EnviroPolitics Blog

EPA issues Record of Decision regarding combined sewer overflow impacts on NYC’s Newtown Creek Superfund site

News release from the Environmental Protection Agency

NEW YORK (April 12, 2021) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a Record of Decision that evaluates impacts of the current and expected future volume of combined sewer overflow (CSO) discharges to the Newtown Creek Superfund Site in New York City. Today’s Record of Decision, which applies to the volume of CSO discharges to Newtown Creek, lays out in detail why EPA has concluded that the city’s Long Term Control Plan to improve the water quality of Newtown Creek is anticipated to be consistent with meeting the needs of the Superfund program.

“EPA’s Record of Decision recognizes the significant reductions in CSO discharges to Newtown Creek that will result from implementation of the Long Term Control Plan, and we have concluded that further volume reductions are not required under the Superfund program,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator Walter Mugdan. “EPA will continue to closely monitor the site and will implement additional actions to address the impacts of CSO discharges on the creek if needed to fulfill the comprehensive cleanup of the site.”

The Newtown Creek Superfund Site Study Area is comprised of the water and sediment of Newtown Creek, which is located along the border of Brooklyn and Queens. Outside of the Superfund process, the city is under order by New York State to implement a CSO Long-Term Control Plan (LTCP) for Newtown Creek, as per the requirements of the Clean Water Act. The LTCP, which was approved by the state in 2018, includes several components such as the construction of a CSO storage tunnel to reduce the volume of future CSO discharges to the creek by over 60%.

EPA evaluated the LTCP in the context of the Superfund site to determine if the volume reductions anticipated under the LTCP are sufficient to meet the needs of the future Superfund cleanup of the Newtown Creek Superfund site. EPA has determined that the CSO volume controls prescribed by the LTCP that the City of New York is under order to implement are sufficient to meet the needs of an eventual Superfund cleanup of the Newtown Creek Superfund Site. EPA will require monitoring of the four major CSOs to confirm the assumptions made in reaching this conclusion remain valid.

EPA will determine in the future whether additional CSO-discharge related actions, either in the creek or in the uplands adjacent to the creek, are needed to address the cleanup of the full site.

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EPA is also continuing to direct a very detailed investigation of the contamination in the creek and a study of the feasible options to address that contamination. These studies are being conducted under EPA’s oversight by a consortium of parties that are potentially responsible for the contamination. The studies are currently projected to be completed in 2023 and are expected to lead to a proposal by EPA of a cleanup plan for the entire creek.

On November 21, 2019, EPA released for public comment the proposed plan regarding this CSO discharge volume decision. During the public comment period, EPA held two public meetings to inform the public of EPA’s preferred remedial alternative and to receive public comments. The public meetings were held on December 9, 2019 in Queens and on December 11, 2019 in Brooklyn. Two requests for extension were granted, and the public comment period ended on February 28, 2020.

To read the EPA’s Record of Decision and to view EPA’s responses to public comments, please visit www.epa.gov/superfund/newtown-creek

Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://facebook.com/eparegion2

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Energy Department Announces Solar Desalination Competition

ECompetition Prize Seeks Systems that Purify Wastewater Produced from Oil and Gas Extraction

Washington, D.C. – Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $5 million in new funding for the second round of the Solar Desalination Prize, a competition designed to accelerate the development of systems that use solar-thermal energy to purify water with very high salt content. DOE also announced that eight semifinalists will advance in the first round of prize.

“Solar-powered desalination systems can help decontaminate water produced by oil and gas extraction—which totals several hundred billion gallons of wastewater annually—creating clean water for all kinds of everyday and industrial uses,” said Kelly Speakes-Backman, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

As more communities face water shortages due to climate change, these new systems could expand the use of nontraditional water sources and ease the burden. Water desalination requires a lot of energy, which is a major part of its cost. Solar-thermal energy is a potential low-cost option for cleaning high-salinity water that conventional desalination technologies have difficulty treating cost-effectively.

DOE’s Solar Desalination Prize seeds new ideas for desalination systems that can be used in diverse settings, especially small, modular technologies that can be deployed quickly. For Round 2, DOE is especially interested in new concepts for the collection and storage of solar-thermal energy, enabling desalination processes to run around the clock, and which can be widely used to provide heat for a variety of industrial processes.

Individuals or groups can apply to compete but must eventually form a team. Register to learn more at the informational webinar on May 6, at 2 p.m. ET. The eight semifinalists in the first round are cross-functional teams that will receive $250,000 in cash and $100,000 in support vouchers to turn their innovative desalination concept into a fully operational prototype.

In the next stage of the competition, they will complete a detailed, ready-to-build design of their solar-thermal desalination facility prototype for a chance to win $750,000 in cash and $100,000 in vouchers.

Learn about the semifinalists.

  All competitors have access to technical assistance and support via the American-Made Network, a group of DOE National Labs, incubators, investors, and industry experts who can facilitate connections with venture capital firms, industry representatives, and others.

This prize is part of the Water Security Grand Challenge, a DOE-led effort started in 2018 to advance transformational technology and innovation to meet the global need for safe, secure, and affordable water. The prize is also part of DOE’s American-Made Challenges, a series of prizes that incentivize the nation’s entrepreneurs to strengthen U.S. leadership in energy innovation and domestic manufacturing.

DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office partners with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to administer the Solar Desalination Prize.

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These environmental reporters told you so

Florida’s Piney Point is the latest predicted disaster. Maybe we should start listening to these folks?

