a strong stench that has filled her home and wafts through the air around 88th and 89th streets in Howard Beach.

Starting around Nov. 10, Miranti’s home, especially her garage and the front of her house, has had a strong odor of what she thinks is methane.

She said it gives her migraines and nausea and makes her skin itch. “I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve been so sick,” said Miranti, a 75-year-old grandmother. “Everything is an effort. I can’t live like this.”

She has been sleeping on the couch in the back of her house just to escape the smells and her son has been pushing her to stay with him but she is reluctant to leave.

Miranti’s neighbors experience it too, but it is not as bad in their houses as it is in hers. When her next-door neighbor, Barbara Smith, walked into her house, she noticed the odor right away, despite all the candles lit and cleaning Miranti has done to try to mask it.

“How do you stay down here?” Smith asked her. “I’m literally dying,” Miranti responded.

Miranti has lived in Howard Beach for 47 years and said she has never experienced anything like this. People are used to smells from the nearby bay but this is different, she said. She and Smith wonder if it could be related to the work being done near Spring Creek Park off of 165th Avenue.

Miranti has made several calls to 311 that were referred to the Department of Environmental Protection, and National Grid and the FDNY have come but no gas leaks or sewer blockages were detected.

Miranti is not alone in her persistence. Nicole Bruno lives on the next block and has been experiencing the same thing.

“I’m going on four weeks of calling multiple times, as well as most of the people on my block,” said Bruno. “They just don’t come or can’t fix it.”

“I can’t even open a window. If I do, it absorbs the whole house and you get headaches. It’s disgusting — you shouldn’t have to smell sewage,” said Bruno. “You know, all this money we pay to live here.”

 

It's not easy building green

THE CITY

New York buildings are slowly becoming more energy efficient — but with nearly half earning Ds or Fs on city report cards, many are still struggling to make the grade.

That’s the conclusion of THE CITY’s analysis of preliminary data obtained from the city Department of Buildings, offering a glimpse into the grading system’s second year — even as the pandemic skews typical energy usage patterns.

Across the city, nearly 20% of buildings 25,000 square feet or larger received A grades, compared with about 16% in 2020, the data shows.

Like last year, lackluster Ds proved the most popular grade, though the share fell from 44% in 2020 to about 39% this year. And over 9% of buildings — up from about 7.5% last year — earned Fs, meaning the building owner failed to submit data to the city.

Overall, more than 20,000 buildings — from pre-war apartment complexes to skyscrapers — were graded. Poor grades carry no penalties, but failing to post the letter marks could mean a $1,250 fine.

Environment boosters saw reason for hope in the latest collective report card.

“Building owners care so much. We’ve never seen anything have as high an impact,” said Donnel Baird, CEO of the company Blocpower, which upgrades buildings for improved energy efficiency, mainly through electrification. “Even the threat of fines has not created as much of a reaction as these letter grades on the front of the buildings.”

On a per-borough basis, Manhattan’s building stock had the largest share of As compared to all its grades: 23%, up from almost 15% in 2020, when the borough came in third behind Brooklyn and Queens.

Gina Bocra, DOB’s chief sustainability officer, attributes the overall improvement to the visibility of the energy efficiency information, which motivates property owners to do better.

“Owners have been acting on that information, so the transparency is working, and we’re getting them to be more familiar with what’s happening in their building,” Bocra said. “They’re beginning to make alterations to the building to change what’s happening there.”

The grades and the focus on energy efficiency are part of the city’s effort to slash greenhouse gas emissions from buildings — the city’s largest source of emissions — 40% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 80% by 2050 in the race to mitigate climate change.

Governor Kathy shuts off the gas

 

NY Post

Siding with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the environmental left, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday killed two proposed natural gas-powered projects in Queens and upstate Newburgh.

State Department of Environmental Commissioner Basil Seggos said both proposals failed to comply with the state’s “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” to reduce carbon emissions.

Power company NRG said the project would retrofit its 50-year-old natural gas-burning plant near the Robert Kennedy/Triborough Bridge and claimed it would cut polluting carbon emissions.

The Astoria plant is called a “peaker” facility because it provides needed additional power to the electric grid during peak usage, such as during summer heat waves when millions of New Yorkers blast their air conditioners.

“Our review determined the proposed project does not demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The proposed project would be inconsistent with or would interfere with the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits established in the Climate Act,” Seggos said in a statement denying the permit.

