RENewsletter March 25, 2012

RENewsletter | March 25, 2012

The Free environmental newsletter from RochesterEnvironment.com

“Our Environment is changing: Keep up with the Change.”

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[03/18/2012 – 03/25/2012]

* Got news? | Go to my blog: Environmental Thoughts - Rochester, NY or Tweet me @ http://twitter.com/#!/FrankRrrr On Twitter and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/RochesterEnvironment and Examiner/RochesterEnvironment, I post local environmental events, news, and commentary as soon as it happens. If you think this newsletter, which continually informs our community on our local environmental news, events, actions, is worthwhile, please encourage others to sign up. We who care about our environment and future need to ‘Occupy’ the Rochester media to change how the public views environmental news.

The great conundrum of our times is that in a time of rapidly occurring Climate Change and a rapid disintegration of the environment that we need to thrive and survive, mainstream media still marginalizes environmental concerns. [Check often for this continually updated list on the possible consequences of Climate Change in our region--supported by facts.] If there isn’t a quick and substantial change in how environmental concerns are reported, edited, and chosen in mainstream media, the public will continue to believe that environmental concerns are merely special interest matters, issues they can avoid if they choose. How can we inform the public and monitor our environment without abridging our Freedoms--in enough time to safe ourselves?

Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet. -- Carl Sagan

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Opening Salvo: “Not news: Genesee River (which runs through Rochester, NY) ranked 32nd most polluted river in the US.”

Back in 1998, when I first began RochesterEnvironment.com to collect and access all the environmental issues surrounding one community—Rochester, NY—I created a page called Genesee River. I created it because some major articles and reports had just come out that the river that runs through Rochester, NY was very toxic and polluted. Here is an entry I posted on my web page back in the day (though none of the links work anymore):

Genesee River ranks "second among U.S. rivers that had cancer-causing chemicals dumped into them during a recent five-year period"--Rochester Digital Edition article: (Genesee earns grim ranking ), according to The State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs). Go here http://www.pirg.org/enviro/toxics/waters98/index.htm to read the full report and herehttp://www.pirg.org/enviro/toxics/waters98/table10.htm to see the how the Genesee River stacks up against other U.S. Rivers.

So, it’s interesting that, fourteen years later, the Genesee River has again hit the news:

· Our Little Muddy makes the list | 520 – An Environmental Blog | Rochester Democrat and Chronicle The Genesee River ranked 32 among American rivers in total toxic discharges in 2010, according to a released today by Environment New York. The Seneca River, which flows eastward from the foot of Seneca Lake, was 33. A quick-and-dirty check of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data showed that about 97 percent of the 1,393,996 pounds of discharges were nitrate compounds from Eastman Kodak Co. The rest, or nearly all the rest, were nitrate compounds from Friendship Dairy in Allegany County. Nitrates’ worst offense is feeding algal growth and contributing to degradation of water quality, according to the report. (March 23, 2012) 520 – An Environmental Blog | Rochester Democrat and Chronicle [more on the Genesee River in our area]

· Genesee River named one of the nation's dirtiest | www.WHEC.com An environmental group says the Genesee River is one of the most toxic rivers in the country. "Environment New York" ranked the Genesee the 32nd dirtiest river in the country, saying it contains far too many toxic chemicals. (March 23, 2012) Rochester, NY News | www.WHEC.com [more on the Genesee River in our area]

· America’s Waterways received 226 Million Pounds of Toxic Chemicals | Environment America Washington, D.C.–Five states—Indiana, Virginia, Nebraska, Texas, and Georgia—account for forty percent of the total amountof toxic discharges to U.S. waterways in 2010, according to a new report released today by Environment America. Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act also reports that 226 million pounds oftoxic chemicals were discharged into 1,400 waterways across the country. “America’s waterways are a polluter’s paradise right now. Polluters dumped226million pounds of toxic chemicals into our lakes, rivers and streams in 2010,” said Shelley Vinyard, Clean Water Advocate with Environment America. “We must turn the tide of toxic pollution by restoring Clean Water Act protections to our waterways.” (March 22, 2012) Environment America [more on the Genesee River in our area]

