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☆ Google tells employees in New York and along the East Coast to work from home as smoke fills the air
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-07 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

People ride bicycles at 6th Avenue as haze and smoke caused by wildfires in Canada blanket New York City, New York, June 7, 2023. Google is telling its East Coast employees to stay home as wildfire smoke fills the air in New York and other major cities. Company site leads in New York wrote in a memo to workers in the area that air quality in many parts of the region had reached "unhealthy" levels, citing the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation. In New York, most employees have been expected to work from physical offices at least three days a week. Google has set up a so-called "go" link that directs employees to internal documents and information about wildfires and air filtering.

Persons: Googlers, Eric Adams Organizations: Google, East Coast, New, of Environmental, CNBC, NBC, D.C, Waterloo . New York Locations: Canada, New York City , New York, New York, Detroit, Washington, Reston , Virginia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Durham , North Carolina, Ontario, Toronto, Waterloo . New, California, LaGuardia

☆ Canadian wildfire smoke creates hazy skies and unhealthy air quality in New York City
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

The sun is shrouded as it rises in a hazy, smoky sky behind the Empire State Building, One Vanderbilt and the Chrysler Building in New York City, as seen from Jersey City, New Jersey, June 6, 2023. New York City has some of the worst air quality in the country this week because of smoke that has drifted south from wildfires burning in Canada. The ratings for air quality levels across the five boroughs reached into the 150s Tuesday, according to the U.S. government online platform AirNow. Officials warned residents to limit time outdoors and emphasized people with respiratory illnesses or heart disease are especially vulnerable to the dangerous air quality conditions. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued an air quality health advisory Tuesday for New York, Bronx, Kings, Queens and Richmond counties and the surrounding suburbs.

Organizations: Vanderbilt, Chrysler, World Health Organization, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Locations: New York City, Jersey City , New Jersey, Canada, New York, Bronx, Kings, Queens, Richmond

In Ontario, a layer of haze blanketed parts of Ottawa and Toronto, where Canadian officials warned residents about the poor air quality, as smoke floated over portions of New York State and Vermont. All of New York City was under an air quality alert on Tuesday because of the smoke; by the afternoon, the Manhattan skyline was obscured by hazy skies. In eastern Canada, Quebec was most affected by wildfires as of early Tuesday afternoon, with more than 150 active blazes across the area, according to the fire agency. Weather officials warned that people more sensitive to poor air quality, such as people with lung disease and heart disease, children and older adults, should limit certain activities outdoors. Air quality alerts were also in place in New York City and in multiple counties in upstate New York through midnight.

Persons: Jiménez, Derrick Bryson Taylor, Bill Blair, ” Mr, Blair, Eric Adams Organizations: New York, New, Canadian Interagency Forest Fire, Residents, U.S . National Weather Service, Weather Service, Weather, Twitter, New York State Department of Environmental Locations: United States, Canada, Minnesota, Massachusetts, In Ontario, Ottawa, Toronto, New, New York State, Vermont, New York City, Manhattan, Quebec, Lake Superior, New York, “, Connecticut , Massachusetts

☆ 3 New York teens arrested in connection with killing and ‘consuming’ beloved village swan, police say
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( Zenebou Sylla | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Three teenagers have been arrested in connection with killing and “consuming” a beloved swan in a Syracuse, New York, suburb, and stealing four young swans this week, police said. A mature female swan named Faye and her four young swans, also known as cygnets, were reported missing from the swan pond Monday, police in the village of Manlius said. The three friends, who attend the same high school, hopped over the fence surrounding the swan pond in the middle of the night, Hatter said. We will continue to have swans,” Whorrall said. The swans have been in Manlius since 1905, according to Whorrall, and the village cares for and feeds them.

Persons: Faye, Tina Stanton, Stanton, Ken Hatter, Hatter, ”, Manlius Mayor Paul Whorrall, Faye’s, Manny –, Whorrall, ” Whorrall, “ We’ll, Manlius, old’s, ” Hatter Organizations: CNN, Police, Manlius Mayor, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation Locations: Syracuse , New York, Manlius, New York

☆ The Ice Cream Truck Across the Street Is Making Way Too Much Noise
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Ronda Kaysen | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Food trucks cannot idle with the engine running. Street vendors “don’t want to cause problems because they’re out there on the street everyday,” said Matthew Shapiro, the legal director of Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center. A decade ago, the city plugged a few food carts into the grid, but the initiative fizzled out. Now, the Street Vendor Project is working on a pilot program to power a few food carts with batteries to test the cleaner and quieter technology. If it’s successful (and gets funding), the technology could potentially work for larger food and ice cream trucks, too.

☆ Recycling plastic can be a little confusing. Here's what the numbers inside the recycling symbol mean
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Lindsey Jacobson | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Plastics labeled with a number 1 are about 20.9% likely to be reprocessed, according to the Greenpeace report. It is still important to know the difference between the types of plastics, since municipalities handle each type of plastic differently. This type of plastic film is often collected separately from plastics labeled 1 and 2. Polystyrene, or PS, is labeled number 6 and can be used to make takeaway containers, coffee cups, insulation and disposable coolers. Finally, plastics labeled number 7 are a mixture of various types of plastics.

☆ New Jersey's environmental agency called itself out for destroying two endangered birds' protected habitats while creating one for another species
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-15 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

New Jersey's environmental agency plans to punish itself for damaging land for endangered birds it was supposed to protect. The damage happened when the department was trying to create habitat for another bird species, the American woodcock. The work was designed to create habitat for one species of bird, but actually wound up destroying habitat for two others. Before the work was done, this land was considered suitable habitat for the barred owl, which is listed as a threatened species, and the red-shouldered hawk, an endangered species. The project also cleared and disturbed an additional 12 acres of land near wetlands known as transition areas, which also are protected.

CNN —A fast-moving wildfire in southern New Jersey has grown to nearly 4,000 acres less than 24 hours after it started. It was just 500 acres at 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to the New Jersey Forest Fire Service. About 170 structures in the Manchester Township area were evacuated Tuesday night, but all residents have since been allowed to return home, Manchester Police Chief Robert Dolan said during a news conference Wednesday. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection/APThe fire was primarily burning on federal, state and private property in Manchester Township, but it had jumped to the nearby borough of Lakehurst. The cause of the fire is under investigation, New Jersey Forest Fire Service Warden Trevor Raynor said.

☆ Mountain Valley Pipeline's West Virginia water permit tossed by court
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Clark Mindock | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Circuit Court of Appeals found several defects in the review the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection conducted before issuing the permit. They told the court the agency ignored Equitrans' history of violating state water regulations when it issued the permit under the Clean Water Act. A spokesperson for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection said they're reviewing the decision. The permit is one of the last remaining hurdles for the multi-billion dollar project, which would carry natural gas between West Virginia and Virginia. For West Virginia: Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, Michael Williams and Lindsay See of the state attorney general’s office and Jason Wandling of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

☆ Death threat, powder sent to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg after Trump warning of violence
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was threatened with assassination in a letter containing powder, hours after former President Donald Trump warned Friday of "potential death & destruction" if he is indicted by a grand jury in a criminal case led by Bragg. said the typewritten note in a letter contained in an envelope addressed to Bragg, WNBC reported, citing law-enforcement sources. The letter, containing an Orlando, Florida, postmark from Tuesday, was found in the DA's mail room in a lower Manhattan building after being received at 11:40 a.m. The white powder in the envelope was found to be non-hazardous, the New York Police Department told CNBC. NYPD investigators and the FBI, which has an office close by, were at the scene investigating the letter.

A package containing "suspicious white powder" was discovered at noon on Friday in the building where a grand jury has been hearing evidence in the Trump "hush-money" investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, officials told Insider. The package was delivered to the building's mail room, and was non-hazardous, police told Insider. The package was delivered by USPS, Fox News reported; the New York Post reported that it was an envelope addressed to "Alvin." The grand jury meets Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, sources have told Insider, and was not in session on Friday. No one was sickened or taken to the hospital; the package was determined to be non-hazardous within three hours, officials told Insider.