“Astoria NRG failed to demonstrate the need or justification for the proposed project notwithstanding this inconsistency.”

Seggos rejected the Danskammer Energy Center’s proposed natural-gas powered project in Newburgh on identicial grounds.

Hochul hailed the action taken by her environmental agency.

“I applaud the Department of Environmental Conservation’s decisions to deny the Title V Permits for the Danskammer Energy Center and Astoria Gas Turbine Power, LLC in the context of our state’s clean energy transition. Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, and we owe it to future generations to meet our nation-leading climate and emissions reduction goals,” the governor said in a statement.

The proposed project is in the district of Ocasio-Cortez and state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) — opponents of the project .

Ocasio-Cortez, a proponent of the Green New Deal to phase out carbon-spewing fossil fuels, rallied against the Astoria power plant, which would burn natural gas produced by fracking, during an Earth Day celebration in April.

“We’re not going to allow our water to be compromised. We’re not going to allow our air to be compromised,” the congresswoman said.

NRG, in a statement, called Hochul’s decision a mistake, saying there are “not enough renewable resources” to “keep the lights on in New York City today.”

“It’s unfortunate that New York is turning down an opportunity to dramatically reduce pollution and strengthen reliable power for millions of New Yorkers at such a critical time,” said Tom Atkins, NRG’s vice president of development.

“NRG’s Astoria Replacement Project would have provided immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and would have been fully convertible to green hydrogen in the future.

This is not a wetland: demonstration at Cuomo's office announced

The cutting down of the trees has begun. We are no longer asking for help. We are now demanding a stop to this insanity! In this age of climate change and sea level rise, torrential rain storms and storm surges, and with the city talking about resilience for shore line communities, why are they destroying the only resilience this black, brown (60% to 70%), elderly, disabled and low income community has? When Granitevillle loses its forested wetland, we will not only be at high risk of flooding and asthma, COPD and other illnesses from toxic air and water pollution but this loss will also create a heat

island effect, which means higher temperatures in this community than before the forest was cut down. I just now received an alert on my cell phone to reduce energy use or we will have energy disruptions.  This is the new normal. This is also madness!

CWF will demonstrate in front of Governor Cuomo's office in Manhattan. Join us! Here are the details:

Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Time: Gather at 4:30 pm. Demonstration begins at 5pm

Location: 633 3rd Ave, Manhattan, between 40th St and 41st St

Bring signs and banners

Bring family, friends and your organizations and join us in demanding justice for these vulnerable communities. Stop the destruction of the Graniteville forested wetland.

Links to photos:  (What is as of now)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/KR9Lcy1VPFBXir7h7 [photos.app.goo.gl]

and

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UFrNa5Mb4wKC6uAt6 [photos.app.goo.gl]

 

Jamaica Bay protection bill passes in Albany, awaits singature from Mario's son

 

QNS 

 Two Queens lawmakers applauded the passage of their legislation that would protect the pristine waters of Jamaica Bay, which has become home to marine life not seen in decades.

Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato and state Senator Joseph Addabbo vowed to navigate the measure through both chambers of the Legislature for a fourth time after Governor Andrew Cuomo vetoed the bill three times in past legislative sessions.

“The priority and necessity of this bill is clear. My colleagues in the Assembly see the value of this bill, and the importance of protecting our environment,” Pheffer Amato said. “Both houses have passed this bill for three sessions in a row, only for Governor Cuomo to veto it. It’s more important than ever to invest in Jamaica Bay and ensure that our standards are up to the highest standards, and we can never turn back.”

The legislation would increase the standard of dredging materials placed into Jamaica Bay’s borrow pits which are also known as a sandbox. It is an area where material such as soil, gravel or sand has been dug up for use at another location.

In his last veto statement on the bill, Cuomo said the legislation would change the criteria for filling Jamaica Bay borrow pits to comply with the federal criteria for the unrestricted ocean dumping of dredged material, which is not applicable to Jamaica Bay. Under the legislation, the state Department of Environmental Conservation would be required to utilize more restrictive and costly federal ocean dumping criteria to test the materials instead of DEC’s existing standard.

City and state officials have had it with the Rockaway pipeline

  

Queens Eagle

Over two dozen New York City leaders have urged the federal government to kill a controversial pipeline project that would run underneath the waters off the Rockaway Peninsula. 