· Clear water still a dream in Hudson River as group names it 24th most polluted - Times Union ALBANY — After four decades of federal law meant to clean the nation's rivers and lakes, the Hudson River remains the 24th most polluted river in the United States, according to a report released Friday by an environmental group. The report named the Finch Paper plant in Glens Falls as the source of nearly 90 percent of industrial chemical pollution that went into the river in 2010, based on records from the federal Toxic Release Inventory. Two other New York rivers also made the list of the nation's top 40 most-polluted rivers: the Genesee, which flows through Rochester, ranked 32nd; the Seneca, north of the Finger Lakes, ranked 33rd. Each had about 1.4 million pounds of pollution, the report said. (March 24, 2012) Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga News, Weather, Sports, Capitol | timesunion.com - Times Union [more on the Genesee River in our area]

· Report: Genesee, Seneca rivers rank among most polluted | Rochester Business Journal New York business news and information The Genesee River ranks 32nd among the most polluted rivers and lakes in the country, a study released Friday by a New York City environmental advocacy group shows. The Genesee, Seneca and Hudson rivers in New York all are among the top 40 among more than 1,900 rivers, streams and lakes analyzed, the study found. (March 23, 2012) Home | Rochester Business Journal New York business news and information [more on the Genesee River in our area]

It’s interesting because in the fourteen year since the first reports there has been little local news about the Genesee River. No local media editors felt it was necessary to send in investigative reporters to see what the state of the Genesee River actually was, or whether any of our state agencies were going to clean it up. Obviously, we haven’t cleaned it up, which is why our dirty little river is splashed all over the headlines today.

Our leading print media have mentioned the study coming out of the University of Rochester, but this story came out last year—thirteen years after reports on how toxic the Genesee Rivers was:

· UR receives grant to study pollution in river | Democrat and Chronicle | democratandchronicle.com Because of high levels of pollutants and overfishing, the sturgeon had long disappeared from the northern part of the Genesee River that empties into Lake Ontario. But many of the 1,900 sturgeon that were put into this stretch of the Genesee beginning in 2003 seem to have done well — a sign, federal and local officials say, that cleanup efforts are starting to pay off. Now, a $308,000 federal grant to the University of Rochester will fund a study conducted over the next three years that takes blood samples from the fish to determine the concentration of various pollutants. (October 18, 2011) Democrat and Chronicle | Rochester news, community, entertainment, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Rochester, New York | democratandchronicle.com [more on Genesee River in our area]

· ENVIRONMENT: Fishing for water-quality clues - News Articles - Rochester City Newspaper Sturgeon and the Genesee River may be coming full circle. Pollution played a role in nearly wiping out the lower Genesee's sturgeon population, and now the prehistoric-looking fish may help researchers track the river's health over the next century. Improved conditions in the lower Genesee made it possible for the US Geological Survey, a federal scientific agency, to reintroduce sturgeon into the river in 2003. The fish are doing well and that's a positive sign for the river's environmental health, says Jeff Wyatt, chair of the Department of Comparative Medicine at the University of Rochester's School of Medicine and Dentistry. (September 14, 2011) Rochester NY Local News, Rochester NY Politics, NY News Coverage, Rochester NY Opinion - Rochester City Newspaper [more on the Genesee River in our area]

All of this is instructive as to the value of environmental reporting. It’s not really helpful for the media to merely throw a story up on the front pages that their river is one of the most toxic in the country, then wait fourteen years to see if it has any legs. The job of our media is not simply to post sports scores and car accidents. The job of the media is to be our eyes and ears on issues we need to know. We need to know the state of our environment, and we need to know if our government is acting to protect our health and our environment.

It’s instructive because this Genesee River issue is like Climate Change. The point of discovering potential threats to our health and environment is to make sure they are addressed, not merely publicized to make money. Now that we know, our media should grab on to this issue until that river of ours is cleaned up. The point about Climate Change is that it too splashes onto the media once in awhile and then disappears until one day it makes the headlines again.

When Climate Change finally ranks on the first page of our media, like sports scores continually do, it might be too late to do anything about it. Responsible environmental reporting needs to investigate and educate the public on important environmental issues like our water’s health and our warming planet. Media editors need to reeducate themselves about what environmental issues mean. If our media editors were really on the job, there is no way any one of the presidential candidates currently running away from the issue of Climate Change would be able to do so.

