| 
Good Wednesday Morning.
Why we allow elected officials to run public hearings during the work-day is beyond me and there ought to be a law against such things but until there is, or until egalitarian representatives are elected to government, those who would seek to get over on the public will hold them when they know it's hard, if not impossible, for you to attend. Why do the business of the people when the people can be around to participate? We'll just mess stuff up, I guess.
 So goes Bob Bondi's public hearing on the recently passed Domestic Partner Registry legislation which will be held at 2PM in his offices on the third floor of the County Building in Carmel this afternoon. Thanks to all who have sent notices to their email and friends lists over the past few days. Even if we cannot get people out due to the intentional and unfortunate timing of the public hearing, the County Executive knows he's under a microscope and that his actions will be very closely watched.
If you can get away from an hour or so, this should be quite a show. But watch the guy: he has a way of saying one thing then interpreting it differently within whatever context is suitable for him at the moment - and I have the battle scars to prove it.
The Suozzi Commission is in the news again. Last week the Putnam County News, perhaps the best source in the county for local news reported:
"Shortly into the question and answer period, however, Suozzi's credibility - and the Commission's report - appeared to be seriously damaged when, asked to comment on the Cahill Bill, Mr. Suozzi said he didn't know anything about it. As the bill (Assembly Bill A04746, a school tax reform bill that would "make provisions for the state to assume all costs of basic quality education and for the elimination of real property taxes for the support of education.") was explained to him people could be heard commenting throughout the auditorium."
That was me doing the questioning and the explaining, by the way. There are also letters making their way into the editorial offices of newspapers across the region yet Albany is aloof to a real solution to our property tax problems and is still gaga over caps which will do nothing to solve the situation. Why is this no surprise? Until incumbent state reps face serious challenges in their home districts nothing will change.
As always, you can visit PlanPutnam.Org for a wealth of local information or to sign up for this (almost) daily newsletter.
And now, the News:
- No carp till fall as weeds hit Lake Carmel
- HV Tourism Launches "Everything Dutch" Website and Offers Free Maps in Celebration of Henry Hudson's 400th Anniversary
- The Cost Of Sprawl
- Bicycles, cars struggle to share the road
- Follow the Silt
- Sewage Right-to-Know Bill Passes House of Representatives
- New Jersey Dealing With Solar Policy’s Success
- Can Garlic Mustard Be Used for Fuel?
- Abandoned Farmlands Are Key To Sustainable Bioenergy
- Expert says worms and parasites drain U.S. poor
- Reporters Say Networks Block War Reports
No carp till fall as weeds hit Lake Carmel Michael Risinit
The Journal News
LAKE CARMEL - The water in the cove near where Kitchawan Road meets Lake Shore Drive East is beginning to look carpet-like and green. Other parts of Lake Carmel most likely will follow suit soon, as warm weather, excess nutrients in the water and a lack of weed-eating fish allow plant growth to flourish.
As the lake community in Kent gears up for summer, residents have received a letter from the town alerting them that their season may not be weed-free.
"I don't see it being different than last year," said Wanda Schweitzer, chairwoman of the Lake Carmel Park District Advisory Committee, referring to the 2007 summer, which was notable for the lake's weeds. "Until we get the carp in, it's not going to get any better."
That's not going to happen until fall. Since last year, Kent officials have been trying to replenish Lake Carmel's population of sterile grass carp. But the town and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, whose approval is required, were unable to agree on the design of a barrier meant to keep the weed-eating fish in Lake Carmel.
Read More
HV Tourism Launches "Everything Dutch" Website and Offers Free Maps in Celebration of Henry Hudson's 400th Anniversary In celebration of Henry Hudson's 400th anniversary of exploration and settlement along the Hudson River Valley, Hudson Valley Tourism has launched a special "Everything Dutch" website and is offering free maps detailing events and historic sites throughout the 10- county area.
By logging onto www.everythingdutch.org, visitors will be able to request their free maps and plan various excursions to a series of exciting events, historic sites, museums, gardens, art galleries, parks and more that depict the Dutch culture.
The Dutch influence is everywhere throgghout the Hudson Valley from the Dutch Reformed First Church of Albany, dating back to 1642, to the Knickerbocker Mansion, a 1770 Schaghticoke estate providing a unique example of early Dutch architecture. Fort Decker, located in Port Jervis, served as a home, military post and trading store for the descendants of Garretson Decker of Holland. The Dewint House in Tappan is the oldest surviving building in Rockland County, and served as George Washington's temporary headquarters during the Revolutionary War
Read More
The Cost Of Sprawl June 25, 2008 - Hartford Courant
If you weren't already convinced that sprawl is a major problem in Connecticut, how much are you paying for gas to drive to work?