The proposed Williams Northeast Supply Enhance Pipeline, or Williams Pipeline, would deliver fracked gas from Pennsylvania to New York city via a tube underneath New York Harbor. The plan was rejected last year by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation. 

In a letter Wednesday, Comptroller Scott Stringer, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and State Sens. Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., Jessica Ramos and James Sanders called on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Richard Glick to also reject the Williams Pipeline once and for all. The pipeline would move the city and state further from achieving its climate goals, they said.
“We take climate change seriously, as we have already lost loved ones here in New York City to climate-fueled superstorms and heat waves that caused death, illness, debt, and scarcity,” the leaders wrote. “For our constituents and for the future generations who will live with the consequences of allowing the Williams Pipeline to be built, we urge you to deny Williams’ request.”

The letter cites Glick’s own condemnation of the initial FERC approval of the project in 2019, when he said that declaring the pipeline safe “fails to give climate change the serious consideration it deserves and that the law demands.”

On March 19, Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company requested a two year extension to kickstart the project. The 17.4-mile-long, 26-inch diameter connection would transport fracked gas under the Atlantic Ocean off the shores of Rockaway Beach.

The letter cites the emissions impact of the gas being brought into the city once burned, new FERC recommendations that take into account the effects of transporting the gas  — like methane leaks — and climate justice for the city’s most vulnerable communities.

“We will not allow the racist legacy of environmental and climate injustice to continue by building infrastructure that will increase the amount of polluting fracked gas in our city,” the letter continues

 

FAA gives approval for LaGuardia Air Train construction to commence

 

Queens Chronicle

An environmental study released Monday by the Federal Aviation Administration appears to have cleared the way for construction of an AirTrain route to and from LaGuardia Airport.

In signing the document approved, David Fish, director of the Office of Airports for the FAA’s Eastern Region, wrote that “after careful and thorough consideration of the facts contained herein ... [I find] that the proposed Federal action is consistent with existing national environmental policies and objectives ... of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969.”

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is seeking to build the link between LaGuardia and the Mets-Willets Point stop on the No. 7 subway line, needs FAA approval in order to access federal airport improvement funds.

The agency, with Gov. Cuomo’s backing, says the project is needed to decrease travel time between LaGuardia and Midtown and Downtown Manhattan.

Residents in and around East Elmhurst and environmental organizations have opposed the plan, which would construct the elevated rail along the Flushing Promenade.

Their objections include loss of parkland, the impact of noise, vibrations and traffic during construction, and the visual impact of a raised structure along the Promenade and Flushing Bay.

The FAA is expected to issue its final record of decision in 30 days. If approved, major construction is expected to begin in March 2022, with limited work beginning as early as this June. It is estimated that the system would be fully operational by December 2025.

The entire 628-page report, including a 46-page executive summary, can be read or downloaded online at lgaaccesseis.com.

Cuomo doubles down against Jamaica Bay dredging bill

 

QNS

 Earlier this month, Governor Andrew Cuomo once again vetoed a bill sponsored by state Senator Joseph Addabbo and Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato aimed at increasing the standard of dredging materials that are placed into Jamaica Bay’s borrow pits.

The two-part bill would end the sunset clause on the original bill to protect the bay, so it would be permanent law in New York state instead of being voted on every two years. It also seeks to change the criteria for filling the Jamaica Bay borrow pits to comply with federal Ocean Dumping Act criteria.

“Even though the governor vetoed this bill again, I intend on reintroducing it next year and then continue to negotiate with the state agencies,” Addabbo said. “After seeing the incredible improvement of the water quality of Jamaica Bay, with advocates saying the bay is the healthiest it has been in decades, and with the reemergence of marine wildlife to the area, Assemblywoman Pheffer Amato and I believe the sunset clause on this bill should be removed and it should be made permanent.”

Borrow pits, also known as a sandbox, is an area where material such as soil, gravel or sand has been dug up for use at another location. In a veto statement, Cuomo said the legislation would change the criteria for filling Jamaica Bay borrow pits to comply with the federal criteria for the unrestricted ocean dumping of dredged material, which is not applicable to Jamaica Bay.

“The battle is not yet over,” Pheffer Amato said. “While I am disappointed that Governor Cuomo has vetoed this crucial legislation for the protection of Jamaica Bay, I’m looking forward to the restart of the legislative session so we can reintroduce this bill, and work with Senator Addabbo and the governor’s office to finally get this through the finish line. I also want to thank all of the advocates that have tirelessly worked on behalf of Jamaica Bay, and let them know that our work is just beginning.”

