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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has worked for decades with New York and Connecticut to clean up Long Island Sound. Too much nitrogen in the water has led to “dead zones” where fish and shellfish can’t survive. Now the federal agency is asking sewage treatment plants nearly 200 miles away in Vermont to help reduce pollutants that are hurting the sound. As part of a collaboration with Northeast public radio stations, VPR’s John Dillon reports.
via Long Island Sound Clean-up Reaches Into Vermont | VPR News.
BRATTLEBORO — On Thursday, José Montero, New Hampshire’s public health director, told the Reformer that samples taken from the Connecticut River both north and south of Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon have so far tested negative for tritium, which is leaking from an unknown source at the plant.
“These test results are very reassuring and indicate tritium is not posing a public health threat in the river,” said Montero.
via N.H.: Connecticut River samples test negative for tritium – Brattleboro Reformer.
BRATTLEBORO — Tritium levels in a groundwater monitoring well located close to the suspected source of a leak at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant have been dropping, stated the Vermont Department of Health, in its daily Yankee update on Wednesday.
via Tritium levels drop at Yankee – Brattleboro Reformer.
Maine lawmakers are taking up a bill that has major implications for relations with Canada, future electricity costs, alternative energy development and jobs for Maine workers. Critics are worried the bill backed by the Baldacci administration doesn’t contain enough safeguards.
“Maine could make better use of its existing corridors by utilizing them as utility corridors as well as perhaps highway corridors,” said John Cashman, a member of the Public Utilities Commission. Cashman told a public hearing that he was speaking not as a PUC member but as someone who served on a state commission to study energy infastructure last year.
via Bill to Establish “Energy Corridors” Raises Concerns.
The catch numbers show the supply is in good shape and that lobstermen are fishing hard to make up for the lower prices they’re receiving, said Marine Resources Commissioner George Lapointe.
via Maine lobster harvest sets record – The New Haven Register.
Dow Chemical Co. is expanding its renewable and alternative energy reach today as the state is expected to award the Midland-based company more than $108 million in business tax credits and grants.
The company is entering into new territory with a $5 million Center of Energy Excellence Program grant to establish a center focused on low-cost carbon fiber for industrial applications, including advanced wind turbine blades.
via Dow Chemical reaping windfall, expanding alternative energy reach | – MLive.com.
DENVILLE — Bicycle-friendly communities are few and far in between in New Jersey, but a Ramsey-based bicycling advocate group is pushing for reforms in communities statewide to ensure both drivers and cyclists can safely share the roads. Enacting those changes through education and legislation was the theme of the first Bicycle Summit in New Jersey, held Saturday at the Denville municipal building.
via Denville hosts state’s first bicycle summit | dailyrecord.com | Daily Record.
A new engineering report shows that two piles of fill dumped at the historic site of John Jay’s boyhood home by Westchester County contain arsenic, lead, pesticides and other contaminants. The fill originated from Playland Amusement Park in Rye.
via Contaminated Soil Dumped At John Jay’s Former Home | New York League of Conservation Voters.
Like a decayed flotilla of rickety steamers, at least 27 of America’s 104 aging atomic reactors are known to be leaking radioactive tritium, which is linked to cancer.
The fallout has been fiercest at Vermont Yankee, where a flood of cover-ups has infuriated and terrified near neighbors who say the reactor was never meant to operate more than 30 years, and must now shut.
Read more: A Quarter of U.S. Nuclear Plants Are Leaking a Radioactive Material Linked to Cancer | | AlterNet.
And, from the Brattleboro Reformer: What are the real dangers of tritium?
BRATTLEBORO — Since Entergy learned that a leak of tritiated water has been contaminating groundwater beneath the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant in Vernon, many people have been wondering just how dangerous tritium is.
Well, that all depends on who you talk to.