By Peter Dykstra, Environmental Health News

I’ve been a member of a worthy non-profit, The Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ), since one year after its 1991 founding.

Every once in a while, I pester its 1,200 members to consider a special award for I-told-you-so reporting—honoring an environment reporter who shouts into the winds of political clout or simple indifference to a looming disaster.

Arguably, the best-known American example of this is Mark Schleifstein, the veteran New Orleans scribe who said his Times-Picayune boss dismissed his hurricane warnings as “disaster porn” until Hurricane Katrina nearly took New Orleans off the map.

I wrote about Schleifstein and several more exemplars in a 2017 piece for Ensia, “Forewarned.”

This month, a new entry came in—one with a roughly 18 year lead time.

In 2003, St. Petersburg Times reporters Craig Pittman, Julie Hauserman, and Candace Rondeaux filed a story about gypsum “stacks,” the benign-sounding name for highly acidic waste heaps from phosphate mining operations. The reporters followed a twisted tale of bankruptcies, lax government oversight, and a potentially major threat to ecologically sensitive areas of Tampa Bay. Their focus was the waste area called Piney Point.

In March, the warnings about Piney Point became reality. About one-third of the nearly half-billion gallons of highly contaminated water had leaked from the site.

When Pittman followed up on the site this year, he did so from a decidedly different platform. His 30-year career at the paper (it’s the Tampa Bay Times now) ended with a staff reduction last year. He’s now a columnist for the nonprofit startup Florida Phoenix.

So since no Pulitzer Prize yet exists for I-told-you-so, let’s award our first mythical prize to Pittman, Hauserman, and Rondeaux. It’s no comfort to journalists to be vindicated in this way, but it’s a useful reminder that we often ignore their warnings.

Hall of fame

Or maybe what’s needed is a Hall of Fame for environmental reporters. Environmental pursuits, whether by journalists, scientists, or activists, have enough of a history and track record that someone ought to be keeping score.

Here are some, in no particular order:

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We’re always looking for information that might benefit our readers. If you come across something that cries out to be shared, please send it to editor@enviropolitics.com If we agree, you’ll see it here soon.

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Cicadas And Copperheads: Yes, It’s A Thing In New Jersey

When billions of Brood X 17-year cicadas emerge this spring in New Jersey, copperhead snakes may be waiting to gobble them up.

Don’t be surprised if you see copperhead snakes when the 17-year periodical cicadas emerge this spring in New Jersey. Experts say they’re an easy snack for the pit vipers. (Charlton McDaniel)

By Tom Davis, Patch Staff

NEW JERSEY — Humans might have mixed opinions about the 17-year periodical cicadas that will be emerging this spring. But copperheads will be happy to see them because the insects will provide an easy snack.

You read that correctly: copperheads, the venomous snakes found in many of the same states, including New Jersey, where billions of cicadas will emerge later this spring. So if you plan an outing to listen to the cacophony set up by these creatures, be careful no copperheads are slithering nearby.

Billions of the 17-year periodical cicadas — Brood X, or the Great Eastern Brood this year — are due to emerge in 15 U.S. states in May, give or take a few weeks.

The synchronized emergence of periodical cicadas, which have the longest life cycle of any known insect, still baffles scientists. But one evolutionary hypothesis is that the forced developmental delay was an adaptation to climate cooling during the ice ages.

There are two species of periodical cicadas — the 17-year cicadas, found in Northern states, and the 13-year cicadas, found in the South.

Copperheads, a close relative of the cottonmouth or water moccasin, are found in Hunterdon, Mercer and Somerset Counties in the south to the New Jersey/New York border in the north and within the Palisades in Bergen County, according to the Conserve Wildlife.

The cicadas, meanwhile, are expected in the following New Jersey counties: Burlington, Hunterdon, Mercer, Salem.

Shy and reclusive copperheads come out of their figurative shells when the cicadas emerge. The snakes exploit the insect emergence as a smorgasbord requiring no more effort than simply showing up.

Cicadas are a “pretty easy snack” for the copperheads, Stephen Richter, an Eastern Kentucky University biology professor, told Tulsa World in 2019.

He and his students were working with the U.S. Forest Service in Daniel Boone National Forest at the time, looking at what the federal agency saw as a potential conflict and threat to campers: the convergence of copperheads and emerging cicadas.

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Cherry Blossoms draw artists out of the house, into the park

#BILLYPENNGRAM OF THE DAY
Philadelphiaa’s Kelly Drive has come alive
(photo by @ptjournal)

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Duke Farms offering 2021 internships in a variety of fields

Duke Farms is piloting an internship program in 2021 for students, new or emerging professionals interested in pursuing careers in conservation, natural resources, parks management, environmental education, historic site management, and trades. Internships are open to adults over 18 years of age, including recent graduates, experienced individuals, and those looking to obtain new skills.

Internship positions are full-time from June 1 to September 1 with paid compensation of $15 per hour. Housing may be offered on a case-by-case basis. Credit coordination with college/university is available where applicable.

Internships with Duke Farms provide education, training, and practical work experience to prepare interns for a career in their respective fields, while also gaining valuable skills such as communication, working with a team or cohort, problem-solving, and experience working in a nonprofit setting. Additionally, Duke Farms will provide several professional development opportunities where interns will be able to choose options that best fit their needs such as resume and cover letter building, public speaking, professional and personal branding, an overview on nonprofits, and networking opportunities in their related fields.

As part of the first-year cohort, interns will collaborate on team-building exercises and projects through the duration of their internship.

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