 Believe the science and know the facts, but only when it's expedient for Mario's Son

Cuomo the fisherman allows dumping in Jamaica Bay

Yes, folks instedda workin, Gov Cuomo decided to veto legislation that would have protected Jamaica Bay from dumping because...drumroll...he wants DEC to be able to dump in it.

Last year, State Senator Joe Addabbo and Assembly Member Stacy Pheffer-Amato passed legislation to extend sunsetting environmental protections in place for the Bay:

In his veto statement, Cuomo said the legislation would change the criteria for fill Jamaica Bay borrow pits to comply with the federal criteria for the unrestricted ocean dumping of dredged material, which is not applicable to Jamaica Bay.

Under this bill, the Department of Conservation would be required to utilize more restrictive, and costly federal ocean dumping criteria to test the materials instead of DEC’s existing standard, and further, the legislation would make this enhanced standard permanent, Cuomo continued.

“The increased costs and time associated with the bill’s required fill standards will impact the availability of applicants with high-quality material for use as fill, which is critical for the restoration of these pits. This bill would make the procurement of this material, and in turn, the achievement of revitalization goals for Jamaica Bay extremely challenging, if not halt restoration altogether.”

Translation: We have to further contaminate the Bay in order to save it.

The bill was reintroduced and passed again, but the outcome was the same.

GOVERNOR CUOMO VETOES JAMAICA BAY PROTECTION BILL ! Looks like Governor Cuomo has vetoed the Jamaica Bay Protection...

Posted by Jamaica Bay Ecowatchers on Friday, November 27, 2020

This session, if the bill is passed again, it will likely survive Andrew "follow the science" Cuomo as there is now a veto-proof majority in the Senate.

Comptroller Stringer rejects federal seawall plan for city

The Forum

 City Comptroller Scott Stringer on Friday fired off a four-page letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers condemning their plan to construct offshore storm surge barriers in New York Harbor.

In the letter, Stringer castigated the corps’ proposal for not adequately protecting coastal communities from the threat of sea level rise and associated flooding. The Comptroller’s letter also highlighted the long construction timeline associated with the storm barriers and their high cost estimate — noting that the largest of the options outlined in the proposal would take a quarter of a century to build out, cost six times that of shorefront resiliency options, and endanger the delicate ecosystem of the harbor including the region’s network of marshes and wetlands that are critical to mitigating storm surge.

Stringer said he is calling on the agency to implement an integrated and environmentally-conscious approach that’s focused on onshore resiliency measures including localized floodwalls, dune and wetland restoration, living shorelines, reefs, and levees. Stringer’s missive noted that this approach was the only way to protect the city from rising sea levels, storm surge from non-catastrophic weather events, and increasingly catastrophic storms in the future.
 
The letter follows a May 2019 report published by the comptroller, “The Costs of Climate Change: New York City’s Economic Exposure to Rising Seas,” which exposed substantial underspending of federally-appropriated Superstorm Sandy recovery funding that the City had not yet allocated to protect vulnerable coastline communities including only 57 percent of a combined $14.5 billion in federal funds. The report concluded that lagging spending posed a threat to the 520 miles of coastline citywide, which is estimated at a combined property value of $101.5 billion within the city’s current 100-year floodplain map — marking a more than 50 percent increase in value since 2010.

“There’s no question about it — a future Superstorm Sandy will come and New York Harbor will bear the brunt of it. Too many of our waterfront communities are all too vulnerable to the next storm, or even the next high tide,” Stringer said Friday. “I am urging the Army Corps of Engineers to get shovels in the ground on shorefront resiliency options like floodwalls, dune systems, wetlands, and levees that can protect New Yorkers and their livelihoods. Lives are at stake, homes and businesses are on the line, and futures hang in the balance. We need to act with urgency, plan strategically, and build out resiliency efficiently in the era of climate change, because time is not on our side.”

Debate, consternation and trepidation over fracked gas pipeline from Rockaway Beach to the Jersey Shore

From NBC:

Environmentalists and clammers are challenging a natural gas pipeline that would serve Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island. Brian Thompson reports on the heated debate.

Glendale residents raise concerns of soil contamination from Superfund site.

 

QNS


State agencies briefed the public on Monday about a Glendale superfund site that will have another round of remediations in the near future after the toxic PCE has been determined to be no detriment to public health.