*** National Award for Smart Growth Achievement: Applications due April 5, 2010
 The Environmental Protection Agency is now accepting applications for the 2010 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement. This competition is open to public- and private-sector entities that have successfully used smart growth principles to improve communities environmentally, socially, and economically. Up to five awards will be given in the following categories:
- Programs, Policies, and Regulations
- Smart Growth and Green Building
- Civic Places
- Rural Smart Growth
- Overall Excellence
Continue reading EPA Accepting Applications for National Smart Growth Awards and Smart Growth Implementation Assistance
“The ECG is a more daily, urban sister to the Appalachian Trail, and one that will be more accessible to and navigable by many more people,” says David Read, M.P.H. ’94, of Topsfield, Massachusetts, vice chair of the East Coast Greenway Alliance (ECGA; www.greenway.org), which oversees the whole project
via Update on the East Coast Greenway | Harvard Magazine Mar-Apr 2010.
Should the government systematically slaughter highly intelligent but plentiful crows to preserve endangered and delicate piping plovers on the Cape Cod National Seashore? That’s just what seashore and U.S. Department of Agriculture officials are suggesting for two Cape beaches this summer.
via Crows face unnatural deselecting | The Day.
Of all New Jersey’s invasive species, one of the biggest pests might be the starling — a cheeky little bird once beloved but now largely detested around the globe.
via Of New Jersey’s invasive species, the starling’s story is perhaps the strangest – pressofAtlanticCity.com : Latest News.
PROVIDENCE — Testifying before a special Senate task force Tuesday, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch called a proposal for a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Mount Hope Bay ill-conceived.
via Lynch: Floating LNG terminal ill-conceived | projo.com.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has taken the rare step of reaching across state lines into Vermont in order to protect Long Island Sound – hundreds of miles downstream.
The EPA has formally objected to permits proposed for two Vermont sewage treatment plants. The agency says the Vermont plants would let too much pollution flow down the Connecticut River to the Sound.
via Vermont Public Radio reports: EPA Objects To Vermont Sewage Treatment Permits.
“The existence of tritium in such low levels does not present a risk to public health or safety whatsoever,” says the company’s Robert Williams.
But VY is just the latest of more than two dozen U.S. nuclear plants—many built in the 1960s and ’70s—to be found with leaking tritium.
The NRC’s Neil Sheehan has confirmed leaks involving 27 of 104 licensed US reactors, and says that probably doesn’t account for all of them. At Yankee, Oyster Creek and elsewhere, rotting pipes are the likeliest culprit, but no one is 100% certain.
via Harvey Wasserman: Vermont’s Radioactive Nightmare.
MONTPELIER — The state’s top health official said Tuesday it’s reasonable to assume a radioactive substance leaking from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant is reaching the Connecticut River. The story include video of testimony by Yankee Nuclear whistle blower Arnie Gundersen.
via Tritium likely in Connecticut River | burlingtonfreepress.com.
CONCORD, N.H. — As crews at Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant work to fix a leak of a radioactive material, officials said it’s now likely the contamination has reached the Connecticut River. While health officials said there is still no cause for alarm, Gov. John Lynch is stepping up his call for a federal investigation of what happened.
via Officials: Radioactive Isotope May Have Reached Conn. River – New Hampshire News Story – WMUR Manchester.
An expert on nuclear power hired by the Legislature says Vermont Yankee should shut down voluntarily to stop its radiation leaks.
But Yankee and the state Department of Health say the public’s health is not in danger from the leaks. Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen said the leak of radioactive tritium at Vermont Yankee may soon be followed by releases of other, more dangerous materials if the plant keeps operating.
via Nuclear Expert Says Yankee Should Shut Down | VPR News.
The Connecticut River Watershed Council joined in the call for the shut down of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant while the source of a spreading plume of radioactive tritium leaching into groundwater and the Connecticut River remains undiscovered.
It’s not as if Hudson Valley Fresh, the dairy co-op founded in 2005, is a model for all dairy farmers. But it is working quite well for the eight farmers who joined the co-op to bypass the usual milk processing and pricing system and begin marketing and distributing their milk on their own. This is not a lot of farmers, but it’s a start in an area where farms have been disappearing for decades. In the 1970s, there were 275 dairies in Dutchess County. Now there are 26.
via Our Towns – For Some Farmers, Survival Through Hudson Valley Fresh Co-op – NYTimes.com.
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