Yo Philly, that's a fine-looking sewage overflow tank

Venice Island in Manayunk is a piece of infrastructure that doubles as a public park and theater.


"Venice Island, which will play an important role in managing stormwater in Philadelphia’s flood-prone riverfront Manayunk neighborhood, is hardly an ordinary piece of water infrastructure, "Sarah Goodyear writes in Next City.
"Yes, it incorporates that underground storage tank, which can hold up to four million gallons of overflow during heavy rainfalls, keeping raw sewage out of the Schuylkill. But the $45 million project also encompasses a theater, a spray park, a basketball court, and an outdoor amphitheater. It has a green roof and is surrounded by rain gardens that capture storm runoff.
Underground storage tanks and rain gardens make a critical stormwater management tool.
"The Venice Island facility is just the latest and most visible manifestation of Philly’s Green City, Clean Waters program, a 25-year, $2.5 billion initiative spearheaded by the Philadelphia Water Department that is changing the way the city manages its stormwater. The result of a groundbreaking agreement among the city and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Green City, Clean Waters is emerging as a national model for how to go green from the bottom up. Crucially, the program involves both the public sector – led by the Philadelphia Water Department and Mayor Michael Nutter’s office of sustainability – and private landowners as well as neighborhood groups, residents and even schools."

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Recent blog posts: 
Energy and environment bills on tap today in Trenton
Philadelphia becoming shale energy hub is no slam dunk
Tocks Island behind it, Del. Water Gap looks to future 
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Yo Philly, that's a fine-looking sewage overflow tank Read More »

Energy and environment bills on tap today in Trenton


You might be interested in one or more bills scheduled for votes today in two Assembly committees and on the Senate floor of the New Jersey Legislature.


ASSEMBLY REGULATED PROFESSIONS
1 PM – Committee Room 15, Fourth Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, New Jersey
 
A-2600  Diegnan, P.J. (D-18); Mainor, C. (D-31); Giblin, T.P. (D-34)
Pertains to certain review and approval responsibilities of land surveyors.
      
A-3397  Giblin, T.P. (D-34)
Abolishes Landscape Irrigation Contractors Examining Board in the Department of Environmental Protection and transfers regulation of landscape irrigation contractors to Department of Community Affairs.  Related Bill: S-2234
    
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ASSEMBLY COMMERCE AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
2 PM – Committee Room 16, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ
 
A-943  Singleton, T. (D-7); Conaway, H. (D-7); Moriarty, P.D. (D-4); Green, J. (D-22); Lampitt, P.R. (D-6); Mazzeo, V. (D-2)
Permits small businesses to qualify for loans from NJEDA for costs of energy audit and making energy efficiency or conservation improvements.
   
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ASSEMBLY REGULATORY OVERSIGHT
2 PM – Committee Room 14, 4th Floor, State House Annex, Trenton, NJ

The committee will hear from invited speakers regarding the statutorily mandated report on the implementation of the E-Waste Recycling Plan that has not been filed by the Department of Environmental Protection.
 
ACR-189  McKeon, J.F. (D-27); Lagana, J.A. (D-38); Gusciora, R. (D-15)
Determines that proposed DEP rules and regulations repealing rules and regulations concerning State participation in greenhouse gas cap and trade programs are inconsistent with legislative intent.
Related Bill: SCR-125
    
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SENATE VOTING SESSION
2 PM – Senate Chambers
 
S-768  Weinberg, L. (D-37)
Extends "whistleblower" protections to employee disclosure of governmental mismanagement, waste and abuse.
      
SCR-125  Sweeney, S.M. (D-3); Smith, B. (D-17)
Determines that proposed DEP rules and regulations repealing rules and regulations concerning State participation in greenhouse gas cap and trade programs are inconsistent with legislative intent.

Recent blog posts:
Philadelphia becoming shale energy hub is no slam dunk
Tocks Island behind it, Del. Water Gap looks to future 
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Energy and environment bills on tap today in Trenton Read More »

Philadelphia becoming shale energy hub is no slam dunk

The Mariner East Pipeline
Boosters of an emerging
movement to develop Philadelphia as an energy hub were cautioned Tuesday that
they need to do more to sell a skeptical public, Andrew Maykuth writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Energy
consultants told a gathering of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce
that public opposition may be the biggest obstacle to advancing the dream of a
Delaware River industrial revival tied to the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom.