Take heed: You can read the full report on the state of our waters and our river’s ranking here:

Wasting Our Waterways 2012 | Environment America Released by: Environment America Research and Policy Center Release date: Thursday, March 22, 2012 > Read News Release > Download Report (PDF) “Industrial facilities continue to dump millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into America’s rivers, streams, lakes and ocean waters each year – threatening both the environment and human health. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), pollution from industrial facilities is responsible for threatening or fouling water quality in more than 14,000 miles of rivers and more than 220,000 acres of lakes, ponds and estuaries nationwide.”

FrankRegan@RochesterEnvironment.com (Click on my email for feedback)

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NewsLinks – Environmental NewsLinks – [Highlights of major environmental stories concerning our area from the past week]

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Updates – Daily Updates – [Connecting the dots on Rochester’s environment. Find out what’s going on environmentally in our area—and why you should care? Clicking on -DISCUSSION – will take you to my blog “Environmental Thoughts, NY, where you can add your comments.]

3/24/2012 - Find out about Invasive Species in this lecture: Rochester Committee for Scientific Information Annual Meeting focusing on Invasive Species Monday, April 9, 2012 7:00 PM Invasive Species: By Land and By Sea “Invasive Non-native Forest Pests: Game Changers in a Changing Environment?” Presented by Dr. Mark Whitmore Forest Entomologist Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University “Aquatic Invasive Species: A Threat to the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes” Presented by Dr. Joe Makarewicz Distinguished Service Professor Department of Environmental Science and Biology, SUNY Brockport Rochester Institute of Technology Building 76 – Chester F. Carlson Image Science Center Carlson Auditorium Room 1125 (See map on reverse side) Co-sponsored by the Rochester Institute of Technology College of Liberal Arts Free – open to the public Please park in Lot F
3/23/2012 - If we were hoping that the President would keep his promise to address Climate Change, it looks like not. Addressing the GOP ridiculous charge that the President is responsible for the hike in gas prices seems to be more important than the physics of Climate Change. Obama's Worst Speech Ever: "We’ve Added Enough New Oil And Gas Pipeline To Encircle The Earth" | ThinkProgress Obama expedites southern leg of Keystone pipeline and embraces fossil fuels. Does this make him more or less likely to okay the northern leg post-election? Once upon a time, Obama said future generations would remember his ascendance as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” In a Cushing, Oklahoma, speech today, Obama made clear future generations would remember him for something quite different: (March 22, 2012) Climate Progress | ThinkProgress
3/23/2012 - ACTION: Take action on Climate Change on May 5th: It’s Time for Us to Connect the Dots « EcoWatch: Uniting the Voice of the Grassroots Environmental MovementEarlier today, Barack Obama wrapped up his first trip to Oklahoma as President. He arrived just after a week of floods, capping off a winter that never came, which followed the hottest and driest summer Oklahoma had seen in thousands of years, perhaps ever. But he wasn’t in Oklahoma to talk about these climate disasters. He was there to laud his administration’s fast-tracking of the southern leg of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. It’s obvious from his speech today that President Obama isn’t connecting the dots between fossil fuel extraction, climate change and the extreme weather that has reshaped so much of the American landscape this past year. (March 22, 2012) EcoWatch: Uniting the Voice of the Grassroots Environmental Movement
3/23/2012 - Something that RochesterEnvironment.com has been doing since its inception back in 1998 is connecting the dots between local environmental news and sustainability. Now, things are becoming clearer as we accumulate more information. Climate Change is the lens through which all environmental information must be viewed. Climate warming due to human activities is accelerating, but it is not reflected in our news or politics. Something must be done or we’ll cook in our own juices—the sauce of business as usual. Let the action on Climate Change begin:Connect the Dots

"Record-breaking heat waves in Russia, wildfires in Australia, floods in Thailand. Every time we pick up the newspaper and read about another record-breaking natural disaster, it becomes increasingly clear that climate change is not a future problem — it’s happening right now. Connect the Dots is a project of 350.org and our partner organizations, to shine a spotlight on the connections between extreme weather and climate change. We will use those connections to issue a wake-up call for our communities, the media, and our politicians. We’ll kick off the project with Climate Impacts Day on 5/5/12, when thousands of communities around the world come together to take action to Connect the Dots and call for urgent action to stop the climate crisis. "