Companies in suburban and rural industrial parks are now putting that question to prospective workers. With the price of gas well north of $4 a gallon, an employee facing a long commute to a job that pays $10 to $20 an hour might not net enough at the end of the week to make the drive worthwhile. By the same token, a company is reluctant to invest in an employee who may leave after a short time because of the cost of transportation.
The Courant recently reported that some companies are asking prospective workers to try the drive before committing to the job. This represents a sea change in Connecticut. The massive postwar move to the suburbs was predicated, more than anything else, on cheap cars and cheap gas. People and companies moved to distant subdivisions and industrial parks because they could drive. Now we reap what we have sown.
The imperative now is public policy that dramatically reduces our need for petroleum. Most of the state lacks easy access to public transportation. That has to change.
Read More
Bicycles, cars struggle to share the road Khurram Saeed and Steve Lieberman
The Journal News
Bicycle versus car. The roads remain the venue for the David-against-Goliath battle played out countless times every day on Lower Hudson Valley streets, from narrow single-lane roads snaking along the Hudson River to wide avenues through busy shopping districts.
Even though both bicycles and motor vehicles are entitled to use the road, their operators sometimes act like spoiled children and don't do a good job of sharing.
Most of the time they play nice, drivers and cyclists agreed, but sometimes ignorance of the law, as well as occasional malice, causes emotions to run high. Adding to the tension during summer weekends are the hundreds of New York City cyclists who invade Rockland and Westchester.
Read More
Follow the Silt By CORNELIA DEAN
LITITZ, Pa. — Dorothy J. Merritts, a geology professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., was not looking to turn hydrology on its ear when she started scouting possible research sites for her students a few years ago.
But when she examined photographs of the steep, silty banks of the West Branch of Little Conestoga Creek, something did not look right. The silt was laminated, deposited in layers. She asked a colleague, Robert C. Walter, an expert on sediment, for his opinion.
“Those are not stream sediments,” he told her. “Those are pond sediments.” In short, the streamscape was not what she thought.
That observation led the two scientists to collaborate on a research project on the region’s waterways. As they reported this year in the journal Science, their work challenges much of the conventional wisdom about how streams in the region formed and evolved. The scientists say 18th- and 19th-century dams and millponds, built by the thousands, altered the water flow in the region in a way not previously understood.
They say that is why efforts to restore degraded streams there often fail. Not everyone agrees, but their findings contribute to a growing debate over river and stream restoration, a big business with increasing popularity but patchy success.
Many hydrologists and geologists say people embark on projects without fully understanding the waterways they want to restore and without paying enough attention to what happens after a project is finished.
In part because most projects are local and small scale, it is hard to say exactly how much Americans spend each year to restore rivers and streams. A group of academic researchers and government scientists, writing in Science in 2005, put the figure at well over $1 billion, for thousands of projects. Efforts are under way to bring more academic rigor to the business.
Read More
Sewage Right-to-Know Bill Passes House of Representatives Tuesday, June 24, 2008
By: American Rivers
Landmark Bill Requires Sewage Treatment Plants to Notify Americans in the Event of a Sewage Spill
Contact: Mike Bento, American Rivers, (202) 291-3117
Washington D.C. - For far too long, Americans have been kept in the dark about the steady stream of untreated sewage that pollutes our rivers and lakes. Today, thanks to Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY) and Congressman Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), that could change. Lawmakers in the House of Representatives passed a landmark bill requiring sewage treatment plants to notify Americans in the event of a sewage spill.
“The safety of our water should never be a guessing game,” said Rebecca Wodder, President of American Rivers. “Thanks to the Sewage Overflow Community Rightto-Know Act, people will know when their local rivers have been contaminated by sewage. When contaminated tomatoes were discovered in supermarkets, they were pulled from the shelf. We need the same warning when our waterways are polluted. Knowledge is power, and in this case, knowledge can mean the difference between staying healthy or falling ill.”
Read More
New Jersey Dealing With Solar Policy’s Success By ANTHONY DePALMA
With oil prices skyrocketing, demand for solar power is booming. And New Jersey, which has used a rebate program to help install more solar panels than any other state but California, is getting burned by its own success.
There is a backlog of more than 700 applications for the rebates, and property owners have to wait months, even years, to get solar panels installed. The program, which is paid for by surcharges on all utility bills, has been shut down several times over the last three years because applications far outpaced rebate money. Some solar installation companies have had to lay off workers while they waited for rebate checks to be sent.
All this has convinced New Jersey regulators that it is time to wean solar energy from public subsidies altogether. The state plans to replace rebates with energy credits that can be bought and sold on the open market.
As it works out the details of the transition, New Jersey — not the place most people associate with solar innovations — finds itself at the forefront of a growing national debate about the role of government in helping stimulate this sector of the energy economy.