The Department of Environmental Conservation and the Department of Health held a meeting on March 11 in a small room of the North Forest Park library where residents complained that they were not properly notified of the contaminants beneath the soil in their community.

But DEC claimed there was little chance the public could be breathing the chemical since it is deep underground and a study of 10 homes in 2006 showed no sign of PCE in the air – an admittedly small size – but that 30 year project would flush the soil of the contaminant.

“We should have had flyers coming to our house, we should have been informed by you people,” one attendee said. “Nothing.”

This is why there’s nobody here tonight, nobody knows,” another person said, with many attributing QNS for learning about the meeting.

With most of the contamination up to 100 feet below the surface at the deepest parts, DOH does not consider soil vapor intrusion to be an issue for a few reasons: because although the PCE is concentrated in the ground water, there is a layer of clean water between the chemical and the surface; homes are not at risk because the foundations, unless there are crack in the pavement, will seal out the vapors; and there is no risk of people ingesting PCE because the surrounding communities are on the municipal system which is supplied from upstate.

But Robert Nardella, 78, however, maintained concern about his home after the presentation because of the claim by DEC that the underground plume had migrated west at a shallower level and pointed out that some residents may have dug wells on their property over the years as a means to water their lawn or fill above-ground pools to get around water restrictions.

“Why is it being addressed again?” Nardella told QNS. “I was confused as to why this is coming up again when they did everything to minimize our concerns, you know, saying there was no more vapor and that it’s going deeper and deeper into the ground.”


Nardella was also concerned about his home, which was built in the early 1930s which just have wood floors over dirt in the basement, offering no protection from possible soil vapor intrusion.
“There are still many homes next to that site that have dirt over a wood floor, mine included,” Nardella added. “If there are any vapors coming up, I don’t have any protection.”

Councilman Holden's bill for mandatory lead inspection and prevention passes.

 Queens Chronicle

 
Last April, Councilman Bob Holden (D-Middle Village) held a red flag and declared a CAC Industries lot a “red flag site” after learning that a sewer main project in Middle Village was stalled late in 2017 after high levels of lead were found in the soil.

On Wednesday, Int. 1063 passed the City Council, which requires any city development to provide notice to the relevant Council member and community board within five business days of discovering or becoming aware of a hazardous level of lead in soil.

The bill is Holden’s first to pass in the City Council.

“Increased transparency between city agencies and the public is a value that I campaigned on and I’m pleased to see this bill accomplishing that,” he said in a statement.

The soil that had been excavated during the Penelope Avenue sewer work was sitting in a yard leased by CAC Industries across the street from PS/IS 128, a K-8 school. The dirt had been sitting uncovered at the site until a tarp was eventually placed over the mounds.

In April, Holden took aim at the Department of Design and Construction, saying, “If they knew this was contaminated, to leave it uncovered is criminal. To leave it uncovered across from a school is more criminal.”

The discovery about the soil was made after CAC Industries, the project’s contractor, tried to bring the dirt to a dump but management there declined to take it after a visual inspection.

Testing revealed lead levels in the dirt mounds between 300 and 600 parts per million, exceeding the federal limit for bare soil where children play.

Eventually, the soil was removed and relocated to a facility in New Jersey.

 “It is common sense that local officials should be notified of any dangerous contamination so they can help inform and protect their constituents,” Holden said in his statement. “There is no excuse for carelessness that this bill will correct.”

Other bills in the package address lead-based paint hazards, lead testing in water, blood lead screenings, childhood lead poisoning prevention and the availability of lead hazard testing.

NYS DOT Kew Gardens Interchange and Urban Forest Denuding in Progress

Greetings Assemblywoman Rozic,

During a drive-by on Friday 1 March 2019 of the Phase 3 NYS DOT Kew Gardens interchange Project  I was absolutely shocked and appalled of what is viewed as the most egregious denuding and wholesale logging operation of recent years in central Queens by NYS DOT of our invaluable urban trees.   The actions of NYS DOT planners and engineers and that of their contractor Halmar is the deliberate elimination from the landscape of hundreds of invaluable large urban trees that have served as a vital buffer between the highly traveled and congested Union Tpke and the Grand Central Parkway (GCP) from the neighboring residents and community- now lost.  More removals of large trees are targeted in forthcoming weeks, eliminating the term "parkway" from the GCP.  I am sure you find this action by DOT similarly shocking.  And you should be shocked, if for anything but for the full range of human health and environmental benefits that these trees once provided and with significant ecological and monetary returns delivered for nearly a century.   

 

 What has occurred here is unacceptable especially at a time that so much is known about the urban tree organism as they exist in densely populated urban areas.  Current tree science has revealed that urban trees are vital to healthy living, improve and enhances quality of life, sequesters vast tonnage of carbon annually, captures harmful particulate matter (PM2.5) from vehicle exhaust etc.  That trees directly deliver these benefits to people, the environment and as habitat and to have been ignored by key players from NYS DOT is a testament that nothing has changed about environmental awareness, sustainability and resiliency in the City of NY or by the State for the Boro of Queens. It is business as usual.  

 

It is hard to imagine that an Environmental Impact and Analysis Statement by Region 11 NYS DOT that would have been required for this project for Queens did not set off alarms about the consequences by the loss of such massive volume of important tree canopy. But classic in its methodology and by indifference NYS DOT has fully ignored the importance of our urban trees, and instead has chosen to plundered what is our only important living natural resource across our urban space.  

A kind request that you inquire with NYS DOT for a copy of their project Environmental Impact Statement specific to the wholesale elimination of all of these public trees within the project footprint and pursue a halt to the ongoing denuding so that alternative design plans are able to reflect effective tree preservation rather than wholesale logging.  There is also legitimate purpose to pursue on behalf of the constituency and their "public trees", a restitution of the full value of the individual trees now removed along with the quantifiable dollar amount of the future benefits and services that those trees are no longer able to deliver.    

Bear in mind, that these large veteran trees can never ever be replaced..

Thank you and I await your reply.  

Carsten W Glaeser Ph.D. 

92 year old retired high school teacher defeats bad Bloomberg and Parks Dept. plan

 

NY Curbed

In the frigid February of 2009, Mickey Cohen was on the road to the 50-acre Ridgewood Reservoir on the border of Brooklyn and Queens before most New Yorkers had their morning coffee. He’d park his car near one of the reservoir’s three basins, gingerly rappel down a 30-foot drop into the chasm, and hike into the otherworldly wetlands.

During these trips, the certified wetland delineator unpacked his gear and drilled into the soft earth, lugging the two-foot cores out of the ground and examining them, in part, for traces of plant species that no longer grow there—a sign of wetlands that once existed. After hours of tests, he’d warm up in the sun and pull out a mystery meal packed by his wife, Barbara. There, in his sunny spot eating lunch, he might gaze out at the gray-blue pond—still as glass—and admire the landscape, home to dozens of species tucked among the reservoir’s golden meadows, thickets, and canopies of tree branches.

It was a practice he repeated for several days as a coalition of groups called the Highland Park Ridgewood Reservoir Alliance prepared an application urging the state grant protected status to the wetlands within the reservoir.

Cohen was 82 years old at the time. Today he is 92. “Even then, I was too old for that kind of work,” the naturalist and retired high school biology teacher muses. “But it had to happen.”

Cohen’s volunteer work of mapping the wetlands inside the Ridgewood Reservoir that month was a key component to the 2010 application—a major step in the lengthy struggle to obtain protected status for the natural oasis.

Now, after more than a decade of advocates fending off development and fighting for protections, the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has classified 29.5 acres of the reservoir’s wetlands as Class 1 under the Freshwater Wetlands Act, state documents show. The ruling virtually assures the reservoir’s survival for generations. 

 Today, it is a haven for wildlife with lush swaths of native birch, sweetgum, and honey locust trees. The landscape boasts a handful of habitats—forests, fields, wetlands—and makes an ideal spot for wildlife watching, with more than 150 bird species, including the endangered short-eared owl. 
 

But a plan by the Parks Department threatened the accidental wilderness. The agency, which acquired the reservoir from the Department of Environmental Protection in 2004, considered a $50 million plan to raze part of the reservoir for ball fields. Community activists, naturalists, and preservationists railed against the project, urging the city to abandon its plans.

“There was this, ‘Wait a second, why aren’t you taking care of the things you already have here?’” says parks watchdog Geoffrey Croft, the president of New York City Park Advocates. “‘Who asked you to destroy this really unique space?’ And the answer is nobody did.”

 Admin note: this news item and headline was sent by proxy by the Mighty Crapper. 

Solar panel owner rooked out of rebate

From NBC 4:

A Queens consumer now produces more energy than he uses thanks to his new solar panels. But he still has a problem. Lynda Baquero reports.