An Insider review found that his company has sold to foreign governments, including a $228 million dollar contract. What Mills didn't advertise was Pacem's munitions contracts with foreign governments. The company's chief legal officer Joseph Schmitz said all of Pacem's foreign munitions sales are approved by the Department of State. Mills's influence over American military spending while having ties to a munitions company poses the potential for conflicts of interest, an ethics watchdog said. In Congress, Mills sits on the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, which oversee military spending and foreign weapons sales.

The Environmental Protection Agency order requires Norfolk Southern to submit a work plan for EPA approval for the clean up associated with the Feb. 3 derailment. Norfolk Southern shares were down 1.6% on Tuesday afternoon and have slid almost 11% since Feb. 3. Norfolk Southern did not immediately reply for a request for comment on Shapiro's remarks. Although no fatalities or injuries have been reported, residents have been demanding answers about health risks and blaming Norfolk Southern, state and federal officials for a lack of information regarding the crash. Norfolk Southern said it had consulted with town leaders and was worried about the safety of its employees if they did attend.

The comments by the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were echoed by President Joe Biden later on Tuesday. The EPA also ordered that Norfolk Southern officials attend town meetings about the Feb. 3 spill in East Palestine, Ohio. The EPA order requires Norfolk Southern to submit a work plan for EPA approval for the cleanup associated with the derailment. Norfolk Southern shares closed down 1.6% on Tuesday and have slid almost 11% since Feb. 3. Norfolk Southern did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Shapiro's remarks.

☆ Alabama’s Weekslong Landfill Fire Prompts Locals to Report Illnesses
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-22 | by ( Arian Campo-Flores | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A blaze ignited in the landfill near Moody, Ala., in late November for reasons that authorities say remain unclear. A fire that has been burning for nearly two months in a landfill northeast of Birmingham, Ala., has drawn complaints of headaches and nosebleeds from many residents, some of whom say they have moved away temporarily. The Environmental Protection Agency stepped in last week at the request of the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, or ADEM, to try to extinguish it. Kay Ivey declared a limited state of emergency on Wednesday.

☆ With Great Salt Lake at rock bottom, lawmakers aim for rescue
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Evan Bush | Evan Bush Is A Science Reporter For Nbc News. He Can Be Reached At Evan.Bush Nbcuni.Com. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

Water volume on the Great Salt Lake has dropped by more than two-thirds since pioneers once settled the Salt Lake Valley. Much of the lake surface is now exposed. Photographs of empty marinas and the cracking crust of the lake’s surface often illustrate the lake’s decline. The rivers and streams that feed The Great Salt Lake are overallocated, which means farmers and other water users collectively have rights to more water than what typically flows through each year. Spencer Cox last November closed the Great Salt Lake basin to appropriations for new water uses, effectively capping the line of water users wanting to use what flows into the lake.

☆ Aiming to cut emissions, New York to collect over $1 billion with big polluter permits
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 10 (Reuters) - New York will implement a program that sets an annual cap on pollution throughout its economy to lower emissions while aiming to bring in more than $1 billion a year, Governor Kathy Hochul said as part of her 2023 State of the State address on Tuesday. "Big emitters will have to purchase permits to sell polluting fuels. New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks during a campaign rally with other New York Democrats, in Yonkers, New York, U.S., November 6, 2022. New York is among the 12 northeastern states participating in a cap-and-invest style program, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, since 2005, which has helped halve power plant emissions and raised nearly $6 billion, it said. Reporting by Deep Vakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Aurora EllisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Mississippi agency denies NAACP’s water discrimination claim
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

A Mississippi environmental regulator has denied claims that the state agency he leads discriminated against the capital city of Jackson in its distribution of federal funds for wastewater treatment. Most of Jackson lost running water for several days, and people had to wait in lines for water to drink, cook, bathe and flush toilets. The EPA announced on Oct. 20 that it was investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the state’s majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund improvements to the water system. EPA Administrator Michael Regan has visited Jackson multiple times and has said “longstanding discrimination” has contributed to the decline of the city’s water system. The federal agency could withhold money from Mississippi if it finds wrongdoing — potentially millions of dollars.

☆ New York is the first state to ban certain types of crypto mining—here's what to know
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Cheyenne Devon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

New York just became the first state to ban certain types of cryptocurrency mining in an effort to address environmental worries over the energy-intensive process. The new law temporarily freezes the issuance and renewal of air permits to companies that have transformed some of the state's oldest fossil fuel plants into cryptocurrency mining hubs. Mining crypto can produce harmful emissions by generating electricity through burning coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels. However, as companies flocked to the region, climate advocates began ringing the alarm over crypto mining's potential environmental harm. On a national level, U.S. crypto mining produced about 25 to 50 million metric tons of carbon pollution according to a White House report.

☆ A new children’s book about glaciers aims to make activism second nature
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Terry Ward | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN: What do you think might surprise young readers to learn about glaciers in the book? Sanchez: To keep it relevant to young readers, I keep bringing the focus back to the animals that depend on glaciers. CNN: What are some of the tools your book gives young readers to take action to save the glaciers? CNN: What’s the most important message you hope young readers will take away from your book? They really need to be active, and there are so many things they can do.

☆ EXCLUSIVE Cheniere seeks 18 months to upgrade LNG turbines that failed pollution tests-document
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( Nichola Groom | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Cheniere is one of only two LNG providers with turbines subject to the rule, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data. He asked the state for 18 months to make changes to and retest the turbines. In the meantime, the company said it would take steps to minimize formaldehyde emissions, including taking a turbine offline or replacing components. In September, Cheniere submitted test results to Texas regulators that showed formaldehyde emissions at that facility were well below the EPA threshold. Cheniere has big plans to expand the Texas and Louisiana plants in coming years.

☆ U.S. EPA opens civil rights probe into Mississippi capital's water crisis
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Daniel Trotta | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Oct 20 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday opened an investigation into Mississippi state agencies to determine if they violated civil rights in the majority Black city of Jackson in the course of funding of the city's water infrastructure. Representatives of those two departments and the office of Governor Tate Reeves did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. Even before that crisis, the city had been under a boil water notice due to "elevated turbidity levels," meaning the water appear cloudy. That followed a string of disruptions to the city's water supply in recent years caused by high lead levels, bacterial contamination and storm damage. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Aurora EllisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The civil rights organization alleged that the state’s rollout of federal dollars has favored whiter communities, even as Jackson has struggled to comply with state and federal guidelines meant to protect drinking water quality. The NAACP’s federal complaint raises concerns about a loan program overseen by the state Department of Health that distributes federal funding to communities to improve their water systems. Problems with water billing and collections have also resulted in Jackson missing out on sorely needed revenue that could go toward repairs. The EPA’s inquiry comes just days after the launch of a congressional investigation concerning the city’s water crisis. Reps. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., have asked Reeves to answer a series of questions about how the state has spent or plans to spend federal funds that can upgrade water systems in the state.

☆ Mississippi Faces EPA Probe of Jackson Water Supply Cutoff
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Adolfo Flores | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said it has launched an investigation into whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the mostly Black city of Jackson by not funding improvements to its crumbling water system. The investigation is in response to a complaint filed with the EPA against the Mississippi Department of Health and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality by the NAACP on behalf of nine Jackson residents who went without running water late this summer.

Oakridge's air quality index was 487, in the hazardous category, according to the federal airnow.gov website. The air quality index measures a combination of ozone and particulate pollution in the air. In Oregon, smoke from numerous fires has been held close to the ground by a weather system, he said. Rain expected on Friday throughout the region was expected to aid firefighting efforts and improve air quality. The federal government's InciWeb wildfire information site shows more than two dozen wildfires currently burning in Washington and Oregon.

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