New York City school officials have agreed to assess the environmental risks posed by PCBs in school buildings and to come up with a plan for cleanups and for reducing potential exposure, federal officials said Tuesday. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency said that the city, under a binding accord, would conduct a pilot study [...]
Protecting the water New Yorkers drink is the goal behind several settlements announced today between the state and medical facilities. Under the agreement announced by State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo today, five medical facilities have agreed to stop releasing pharmaceuticals into the New York City watershed. Those drugs end up in the watershed when they’re [...]
Following the second deadly brown tide in two years, New York conservation officials are planning to list Long Island’s Great South Bay among the state’s “impaired waters,” a move that requires devising a strategy to cut pollution. The Department of Environmental Conservation put 787 troubled waterways on the list in 2008. The bay between Long [...]
Lawyers for New York City are trying to convince a jury in a federal trial that Exxon Mobil knew that an additive that it used in gasoline would contaminate groundwater. The trial, which began on Tuesday before Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of United States District Court in Manhattan, is one of hundreds of cases that [...]
New York environmental officials say the combination of summer heat and exhaust gases is boosting ozone to unhealthy levels in five lower Hudson Valley counties. They’ve issued an air quality advisory effective through 11 p.m. Tuesday in Sullivan, Ulster, Dutchess, Putnam, and Orange counties. An advisory is issued when meteorologists predict pollution will reach levels [...]
Two bills fell victim to a chaotic late night state Senate session – one requiring electronics manufacturers statewide to take away customers’ old products and another hoping to create thousands of jobs by retrofitting New York homes to be more energy efficient. The “e-waste” bill failed Thursday night in the state Senate, dashing the hopes [...]
Fighting to prevent the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn from being labeled a Superfund site, city officials are proposing an alternative cleanup plan that they say would still be overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency but would take only about half the time a Superfund project would require. A Superfund designation, reserved for the country’s most [...]
A federal judge has temporarily blocked a new law requiring return deposits on water bottles sold in New York state starting June 1. Federal Judge Thomas Griesa issued an order after a hearing Wednesday that will stop enforcement of the law while a lawsuit proceeds. Water bottlers had sued New York officials after they authorized [...]
A push by environmental groups to wean Americans from their water bottles is gaining momentum in statehouses. In Maine, Poland Spring, the nation’s No. 3-selling bottled water brand, is fighting a proposal by lawmakers to impose a 1-cent-per-gallon tax, saying it’s unfair because out-of-state competitors wouldn’t have to pay the fee. In New York, legislators [...]
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is giving continued consideration to a new proposal for a wastewater treatment plant for the hamlet of Phoenicia. The plan would use vegetated sand beds instead of the conventional concrete and chemical version that Phoenicia voters turned down two years ago. Department of Environmental Protection Assistant Commissioner [...]
