| News That Matters Brought to you (Almost Daily) by PlanPutnam.Org | ||
| Contact Us | Shop Putnam | Putnam Outdoors | RSS Feed | Visit the Blog | Visit our Sponsor | Donate | Blogsite | Events | ||
| | ||
Good Wednesday Morning, The Outdoor Summer Concert Series continues tomorrow (Thursday) night at the Lake Carmel Cultural Center with blues artist Roxy Perry. The show starts at 6 and tickets are $12 General Admission ($10 Arts on the Lake members). A review of Ms. Perry from Bobtje's Blues Pages says: Make Your Own Sports Drink Why waste money on Gatorade when you can brew an equally effective sports drink from sugar, lemon juice, salt and orange juice? The Stimulus package at work: Solar company to create spin-off, create 300 jobs Website Watch: From a recovered WWI Diary: The Journals of Dan Fewster August 7th. 1918 And now, the News:
First Westchester hybrid bus hits the streetsVALHALLA – The first 12 of 95 new hybrid buses have hit the streets of Westchester County.The buses, which cost about $587,000 each, were paid for with a combination of funding – 75 percent federal, 15 percent state and 10 percent county. Eleven of the total number of Bee-Line buses will be paid for with federal stimulus money, said Congresswoman Nita Lowey. The hybrid diesel electric technology will make the service “friendlier to our environment,” she said. Read More Kayakers salute Cahill’s environmental workKINGSTON – A group of kayakers stopped under the blazing sun Monday to camp at the Hudson River Maritime Museum during a break from the 9th Annual Great Champlain-Hudson Paddle.Assemblyman Kevin Cahill was on hand to greet them. The kayakers were guests of honor – but so was Cahill. Cahill, a Kingston Democrat, was honored by Scenic Hudson for his efforts to help the organization, the Greenway and Hudson River Estuaries program stave off cuts proposed by Gov. David Paterson “Those came under threat this year because of the very tough economic problems that Gov. Paterson faces,” said Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson. So Cahill stepped in with other regional elected officials to keep funding in place and ensure environmental programs would remain intact with the help of the state government. “We were very happy Assembly Cahill joined forces with Senator Steve Saland and Assemblyman Marc Molinaro in a bi-partisan effort and with communities along the Hudson River to say the Greenway is crucial and the estuaries program is important,” said Sullivan. “Kevin Cahill stood up to protect this and say it will be here for future generations.” Read More Cash For DevelopmentNEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Federal authorities couldn't have picked a more fertile target than New Jersey's Manhattan-facing waterfront towns for a fake cash-for-development undercover sting, longtime observers say.The majority of those arrested in a sweeping FBI bust that netted 44 people on corruption and money laundering charges had ties — real or feigned — to development along the Hudson River. The criminal complaints paint a picture of building and zoning departments where influence, connections and payoffs determine who gets a prompt hearing and a smooth approval process on their applications and who is left at the mercy of a process so seemingly dysfunctional that developers sometimes budget for bribes. Jersey City, where more than a dozen of those arrested in the corruption probe either lived, worked or had connections, has been at the epicenter of a development boom that has transformed former polluted industrial rail yards and warehouses into gleaming waterfront high-rises with unparalleled views of the Manhattan skyline. Certain developers have made fortunes off the city and received tax abatements that continue today, even though there's little open space left along the waterfront, where luxury housing and office buildings housing large Manhattan firms have earned it the nickname "Wall Street West." "Everybody knows developers run New Jersey," said Joe Morris of the Interfaith Community Organization, which has been pushing for environmental remediation of contaminated land in Jersey City. "The developers run local government in every place in the state." Read More Where Did that Bank Bailout Go? Watchdogs Aren't SureSunday 09 August 2009by: Chris Adams | Visit article original @ McClatchy Newspapers Neil Barofsky. (Photo: Michael Connor / The Washington Times) Washington - Although hundreds of well-trained eyes are watching over the $700 billion that Congress last year decided to spend bailing out the nation's financial sector, it's still difficult to answer some of the most basic questions about where the money went. Despite a new oversight panel, a new special inspector general, the existing Government Accountability Office and eight other inspectors general, those charged with minding the store say they don't have all the weapons they need. Ten months into the Troubled Asset Relief Program, some members of Congress say that some oversight of bailout dollars has been so lacking that it's essentially worthless. "TARP has become a program in which taxpayers are not being told what most of the TARP recipients are doing with their money, have still not been told how much their substantial investments are worth, and will not be told the full details of how their money is being invested," a special inspector general over the program reported last month. The "very credibility" of the program is at stake, it said. Read More Judge Attacks Merrill Pre-Merger BonusesBy LOUISE STORYReigniting a major controversy over Wall Street pay, a federal judge on Monday sharply criticized the bonuses that Merrill Lynch hurriedly paid out before it was acquired by Bank of America last year and pointedly questioned a federal settlement that had seemed to put the issue to rest. A week after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had settled the matter, Judge Jed S. Rakoff questioned whether the $33 million agreement with Bank of America was adequate. He refused to approve the deal, saying too many questions remained unanswered, including who knew what and when about the controversial payouts. His ruling prolongs what has become a major embarrassment for Bank of America and its chief executive, Kenneth D. Lewis, and also deals a stinging blow to the S.E.C., which needs Judge Rakoff’s approval of its deal with the bank. Judge Rakoff ordered the bank and the commission to submit more information to him within two weeks. During a hearing in New York that was heated at times, the judge was scathing about the settlement, in which the S.E.C. accused Bank of America of misleading its shareholders. Bank of America neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing. Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, Judge Rakoff said, “effectively lied to their shareholders.” The $3.6 billion in bonuses paid by Merrill as the ailing brokerage giant was taken over by the bank was effectively “from Uncle Sam.” Read More You Say Tomato, I Say Agricultural DisasterBy DAN BARBERTarrytown, N.Y. IF the hardship of growing vegetables and fruits in the Northeast has made anything clear, it’s that the list of what can go wrong in the field is a very long one. We wait all year for warmer weather and longer days. Once we get them, it seems new problems for farmers rise to the surface every week: overnight temperatures plunging close to freezing, early disease, aphid attacks. Another day, another problem. The latest trouble is the explosion of late blight, a plant disease that attacks potatoes and tomatoes. Late blight appears innocent enough at first — a few brown spots here, some lesions there — but it spreads fast. Although the fungus isn’t harmful to humans, it has devastating effects on tomatoes and potatoes grown outdoors. Plants that appear relatively healthy one day, with abundant fruit and vibrant stems, can turn toxic within a few days. Most farmers in the Northeast, accustomed to variable conditions, have come to expect it in some form or another. Like a sunburn or a mosquito bite, you’ll probably be hit by late blight sooner or later, and while there are steps farmers can take to minimize its damage and even avoid it completely, the disease is almost always present, if not active. But this year is turning out to be different — quite different, according to farmers and plant scientists. For one thing, the disease appeared much earlier than usual. Late blight usually comes, well, late in the growing season, as fungal spores spread from plant to plant. So its early arrival caught just about everyone off guard. Read More
The Conservation Buffers website offers resources for planning and designing buffers in rural and urban landscapes. The primary resource is Conservation Buffers: Design Guidelines for Buffers, Corridors, and Greenways which provides over 80 illustrated design guidelines synthesized and developed from a review of over 1400 research publications. |
| |
| Copyright © 2009 News That Matters | ||
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
News That Matters - August 12, 2009
Conservation Buffers: Design Guidelines for Buffers, Corridors, and Greenways
