CNY ecoBlog

TCE testing has just mushroomed across the state as the DEC revisits hazardous waste sites looking for toxic soil gas. Here’s an example from today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin, TCE hunt expands in city:

BINGHAMTON —The long, slow search for hazardous chemicals under a neighborhood on the north side of Binghamton literally broke new ground this [...]

From Sunday’s Post-Standard, Tim Knauss reports on the rising mercury levels in sediments analyzed in Glacial Lake at Clark Reservation State Park in Jamesville.

Glacier Lake at Clark Reservation State Park, in Jamesville, is an ideal barometer for measuring mercury that falls out of the atmosphere, according to Charles T. Driscoll Jr., a mercury [...]

In an effort to push the Federal government to adopt more stringent mercury emission standards, New York is entering a regional pact with six New England States.

From MSNBC/AP
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a draft plan intended to cut smokestack mercury emissions to the point that all New York fish are safe to [...]

From the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin:
ENDICOTT —When health officials found that a polluted area in the village had a disproportionately high rate of premature births and certain cancers, it raised more questions than answers. Was pollution making people sick? Were factors other than pollution—such as smoking or occupational exposure—responsible? Were women living in the area [...]

Sunday’s Post-Standard had this article on lagging production Maple Syrup locally.
The temperature must be in the low 20s at night and the low 40s during the day for the sap to flow. Warm weather in early winter caused the season to start late, in mid-March instead of mid-February. The fluctuations of very cold and very [...]

The Rochester D&C has a series of articles and interactive sites on vapor intrusion in the region.

One of the latest public health concerns involves a new problem at old locations: toxic vapors that could rise from long-known dump sites.

In recent years, environmental and health officials in New York and around the nation have [...]

The biofuel discussion vaguely reminds me of the “biosolids” debate. In the attempt to make the spreading of municipal waste on agricultural land sound more palatable, the sludge was renamed “biosolids” (There is a great little book detailing this story and similar attempts at PR misinformation: Toxic Sludge is Good For You).

There is nothing [...]

A conflict is brewing over the Seneca Army Depot in Romulus and two different visions of economic development. And while I’m all in favor of developing alternative energy sources, I’m nonetheless pleased that there is a group vehemently advocating protecting this rare herd of white deer.

Group fears proposed biomass plant in Romulus would endanger [...]

Sunday’s Post-Standard has some decent coverage on the local impacts of Global Warming on upstate New York. (I’ve copied the entire article by Delen Goldberg for archiving below). The print edition also has a half-page insert, “Central New York, Take Note” tabulating a range of local impacts due to global warming that is [...]

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “has concluded for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950” (February 3, 2007, NY Times). Predictably the report has generated controversy from both [...]