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NYJN: Westchester seeks to control pesticides (Original publication: April 28, 2007) Americans should know that pesticides are dangerous. So what do we do? We apply about 70 million pounds each year, most of it for aesthetic reasons, says Grassroots Environmental Education, a nonprofit organization begun by environmental activists. We've got to have that green lawn. Westchester County has been one of the worst offenders. It was second among New York's counties in the amount used in 2004, the most recent year for which figures were available, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Only Suffolk was higher - and that is probably because the Long Island county has a very aggressive mosquito eradication program, said Patti Wood, executive director of Grassroots Environmental Education and a leader in the organic lawn-care field. Westchester likely tops the list for purely aesthetic reasons, she said. "These are poisons," she said. "They really don't belong in nature. ... We have all been victims of very, very good marketing campaigns." |
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070424/OPINION/704240313/1016/OPINION02 April 24, 2007 In response to John Nolon's timely Community View last Tuesday, the most effective land-use strategy that does not require zoning laws that tend to get stalled in planning committees is rail, in particular, an east/west connecting rail that links five existing lines in Rockland and Westchester, plus four states. Yes, the Port Jervis line in Rockland reaches Pennsylvania. The history of the region amply demonstrates that density is more likely to occur, not through changes in zoning laws, but from proximity to a reliable rail network. Just look at all our rail-hugging villages and the incredible development in our cities where builders are demonstrating that the way to go is again to hug the rail. Cheap energy is now a thing of the past and the attraction of living near a rail is being revisited. An iconic new Tappan Zee Bridge, as described by developer Marty Ginsburg, with the addition of a connecting rail, would be by far the most effective plan to start the process of lowering our carbon emissions and reversing sprawl. No other infrastructure project currently on the table can do as much. Maureen Morgan |
| Davids Island archeology protection planned By KEN VALENTI (Original publication: April 8, 2006) NEW ROCHELLE — When construction workers bring heavy equipment back to Davids Island this summer, they will work to avoid disturbing areas where archeologists have found Native American artifacts, such as chips of quartz and flint from tool-making. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is cleaning much of a former military post on the 78-acre island, will meet with local governments and preservationists in the next several weeks to further determine which buildings and ruins should be saved and incorporated into the park that Westchester County plans to make of the New Rochelle island, said Gregory Goepfert, the Army Corps' project manager for the work. After the Corps sent a recent letter about its findings to agencies involved in the project, the county and state said they wanted future demolition to avoid affecting areas where archeologists found more than 200 pre-Columbian artifacts between late last year and February. The items found are considered pre-Columbian because they date to before the 1600s, when European settlers arrived. Read the rest of the article here: http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060408/NEWS02/604080309/1204 |
| By KEN VALENTI Congress had good news for Long Island Sound in recent days. The House and Senate renewed the act that funds efforts to improve the estuary's health, ensuring that millions of dollars will go toward helping the Sound. They also agreed to allocate $5 million more toward cleaning up Davids Island off New Rochelle. As it wound down its session in recent days, the Senate voted to renew the Long Island Sound Restoration Act, which authorizes up to $200 million to be spent over the next five years — designated to run the Long Island Sound office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Stamford, Conn. and its projects. The House had approved it earlier this month. "It's a terrific, terrific opportunity," said Al Caccese, director of conservation and government relations with Audubon New York, the state chapter of the National Audubon Society. Audubon New York is part of the Long Island Sound Study, a multiyear effort to clean the Sound coordinated by the Sound EPA office. About the same time, Congress has kept intact $5 million that U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, had secured in the defense spending bill for the cleanup of Davids Island, a 78-acre former Army post. Lowey was also a co-sponsor of the restoration act. Both bills await President Bush's signature. Read the rest of the article here: http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051226/NEWS02/512260342/1026/NEWS10 |
At 50, Tappan Zee is a troubled bridge over water By JIM FITZGERALD WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- Ramesh Mehta is pretty much in charge of the Tappan Zee Bridge these days as regional director of the New York State Thruway. But he hasn't forgotten his first look at the bridge, which turns 50 years old on Thursday. "It was 1971, and I was not yet living in this country," the India-born Mehta, now 68, said Wednesday. "We were going by car to Niagara Falls, and as soon as we were on this bridge I had to take out the movie camera. It is a beautiful structure, and you can see such a wide vista of the river and the sky and the cliffs." But for the tens of thousands of commuters who cross the bridge 10 times a week, the Hudson River view is not what they mutter about. At its half-century mark, the Tappan Zee is aging, overcrowded and likely to be replaced in the next decade or so. It has completed the 50-year lifespan that was envisioned when it opened on Dec. 15, 1955, the missing link in the state Thruway, with a 50-cent toll each way. It transformed New York City's northern suburbs, particularly those on the west side of the river in previously isolated Rockland County.
But the Tappan Zee - its name a combination of a local Indian tribe and the Dutch word for an open expanse of water - reached its traffic-carrying capacity of 100,000 vehicles a day 15 years ago and now groans under an average of 140,000. Last June 24, a record 171,000 vehicles made the nearly 3-mile trip between Tarrytown on the east and Nyack on the west. What used to be the morning rush hour is now a four-hour clog, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. And that's without the all-too-regular accidents, suicides and rescues that plague any bridge. All this traffic rides a span that is increasingly difficult and expensive to maintain and was not built to last in the first place. Fifty years is a short life for a major span. "Normally you expect 80 to 100 years from a bridge," Mehta said. "I was not there, but I think the funding was maybe a consideration. Also in the years after World War II there was a shortage of steel, and I think maybe they wanted to go for a lighter structure." Maintenance is a full-time job. Last year's inspection report, obtained by The Journal News, found buckled beams and cracked columns. Mehta said new contracts have just been signed for work on the ever-spotty bridge deck and other areas. "No matter if there is a new bridge coming, we cannot afford to slip to unsafe conditions," Mehta said. "We will keep the bridge safe." As the work goes on to push the bridge past its expected life span, progress toward a replacement is slow. The state is collecting public opinion on six possibilities, the cheapest of which, at $500 million, is simply keeping the old bridge going; another option would rehabilitate and improve the bridge. The other four options include a new bridge, and officials say one could get done by 2015. The plans vary in how much mass transit - ranging from Metro-North trains to bus lanes - is added to the bridge and how far east and west the new construction extends. The costliest option, at $14.5 billion, includes commuter trains linking Suffern, in Rockland County, to Port Chester, in Westchester. Mehta said the new Tappan Zee would be built just to the north of the current one, giving motorists, who now pay $4 a day to cross the bridge, a good view of its progress. © 2005 The Associated Press. |
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