“This
industry has not done a good job with public interface and informing the public
about the nature of the projects coming through their communities,” said
Andrew S. Levine, the cochair of the environment and energy practice at the law
firm of Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young L.L.P.

“Julie Ross, a managing partner of Environmental Resources Management’s
Mid-Atlantic business unit in Philadelphia, told the group that “improper,
inappropriate” handling of key constituencies can impede infrastructure
projects.”
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Philadelphia becoming shale energy hub is no slam dunk Read More »

Tocks Island behind it, Del. Water Gap looks to future

With the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area less than three months away, park Superintendent John Donahue said the time has come “to move ahead from what didn’t happen, to what we would like to see happen.”
The New Jersey Herald‘s Bruce A. Scruton reports:

Part of that is the still-evolving Vision 2030 plan, a 14-page document that looks at future needs, projects and goals for the 70,000-acre recreation area, which stretches about 40 miles along the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania and annually is among the 10 most-visited units of the National Park Service.

The plan, which is likely to be fully released for public comment in early January, calls for projects including a new park headquarters building, completion of a loop road tying both sides of the river together, a “corporate identity” for the park, and getting neighboring towns and the two states involved in a range of projects and collaborations.

The plan also brings forward the idea of turning the recreation area into a designated national park and preserve, and being the center of a corridor of land, largely undeveloped, from New York, through New Jersey and into Pennsylvania.

The corridor would include federal, state and locally owned open space for wildlife to freely traverse and wetlands preservation.

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Tocks Island behind it, Del. Water Gap looks to future Read More »

NJ Senate panel withholds vote on Gov’s Pinelands picks

                                                                                                      Pinelands lake – Photo: Georgian.edu
The New Jersey Senate’s Judiciary Committee yesterday held off action on two nominees to
the Pinelands Commission whose appointment conservationists feared would tip the balance of the agency to support a controversial 22-mile natural gas pipeline through the heart of the preserve.
NJ Spotlight‘s Tom Johnson reports:

At a hearing where senators repeatedly questioned the nominees about their views on the project, few specific answers were forthcoming on how they stood on the proposal, which was blocked by the Pinelands Commission in a vote this past January.

The nominations are viewed as important because the nominees would replace two commissioners who voted to block the pipeline, which also sparked opposition from four former governors — Democrats Brendan Byrne and Jim Florio and Republicans Tom Kean and Christie Whitman.

Related energy and environmental news:  

Christie nominees to Pinelands panel held amid pipeline controversy Senate forgoes vote on Pinelands panel nominees

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Recent blog posts:
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NJ Senate panel withholds vote on Gov’s Pinelands picks Read More »

Cancer awareness drill bits stir up a pink stink


Sandy Bauers, the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s GreenSpace columnist on Sunday wrote:

Just when you were sure the world couldn’t possibly get any pinker during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, here’s the latest: a Texas company that is a leading provider of gas and oil-field services is painting 1,000 of its drill bits that signature shade of pink and sending them worldwide.

The bits – bigger than a gallon paint bucket – will arrive in pink boxes with informational pamphlets.

The company, Baker Hughes Inc., also will give the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation a $100,000 check at the NFL’s final "pink-out" game Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh.

Jeanne Rizzo, president of the nonprofit Breast Cancer Fund, is all but reaching for the pink Pepto Bismol.

She figured she had ceased being amazed "by the willingness of companies to market themselves through this tragic disease."

Indeed, she originally thought the campaign, "Doing Our Bit for the Cure," was a joke. "I’m thinking it can’t be true," she said. "It can’t be that bad."

Her organization, which advocates for moving "Beyond Pink" – they consider the awareness battle already won – and toward a focus on environmental causes and prevention, has called the campaign "perverse."

Is the pink drill bits campaign perverse?  Click the tiny ‘comments’ line below and tell us what you think.


Is information like this important to you? Click here for free updates    


Recent blog posts:
NJ recyclers out to capture your smelly trash–food waste
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Cancer awareness drill bits stir up a pink stink Read More »