The cleanup of New York’s thousands of toxic, dangerous and dirty brownfields is crucial – unfortunately, the state’s current Brownfield Cleanup Program is broken.
As Environmental Advocates’ new report Ripe for Reform documents, the current program (while well-intended) has skidded off the rails. So far, it has cost taxpayers $1.4 billion to clean up just 170 sites. In other words, the average cost of a brownfield cleanup in New York State is $8.2 million dollars. That’s absurd.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 03/14/2015 - 10:01am.
Environmental Advocates is proud to join a phenomenal coalition of community, social justice and labor organizations taking sides to force polluters to build the path to a clean energy future, to publicly disclose how their practices impact our environment, and to ensure decision-makers act.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 03/05/2015 - 1:53pm.
This winter has been particularly rough for many New York communities, leaving us feeling like spring is a long way off, even though it is right around the corner. As the season changes and we feel the renewed hope inherent in warmer weather and greener surroundings, it reminds us why protecting what we care about is so important.
Here, there, and everywhere in New York State, drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is aging and breaking down. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) states that New York State has at least $36 billion worth of necessary wastewater infrastructure upgrades – and yet the governor chose to dedicate $0 for water infrastructure despite more than $5 billion in surplus funds from bank settlements.
Well, that certainly did not take long. In the first week of the 114th Congress the public is getting to see what the $720 million polluters pumped into this past election cycle is getting them. Big Oil’s wish list is the first to get attended to.
Submitted by Conor Bambrick on Wed, 12/03/2014 - 9:57am.
December 1st, marked the end of the public comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan aimed at cutting carbon pollution from power plants.
In 2009, to much fanfare, the Legislature passed – and Governor David Paterson signed into law – the Public Authorities Reform Act. That law came from the recognition that state authorities – including the Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC) – needed to do their work out of the shadows, answer to the Legislature and be held accountable to the public.
