The budget deal struck over the weekend in Albany restores money to New York’s Environmental Protection Fund, expands nickel deposits to include bottled water and eliminates a proposed freeze on some state property tax payments. Environmental groups that were concerned the state’s fiscal crisis would slash programs and curb New York’s acquisition of open space [...]
Without much fanfare, Governor David Paterson signed into law on Monday a bill calling for the collection and recycling of plastic carryout bags which have become a major environmental threat and a serious problem in the nation’s garbage landfills. The law, which caused much consternation in the City Council, which had passed a law the [...]
Emily Lloyd, a veteran of city government who has been commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection since 2005, submitted her resignation on Wednesday morning, City Hall announced. Her departure, from a position that oversees the city’s water supply and sewage treatment plants, could be one of the first of several high-level departures from the [...]
In a big win for Mayor Bloomberg, the Assembly on Tuesday night dropped its opposition to the city’s planned marine recycling transfer station at Gansevoort peninsula in Manhattan. The project, the last piece of Bloomberg’s solid waste management plan, had been held up since last year because of opposition from three key Assembly Democratic members [...]
A draft report conducted on behalf of the Bloomberg administration says that there is no scientific evidence that synthetic turf fields in New York pose major health hazards for people playing on them. Critics, however, said the study by TRC Companies, an engineering, consulting and construction management company based in Connecticut, would not quell concerns [...]
The new bill, approved in a 44-3 vote, punishes manufacturers for failing to reach collection rates for an electronic recycling program. The City Council overrode on Wednesday Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s veto of a bill forcing manufacturers to take back electronic goods sold when customers are finished with them. The 44-3 vote, overriding the mayor’s “e-waste” [...]
The Port Authority’s Board of Commissioners announced plans at a Downtown Manhattan meeting Thursday to become the region’s first carbon-neutral agency of its kind by 2010. Its goal is to cut emissions by making systems more energy-efficient and expanding mass transit options. It will also invest in new environmental technology like wind farms or methane [...]
The City Council voted on Wednesday to establish one of the nation’s toughest recycling programs for electronic gear, employing an approach that lawmakers said would allow them to move forward with most of the plan while continuing to work through the most controversial elements. Last month, the Council approved a bill that would have required [...]
The baseball diamond won’t be the only thing that’s “green” at the new Mets stadium, which will be built and equipped with a variety of environmentally conscious features, team, city and federal officials announced Thursday. Citifield, which is rising next door to Shea Stadium in Flushing and will open in 2009, is being built with [...]
In an unusual legislative move, the City Council tomorrow is expected to recall a bill requiring electronics manufacturers to recycle their products and reintroduce the legislation as two separate measures as a compromise to appease Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said he would veto the legislation in its current form. Staten Island City Councilman Michael McMahon [...]
