Boiler and incinerator regulations are so hot

In an attempt to reduce pollution from boiler and incinerator emissions, the U.S. EPA establishes new standards under the Clean Air Act.

These standards are set to cover more than 200,000 boilers and incinerators that emit harmful pollution including mercury, cadmium, and particle pollution.

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Gasland Screening and Q&A w/Director, 9/29, Central Park‏

Gasland is a movie about fracking and its actual and potential effects on drinking water, our environment and the tectonic plates. The director will be having a screening and a question and answer session after the screening on Wednesday September 29, 2010 at the Arsenal Gallery - 830 5th Avenue at East 64th St.

Be sure to get your tickets early. Not only is this a great movie, but it has also been known to cause a ton of controversy among environmentalists, the government, and non believers. Please see this interesting article in the Huffington Post about the governments reaction to Gasland moviegoers in PA: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-rose-levy/guess-what-seeing-a-movie_b_717241.htmlk

What Country Is the Best at Protecting the Environment?

"We're the only country that has a significant amount of people that don't believe in climate change," said Marc Levy, deputy director of Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). "The central challenge of our time is to help people understand what's happening around them." 

 We dropped to 61st place (from 39th last year).

Here are a few of the countries ahead of the U.S.:
9) Cuba
10) Colombia
36) Dominican Republic
43) Mexico
60) Paraguay

Worse than the U.S., you ask?
62) Brazil
77)Turkey
78) Iran
141) Ethiopia

I sure hope we can climb up this list during my lifetime.

Click here to see the full EPI for 2010.

Top Ten Earth Day Actions: #6 Write to Albany.

If it's been a while since you said hi to your state legislators, take this opportunity.  The State's budget crisis is forcing a lot of painful cutbacks in spending; tell Albany the environment shouldn't be among them.

Tell NY to Wait!

The EPA recently announced that it was launching a study into the effects of hydraulic fracturing on human health and the environment.  New York's own Department of Environmental Conservation is considering similar issues, following the close of the public comment period on their Generic Environmental Impact Statement in December.

Fracking is the process of drilling horizontally into deep layers of rock to create fissures, then pouring millions of gallons of chemical-laced water into the rock formations to soften them.

Gas companies can then suck out the gas, compress it, and transport it around the nation. But when the gas comes up, so does a large part of the water-called flowback. It is not only laden with the lubricating chemicals that the gas company added but also elements like radium, which naturally occur in the rock.

Several New York state legislators have introduced a measure that would put all hydraulic fracturing on hold until the EPA study is complete.  Tell your legislators and Governor Paterson to support the moratorium on fracking until the EPA study is completed--or tell us why you think they shouldn't.

Addition of the GOWANUS CANAL to the EPA's National Priorities List (NPL) as a Superfund site

On April 8, 2009, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) nominated the Gowanus Canal (which borders the Brooklyn communities of Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook) as a potential Superfund site, for addition to the EPA's National Priorities List.

What does this mean? Perhaps a brief summary of the legislative development of Superfunds is in order. Here we go: The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) is a federal statute that was designed to clean up hazardous waste sites (a.k.a. Superfund sites) throughout the U.S. Following the law's passage in 1980, the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (NCP -- which had been developed 12 years earlier in response to the Torrey Canyon oil spill) was amended and broadened in scope to cover known or threatened releases of hazardous substances/pollutants/contaminants from these Superfund sites. This revision to the NCP accomplished two goals with respect to Superfund site regulation and clean-up: first, the revised NCP provided the EPA with a blueprint which outlined the response procedures and [hazardous substance] removal procedures required to clean up these Superfund sites; second, the amendment mandated that the NCP keep an ongoing list of all such sites within the U.S. that are eligible for the long-term, remedial measures that CERCLA was designed to implement. This list is known as the National Priorities List (NPL), and it serves to guide EPA in identifying national Superfund sites, so that the EPA can assess the extent of environmental and public health risks associated with the site, and if necessary, use its authority to initiate appropriate remedial actions.

So, here's the timeline with respect to the Gowanus Canal:

April 8, 2009: the EPA nominates the Gowanus Canal as a possible addition to the Superfund section of the NPL.

March 2, 2010: the Gowanus Canal is added to the EPA's Superfund National Priorities List, effective April 5, 2010.





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The United States PV Market: Project Economics, Policy, Demand, and Strategy Through 2013

I recently read this very interesting article discussing the increase demand for Photovoltaics (PV) in the US. PV's are the cells that collect solar energy and convert it into direct current electricity. The article goes on to explain how regulatory incentives, stimulus funding, and falling system prices have all impacted the escalating market for PV's. In addition, each state has been targeted as individual markets based on utility. Different kinds of incentives, regulations, and prices for PV technologies have been introduced to each state based on suiting the states economic and social markets, and environmental needs.





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