earth-policy.org - by Janet Larsen
May 14, 2013

When New York City opened registration for its much anticipated public bike-sharing program on April 15, 2013, more than 5,000 people signed up within 30 hours. Eager for access to a fleet of thousands of bicycles, they became Citi Bike members weeks before bikes were expected to be available. Such pent-up demand for more cycling options is on display in cities across the United States—from Buffalo to Boulder, Omaha to Oklahoma City, and Long Beach in New York to Long Beach in California—where shared bicycle programs are taking root.

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submitted by Doug Kuntz

newsday.com - May 10, 2013

An estimated 3 million gallons of "partially treated wastewater" from the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant discharged into Reynolds Channel during a brief power outage late Thursday, Nassau County reported on its website.

The spill occurred about 11 p.m. and lasted about an hour, according to a spill report posted Friday on the website.  The state Department of Environmental Conservation was informed shortly after midnight, the report said. "That's a significant spill," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, adding that the spill comes at the start of flounder season. "We heard there were boats fishing right there and they didn't know it spilled."

Nassau officials could not be reached for comment last night.

The plant on Nassau's South Shore dumped about 100 million gallons of untreated sewage into Hewlett Bay when it was knocked out of service for 44 hours during superstorm Sandy. In the 44 days it took to restore operations fully at the plant, another 2.2 billion gallons of partially treated sewage flowed through the plant.

Goldi Guerra, a member of Occupy Sandy, spoke during a storm-recovery meeting with community members in April at a church on Staten Island.  Yana Paskova for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Sarah Maslin Nir - April 30, 2013

Not long ago, the Occupy Wall Street movement seemed poised to largely fade from the national conversation with few concrete accomplishments beyond introducing its hallmark phrase, “We are the 99 percent.”

Then Hurricane Sandy struck. In its aftermath, Occupy Wall Street protesters rushed to apply their rabble-rousing hustle to cleaning out houses, clearing debris and raising more than $1.5 million for relief efforts.

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A view of Breezy Point, Queens, from November. Hurricane Sandy brought sewage-filled floodwaters to the neighborhood.  Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Michael Schwirtz - April 30, 2013

Over 10 billion gallons of raw and partly treated sewage gushed into waterways and bubbled up onto streets and into homes as a result of Hurricane Sandy — enough to cover Central Park in a 41-foot-high pile of sludge, a nonprofit research group said in a report released on Tuesday.

The group, Climate Central, said about 94 percent of the sewage flowed into rivers, canals and bays in New York and New Jersey, the states hit hardest by the storm that came ashore six months ago. In New York City alone, 1.6 billion gallons spilled into area waterways.

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via goldi - April 30, 2013

Some city sheltering expires today.  The Legal Aid Society has filed a class action suit on behalf of city shelter residents against the city's program.  A hearing was held yesterday, then got pushed to this morning where a temporary stay was issued until a further hearing tomorrow at 2pm.  If the ruling is in favor of the city and against residents, all residents in the city program should have the document below in their possession!

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To Whom It May Concern:
My name is __________________________.  I have been an occupant of room number _____ for more than 30 days and rent has been paid for at least 30 days.  I am not a transient and plan to remain in this room.  I would like a lease.

As such, under New York State law, Section 711 of the Real Property and Procedure Law, I am a month to month tenant of this room. 

submitted by Karen Jackson

This week, our eleven committees will be holding independent meetings the following days and locations:

All are welcome to join any committee. These working groups are a crucial way in which we can come together to brainstorm, communicate, set goals, plan events, do advocacy, and ensure that our neighbors are getting the help they need. Please commit your time, talents, and resources to this work and invite others to be a part of the recovery effort as well.

The boardwalk near the Arverne East site prior to superstorm Sandy.  FAR ROC

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's commitment to sticking with the waterfront following superstorm Sandy will be tested as the city tries to develop a roughly 80-acre site with more than 1,000 new housing units in Far Rockaway, one of the worst-hit areas.

The city, which owns the Arverne East site, and developers on Tuesday announced a design competition for architects, engineers, landscapers and urban planners. They are being asked to come up with ideas about how to develop a sustainable waterfront community that will be resilient in the face of future storms.

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nj.com - by Eugene Paik - April 4, 2013

The struggle to work out how, or whether, to put things back together

economist.com - March 16, 2013

Many of the homes in this Staten Island neighbourhood were destroyed or badly damaged by Sandy, a “superstorm” which struck in October.  Four and a half months after the storm, some houses in southern and eastern Staten Island are still marked with red tags, meaning they are unsafe to enter. People are wondering whether they should just abandon them, or rebuild; and, if they can rebuild, how and at what cost.

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submitted by Samuel Bendett

statenislandlifestyle.com - April 11, 2013

On March 8th, 2013, hundreds of people attended the Superstorm Sandy Forum that was held at the College of Staten Island. The reason for this forum was to educate the public on the following topics: the nature of hurricanes, protection from hurricanes, risks associated with flooding, zoning and land use issues, social science,  financial impact, recovery, protection of natural resources and building codes. The forum lasted over 6 hours and included representatives from the federal, state, city, and local entities, as well as leading scientists, business people, and educators from around the world.

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Superstorm Sandy Forum
http://www.csi.cuny.edu/sandyforum/resource_kit.html

submitted by Albert Gomez

journalism.org

For millions who lost power but could still access the internet on mobile devices, Twitter served as a critical lifeline throughout the disaster that struck on October 29. At least a few news operations, such as Huffington Post and the aggregator BuzzFeed saw their servers go down and turned to Twitter and other social media to deliver reports.

According to Twitter, people sent more than 20 million tweets about the storm from October 27 through November 1.

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propertycasualty360.com - March 14th, 2013 - Arthur D. Postal

A bill in the House introduced by New York State representatives, would extend the grace period for flood-insurance-premium increases for Superstorm Sandy victims.

The legislation was introduced as information became available that the cost of Sandy to the National Flood Insurance Program will be in the neighborhood of $7 billion.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials have not responded to repeated requests over the last several days, but sources with knowledge of the costs to the program says Sandy flood claims have totaled about $6 billion so far, with projections to go to maybe $7 billion.

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                           (LINKS TO STUDY ABSTRACT AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ARE BELOW)

Scientists look at an ice core from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide coring site.  Credit: Thomas Bauska, OSU

CNN - by Ben Brumfield - March 8, 2013

Global warming has propelled Earth's climate from one of its coldest decades since the last ice age to one of its hottest -- in just one century.

A heat spike like this has never happened before, at least not in the last 11,300 years, said climatologist Shaun Marcott, who worked on a new study on global temperatures going back that far.

"If any period in time had a sustained temperature change similar to what we have today, we would have certainly seen that in our record," he said.

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Study Abstract - A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract