NYDEC and Finger Lakes Land Trust announce new water quality protections for Six Mile Creek watershed

view of six mile creek

State Water Quality Improvement Program Funding Helps Protect 190 Acres and City of Ithaca’s Water Supply

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Finger Lakes Land Trust (FLLT) today announced it has established a perpetual conservation easement on a priority parcel in the Six Mile Creek watershed in the town of Dryden, Tompkins County. The easement will help protect public water supplies in the city of Ithaca and was funded in part through the State’s Water Quality Improvement Project (WQIP) Program.

“Protecting our drinking water is one of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s top priorities because he recognizes access to clean water is essential to the well-being of New York’s communities,” DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said. “Through successful programs that protect watersheds and working with partners like the Finger Lakes Land Trust in Dryden and throughout the Finger Lakes, New York State is maximizing our investments to provide clean water for generations to come.”

“We are grateful for the State’s commitment to this project through the WQIP Program,” said Finger Lakes Land Trust Executive Director Andrew Zepp. “This project is the Land Trust’s 20th conservation easement within the Six Mile Creek watershed, and the State’s funding will build upon other conservation investments made by the Land Trust, the City of Ithaca, and Tompkins County.”

DEC awarded FLLT a $641,250 WQIP grant to help protect the Six Mile Creek Watershed. The Trust’s overall project will result in at least 190 acres of permanently protected lands, including stream banks on Six Mile Creek and its tributaries, and help preserve water quality in the region. Erosion rates, sediment load, and the high flow velocities of Six Mile Creek continue to threaten water quality, making the drinking water supply vulnerable to contamination.

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The Boris Conservation Easement was acquired using a portion of the State’s WQIP grant to FLLT. This 13.5-acre easement in the town of Dryden includes a seven-acre environmental protection zone that will preserve the riparian buffer and 1,100 feet of frontage on Six Mile Creek. FLLT, working with Tompkins County Soil and Water Conservation District, will be restoring the riparian buffer to prevent potential contaminants from entering the creek. Permanently conserving watershed lands through legal easement is a cost-effective way to protect Ithaca’s drinking water supply.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo continues to increase investments for clean water infrastructure projects, including the State’s unprecedented $3.5 billion commitment-recently bolstered by an additional $500 million proposed in the 2021-22 Executive Budget-to ensure that all New Yorkers have access to clean water.

As part of the state’s Environmental Protection Fund, which the Governor’s Executive Budget renews at a record $300 million, WQIP supports projects to improve water quality, reduce the potential for harmful algal blooms (HABs), and protect drinking water across the state. DEC has announced more than $37 million in grants, that are helping partners support 37 WQIP land acquisition projects to-date. In addition to land acquisition projects for source water protection, WQIP grants are awarded for municipal wastewater treatment, nonagricultural nonpoint source abatement and control, salt storage, and aquatic habitat restoration.

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NJDEP further extends certain timeframes for remediation activities due to COVID-19

 Image result for remediation images

By Melissa A. Clarke,  Saul, Ewing, Arnstein and Lehr

On February 8, 2021, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection announced a Notice of Rule Waiver/Modification/Suspension, pursuant to Executive Order 103 (which declared a Public Health Emergency and State of Emergency), further extending certain remediation timeframes based on the unprecedented circumstances presented by the COVID-19 pandemic (“Temporary Rule Modification”). 

Perhaps most significantly, this Temporary Rule Modification grants a one-year extension to the May 2021 Remedial Action timeframe under the Site Remediation Reform Act (“SRRA”).

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Texas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call

‘I’m here live, I’m not a cat’: lawyer appears with kitten filter in Zoom court

By The Guardian

A Texas lawyer accidentally left a kitten filter on during a video conference call with a judge and was unable to change it, eventually responding to a judge’s query about why he was being addressed by a digital feline by saying: “I’m here live. I am not a cat.”

The coronavirus has prompted many computer mishaps, as many of the world’s workers adapt to working from home in the face of the pandemic. They have ranged from the inadvertently hilarious to the career-ending.

But lawyer Rod Ponton’s accidental morphing into a wide-eyed baby cat appears destined to achieve viral immortality.

Faced with hearing legal debate from the kitten’s cute but worried face, Judge Roy Ferguson of Texas’s 394th judicial district told Ponton: “I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings. You might want to …”

The Ponton/kitten entity then interrupts Ferguson in a panicked drawl: “Can you hear me, judge?”

Ferguson responds: “I can hear you. I think it’s a filter …”

“It is,” the cat-faced Ponton responds. “And I don’t know how to remove it. I’ve got my assistant here, she’s trying to, but I’m prepared to go forward with it … I’m here live. I’m not a cat.”

Ferguson deadpans: “I can see that.”

In the manner of good judges everywhere, Ferguson sought to use the example of human/feline fallibility as a teachable moment. He tweeted: “If a child used your computer, before you join a virtual hearing check the ‘Zoom video options’ to be sure filters are off.”

He added: “These fun moments are a byproduct of the legal profession’s dedication to ensuring that the justice system continues to function in these tough times. Everyone involved handled it with dignity, and the filtered lawyer showed incredible grace. True professionalism all around!”

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Seeger Weiss launches environmental practice with trailblazing litigator Matt Pawa, opening its first Massachusetts office

Pawa is joined by veteran counsel Benjamin A. Krass and Wesley Kelman

Matt Pawa
























By The Law firm of Seeger Weiss LLP 

RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., Feb. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Seeger Weiss LLP is proud to announce the launch of a new environmental practice group, to be headed by pioneering environmental litigator Matt Pawa and located in a new Boston-area office.

“Seeger Weiss is proud of the work we’ve done on important cases involving environmental harm such as representing the City of New York against the biggest contributors to the climate crisis and consumers defrauded by the Dieselgate scandal,” said cofounding partner Christopher A. Seeger. “Now, with Matt’s help, we expect to take this work to a new level. We’re excited to go after the companies who have profited by harming our environment.”

“Seeger Weiss is a national leader in holding corporations accountable for their misdeeds.  I’m honored to be joining such a prestigious group of lawyers dedicated to righting wrongs and excited to help Seeger Weiss build an environmental practice that will make polluters pay,” said Pawa. 

Pawa will join Seeger Weiss as a partner and serve as chair of the new practice. He brings with him his experienced litigation team, counsel Benjamin A. Krass and Wesley Kelman. All will be based in Seeger Weiss’s new Boston-area office. Seeger Weiss’s new environmental practice group will represent state and local governments as well as individuals in a wide range of environmental cases involving natural resource damages, toxic pollution of air, water and land, and the climate crisis.

Wesley Kelman
Benjamin A. Krass

Pawa is a pioneer in the use of tort theories against polluters, including the climate change cases American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut and Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. He was named Massachusetts Lawyer of the Year in 2013 for his work representing the State of New Hampshire in a groundwater contamination case dealing with the gasoline additive MTBE that resulted in over $100 million in pre-trial settlements with some of the nation’s largest oil companies and a $236 million verdict against Exxon Mobil Corporation—the largest verdict in New Hampshire history. Pawa holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. from Cornell University.

A seasoned litigator, Krass worked on nearly every aspect of the milestone New Hampshire groundwater case, as well as on the landmark global warming cases American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut and Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp. He is a graduate of Canisius College and Boston College Law School.

Kelman practiced environmental law at the Environmental Protection Agency before going on to work with Pawa on key early global warming cases as well as the New Hampshire groundwater case. He clerked for the Honorable Warren W. Matthews of the Alaska Supreme Court as well as the Honorable Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. Kelman is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School.

Benjamin Krass
Wesley Kelman


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Pawa, Krass, and Kelman join Seeger Weiss from Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. Before 2017, the three were a part of the Pawa Law Group P.C., which Pawa founded in 2001.

“Seeger Weiss has partnered with Hagens Berman on many cases,” said Seeger. “They’re an excellent firm at the top of their game, and we hope to continue to work together on important environmental litigation, among other cases in which people are hurt and need help. We’re in this fight together.”

One of the nation’s preeminent plaintiffs’ law firms, Seeger Weiss is best known for multidistrict mass torts and class actions in both state and federal court. From offices in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and now Massachusetts, the firm has represented over 10,000 individuals, companies, and governments across the U.S. who have been seriously injured or defrauded. Since its founding in 1999, it has led many of the most complex and high-profile cases in the country: the National Prescription Opiate Litigation, which the Washington Post called “the largest federal court case in U.S. history“; 3M Combat Arms Earplug Products Liability Litigation, which the Minneapolis Star Tribune called “one of the largest mass torts ever“; the ongoing “Dieselgate” scandal; the sprawling multistate litigation on behalf of survivors of child sexual abuse; and the history-making Football League Players’ Concussion Injury Litigation.

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Ed Markey on the New Green Deal

MARKEY’S REMARKS: A decade after his push for major cap and trade legislation was derailed, now-Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) says the drive for a Green New Deal is helping boost momentum and pave the way for Congress to make major progress on climate change in 2021.
Sen. Ed Markey speaks at the Back the Thrive Agenda press conference at the Longworth Office Building on Sept. 10, 2020 in Washington, D.C.
Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey
 
Markey told Politico Pro Energy’s Anthony Adragna on Friday he is pleased with President Joe Biden’s early moves on climate change, describing them as “very consistent with the goals” of the Green New Deal resolution he and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) unveiled two years ago.

“I would say that it’s an excellent start,” he said in response to Mitch McConnell‘s recent comments that Biden’s actions amounted to a “piecemeal” Green New Deal. “Talking about Joe Biden, it’s an agenda that in my opinion is going to have climate justice built into every reconciliation package.

“The Massachusetts senator also said he wants Democrats to pursue a clean energy standard over carbon pricing in their push for climate legislation. “[M]y view is that sector-wide solutions like a clean energy standard can help enact the Biden campaign promise of moving toward 100 percent carbon-free electricity sector by 2035,” he said. “And there’s a strong case to be made that this policy proposal can be done through reconciliation. It’s effective, it’s endorsed by the Biden campaign, [and] it polls very well. And I think it should be our starting point for climate negotiations, not a carbon tax.

“He also reflected on lessons learned from the Waxman-Markey bill: “Henry Waxman and I decided to draft that bill and to finish it quickly. We passed the bill through the House of Representatives on June 26, 2009, Barack Obama had been inaugurated on Jan. 20. We started the hearings before he was sworn in as a president. So my belief is that we had the right strategy in the House in 2009, and in 2021 the House and Senate both must move quickly to implement a climate crisis response legislative package and to not allow it to slip into 2022. It must be done and it must be done quickly and we should go.”

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