Read More
Can Garlic Mustard Be Used for Fuel? Help us conduct an experiment in the parks!
Feeling experimental?
Weeds to WheelsIn partnership with Steel City Biofuels and GTECH, the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy invites you to come learn whether garlic mustard, one of the most serious ecological threats in our parks, can be turned into something useful! On Saturday, June 28, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., we’ll be in Highland Park pulling garlic mustard and collecting its seeds. Then, on Sunday, July 13, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m., we’ll be at Blackberry Meadows Farm pressing the seeds and watching a demonstration of how biodiesel is produced from seeds to the gas tank. Our hope is that garlic mustard, like other plants in the brassica family, will be a useful source of biofuels.
Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is a non-native, invasive plant that puts stress on ecologies throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States, including our parks in Pittsburgh. Brought to the U.S. as a culinary herb, it has no natural enemies in North America and, if left unchecked, can crowd out native wildflowers, destabilize soils, alter soil chemistry, and threaten ecological balance. If we want to maintain healthy parks and support strong biodiversity, we must curb the spread of garlic mustard!
Biodiesel can be made from any source of fat or oil including soy, palm oil, hemp, fryer oil, and other brassicas like mustard and canola. The efficiencies of these sources vary depending on the amount of oil and other factors. How does garlic mustard stack up? We don’t know! Biodiesel can be made safely at home in small quantities and used in cars with diesel engines with no modification required. It is cleaner-burning, can be locally produced, and reduces our impact on global climate change.
If you’d like to participate in any part of the event, please RSVP to Erin Copeland at ecopeland@pittsburghparks.org. If you’re planning on coming June 28, wear sturdy shoes and long pants you don’t mind getting dirty. And if you have a pair of scissors, bring those too (they’ll be handy for separating the seeds from the rest of the plant)!
Read More
Abandoned Farmlands Are Key To Sustainable Bioenergy ScienceDaily (June 24, 2008) — Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world's energy future, especially if bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and preserves carbon-storing forests needed to mitigate climate change.
Sustainable bioenergy is likely to satisfy no more than 10% of the demand in the energy-intensive economies of North America, Europe, and Asia. But for some developing countries, notably in Sub-Saharan Africa, the potential exists to supply many times their current energy needs without compromising food supply or destroying forests.
Elliot Campbell, Robert Genova, and Christopher Field of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with David Lobell of Stanford University, estimated the global extent of abandoned crop and pastureland and calculated their potential for sustainable bioenergy production from historical land-use data, satellite imaging, and ecosystem models. Agricultural areas that have been converted to urban areas or have reverted to forests were not included in the assessment.
The researchers estimate that globally up to 4.7 million square kilometers (approximately 1.8 million square miles) of abandoned lands could be available for growing energy crops. The potential yield of this land area, equivalent to nearly half the land area of the United States (including Alaska), depends on local soils and climate, as well as on the specific energy crops and cultivation methods in each region.
Read More
Expert says worms and parasites drain U.S. poor Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:35pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Diseases caused by worms and parasites are draining the health and energy of the poorest Americans, an expert said on Tuesday.
And diseases associated with the developing world, such as dengue fever and Chagas disease, may become a bigger problem for the United States as the climate changes, said Dr. Peter Hotez of George Washington University and the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington.
"The message is a little tough because they are not killer diseases -- they impact on child development, intellectual development, hearing and sometimes even heart disease," Hotez said in a telephone interview.
He said the diseases help to keep people mired in poverty, as infections may last years, decades or even lifetimes.
"Throughout the American South during the early twentieth century, malaria combined with hookworm infection and pellagra (a vitamin deficiency) to produce a generation of anemic, weak, and unproductive children and adults," Hotez wrote.
The parasitic diseases are having similar effects now, he said.
Read More
Reporters Say Networks Block War Reports Monday 23 June 2008
by: Brian Stelter, The New York Times
Getting a story on the evening news isn't easy for any correspondent. And for reporters in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is especially hard, according to Lara Logan, the chief foreign correspondent for CBS News. So she has devised a solution when she is talking to the network.
"Generally what I say is, 'I'm holding the armor-piercing R.P.G.,'" she said last week in an appearance on "The Daily Show," referring to the initials for rocket-propelled grenade." 'It's aimed at the bureau chief, and if you don't put my story on the air, I'm going to pull the trigger.'"
Ms. Logan let a sly just-kidding smile sneak through as she spoke, but her point was serious. Five years into the war in Iraq and nearly seven years into the war in Afghanistan, getting news of the conflicts onto television is harder than ever.
"If I were to watch the news that you hear here in the United States, I would just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts," Ms. Logan said.
Read More
| |
