It is estimated that approximately 1,400 acres of tidal salt marsh have been lost from the marsh islands in Jamaica Bay, New York since 1924, with the system wide rate of loss rapidly increasing in recent years. From 1994 and 1999, an estimated 220 acres of salt marsh were lost at a rate of 47 acres per year.
With the Manhattan skyline less than 10 miles to the north, the eight by four mile marsh islands complex is an integral part of the Bay, which has been targeted for restoration by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, National Park Service (Gateway), New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, New York City Department of Environmental Protection, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the National Resources Conservation Service and the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program.
To quell further erosion of the islands, and adding to an already impressive list of habitat restoration projects in the Bay, the Army Corps commenced the placement of sand from the Harbor Deepening Project’s Ambrose Channel contract in August 2012 to restore Black Wall and Rulers Bar marsh islands.
Health officials announce public exposures to new measles case
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Local public health officials have confirmed a measles infection in an infant who was in several locations in King County during the contagious period. The infant is a King County resident who was too young to be vaccinated and likely exposed to the measles while overseas.
What to do if you were in location of potential measles exposure
Most people in our area have immunity to the measles through vaccination, so the risk to the general public is low. However, all people who were in the following locations around the same time as the individual with measles should:
The new map could put twice as many homes in the flood zone and raise premiums for many homeowners.
propublica.org - by Al Shaw - June 12, 2013
. . . while Sandy’s water has long receded and the bulldozers have left, a residual effect for homeowners along the city’s coastline still lurks quietly beneath the surface. It comes in the form of a July 2012 law called the Biggert-Waters Act, which will end subsidized rates for property owners who are remapped into more severe flood zones, increasing their flood insurance premiums 20 percent a year until they reach market rates, and will apply those higher rates for newly purchased property.
The potential increases, which proponents say are necessary to sustain the National Flood Insurance Program, are not widely understood by residents, and may be catching them unprepared.
In July 2012, the U.S. Congress passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 (BW-12) which calls on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other agencies, to make a number of changes to the way the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is run. Some of these changes already have occurred, and others will be implemented in the coming months. Key provisions of the legislation will require the NFIP to raise rates to reflect true flood risk, make the program more financially stable, and change how Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) updates impact policyholders. The changes will mean premium rate increases for some—but not all—policyholders over time. Homeowners and business owners are encouraged to learn their flood risk and talk to their insurance agent to determine if their policy will be affected by BW-12.
dcbureau.org - by Peter Mantius - November 20, 2013
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Even after armed federal investigators raided its offices in 2010 and the New York Department of Health suspended its state certification in early 2012, Upstate Laboratories Inc. continued its lucrative business of testing water samples from landfills and wastewater treatment plants across the state.
Officially, state environmental regulators will not accept test results from labs the DOH has not certified. The rule is fundamental to the integrity of the program that was designed to protect the state’s waterways from industrial pollution. Yet the state Department of Environmental Conservation kept accepting Upstate’s test results for more than a year after DEC managers learned of the suspension and wrote emails saying the results should be rejected.
Preceding the public hearing hundreds of New Yorkers rallied outside, demanding that the LNG regulations be withdrawn. Photo credit: Frack Action
On Wednesday, Oct. 30, hundreds of New Yorkers from across the state came to Albany to expose Gov. Cuomo (D-NY) and the Department of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC) proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) regulations for what they are: fatally flawed, a danger to public health and our wellbeing and supportive of a massive fracking infrastructure build out.
One year after Superstorm Sandy, many of those impacted by the storm remain without a permanent home and dependent on diminishing relief funds. New York Magazine reports at least 22,000 households are still displaced. We are joined by two guests: Shawn Little, a healthcare worker who has been living in hotels with her family since Sandy devastated their neighborhood in the Rockaways section of Queens, and Judith Goldiner, attorney in charge of the Civil Law Reform Unit at the Legal Aid Society.
Today marks the first anniversary of Superstorm Sandy hitting the New York region, becoming one of the most destructive storms in the nation’s history. On October 29, 2012, the hurricane blasted New York City with a record storm surge as high as 13 feet, as well as the Jersey Shore and New England, ultimately killing 159 people along the East Coast and damaging more than 650,000 homes. The storm caused $70 billion in damage across eight states. Millions were left without power in the New York region, some for weeks. We are joined by two women who have played key roles in the region’s recovery: Terri Bennett, a founder of Respond and Rebuild, one of the first groups to help low-income residents of the Rockaways rebuild after Superstorm Sandy, and also focused on providing free mold remediation that eventually inspired the city’s similar program, and Jessica Roff, a founder of Restore the Rock, a nonprofit created by Sandy volunteers who met while working out of a space in the Rockaways called YANA, or You Are Never Alone, where they operated a free health clinic, legal clinic and trained and dispatched hundreds of volunteers.
elitedaily.com - by Christian La Du - October 28, 2013
One year ago, the east coast was ravaged by SuperStorm Sandy, a freak occurrence combining a hurricane, Nor’easter, high tide, and a full moon, which wrought particular destruction on the tri-state area.
Although the enduring legacy of Sandy is not measured in tallies of destruction, numbers like 8.6 million homes and businesses without power, gas and water, 650,000 destroyed houses, 200,000 damaged businesses, and 286 deaths afflicted over 13 states. Approximately 50 million people felt the effects of the storm over 800 mile stretch, and an estimated $65 billion in economic damages were incurred.
The real, lasting effect of Hurricane Sandy, however, is in the radical life shifts that people forcibly underwent.
A man walks through flooded streets in Hoboken, New Jersey, after Superstorm Sandy | Emile Wamsteker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
As subsidized rates of federal flood insurance rise, property owners along the coasts get angry. But we need insurance that reflects the risks of a changing planet
time.com - by Bryan Walsh - October 1, 2013
Thousands of homeowners in flood-prone parts of the country are going to be in for a rude awakening. On Oct. 1, new changes to the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which offers government-subsidized policies for households and businesses threatened by floods, mean that businesses in flood zones and homes that have been severely or repeatedly flooded will start going up 25% a year until rates reach levels that would reflect the actual risk from flooding. (Higher rates for second or vacation homes went into effect at the start of 2013.) That means that property owners in flood-prone areas who might have once been paying around $500 a year—rates that were well below what the market would charge, given the threat from flooding—will go up by thousands of dollars over the next decade.
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