EnviroPolitics Blog

A singer and a sportswriter: Saviors of the Hudson

“America’s first river” is a long way from total salvation, but 50 years ago, two men stepped up to rescue it.

Peter Dykstra writes for Environmental Health News

On April 1, 1969, a garrulous sportswriter released a book about his true passion. A month later, a smiling folksinger launched a refurbished boat – his true passion.

Robert Boyle and Pete Seeger never saw eye-to-eye on many of the details, but both men played key roles in launching one of America’s most storied conservation efforts.

Boyle, who penned many classic Sports Illustrated stories since the magazine’s first year in 1954, was an avid fly fisherman who wrote The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History. Seeger, blacklisted during the McCarthy era and arguably the most unlikely member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, launched the Clearwater, a Hudson River sloop that became an icon of conservation and activism.

In the unusual venue of SI, Bob Boyle wrote about his beloved river, and was among the first to cover the Northeast’s acid rain epidemic. His stories on widespread PCB contamination in the Hudson from two General Electric factories far upstream helped spur a billion-dollar cleanup, and the eventual ban on PCB’s in the 1970’s. Thus, a magazine known for covering football, golf, boxing and swimsuits became an environmental leader.

In the mid-60s, Boyle got involved in opposing the Storm King project. Con Edison, New York City’s utility, planned to hollow out Storm King Mountain, 60 miles north of the city, to build a pump storage power facility.

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Environmentalists triumphed in a lengthy court battle, and Con Ed abandoned the project in what is considered an early landmark in environmental law.

The compulsively genial Pete Seeger helped build an organization that captured the imagination of millions who lived in the Hudson watershed. The Clearwater sailed the mighty river from Albany to the Statue of Liberty, giving kids and adults what was often their first exposure to environmental values.

Two of the early Clearwater crewmembers went on to skipper their own eco-boats: Peter Willcox was captain of the Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior, for years; and John Cronin became the first Hudson Riverkeeper.

Cronin dogged factories, railroad yards, municipal sewer systems, and other polluters for years, scoring impressive successes with the help of Boyle and environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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Fire damages Burlington County, NJ recycling center in Westhampton

Firefighters and other first responders were called to the Robert C. Shinn Jr. Recycling Center shortly before 10 a.m. and found parts of the building well involved, according to police radio reports. All employees have been accounted for, officials said around 11 a.m.

David Lewinsky reports for the Burlington County Times:

WESTAMPTON — A three-alarm fire damaged the county recycling center off Hancock Lane on Saturday morning.

Eight workers were in the building at the time the fire began, but all exited unharmed, said a county spokesman. He said officials believe a conveyor belt caught fire, but the cause of the fire is still under investigation. The Burlington County fire marshal is expected to clear the building Sunday.

The fire was contained to two conveyor belts, officials said. Recycling collection will not be interrupted, but operations at the center will be down until at least Monday, a spokesman said.

The county opened its renovated single-stream recycling center in 2015. Officials spent just under $15 million on modifying the 100,000-square-foot recycling center to allow it to accept single stream.

The Burlington County Regional Recycling Program provides recycling and collection services to all 40 municipalities in Burlington County and some contracts with the state and military installations. It’s operated in partnership with the Occupational Training Center, a nonprofit that offers vocational rehabilitation, job placement programs, day programs and housing for adults with disabilities.

Each weekday, the recycling program, which began in 1982 at OTC uses a fleet of about 20 recycling trucks to gather about 195 tons of recyclables from about 161,000 households across the county, according to the nonprofit.

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Carbon Pricing Reaches U.S. House’s Main Tax-Writing Committee

Less than a year ago, the House voted to denounce carbon taxes. Now, it’s discussing a carbon pricing plan supported by some Republican Party luminaries.

The U.S. Capitol, framed by power plant smokestacks. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images — A few carbon pricing plans have drawn attention in recent months. One plan, support by some prominent Republicans and several major oil companies, calls for removing greenhouse gas regulation in exchange for a carbon fee-and-dividend system. Credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Marianne Lavelle reports for Inside Climate News

A coalition of business and environmental groups, working with the support of some major oil companies, took a carbon pricing plan to the U.S. House’s main tax-writing committee on Wednesday. It was the Ways and Means Committee’s first climate-related hearing in a dozen years, and members of both parties treated the topic with kid gloves.

For the panel to be talking at all about climate change is momentous—it signals that carbon taxing has moved into the realm of the possible. But members were cautious to avoid endorsing any specific idea.

The Democrats, now in control of the House, weren’t there to back any particular legislative plan, but they called the group to make its pitch as part of an effort to explore “the economic and health consequences of climate change.” Committee Republicans, meanwhile, sought to convey serious concern about the costs of global warming, even though they opposed any solution that included a tax.

“Our plan is not a carbon tax. It is a dividend,” said Ted Halstead, chairman, and CEO of the Climate Leadership Council, a group whose members include BP, Exxon, and ConocoPhillips, as well as The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Federation and World Resources Institute.

Halstead called the proposal a “grand bargain” for the companies, in which they accept an escalating fee on the carbon emissions they produce in exchange for a rollback of regulations on greenhouse gases.

The plan, developed by GOP luminaries including former Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz, would return all revenue to U.S. households in the form of dividends. The quarterly payments, which the group estimates would amount to $2,000 a year for a family of four, would outstrip the increased cost of energy for the vast majority of households.

“I think there is a unified voice coming from corporate America, which is that a price on carbon is the most cost-effective solution,” Halstead said. “There are two approaches to solve climate change—you can regulate or you can price carbon. The members of our coalition, including the fossil fuel members, by joining our effort are saying they would prefer a high price on carbon in exchange for regulatory certainty.”

Persuading members of the House Ways and Means Committee will be crucial for any carbon pricing initiative since any congressional bill that raises revenue has to start here.

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Implosion of former Bethlehem Steel HQ highlights changing face of the Lehigh Valley

Jen Kinney reports for WHYY

Listen 4:38

Martin Tower, the former headquarters of Bethlehem Steel, is shown days before a planned implosion. (Matt Smith for Keystone Crossroads)

Even today, nearly twenty years after Bethlehem Steel declared bankruptcy, and decades after it began its slow decline, there’s no consensus why exactly the iconic company tanked.

Some point to ballooning labor costs, others to the growing competition from cheap, foreign steel that bankrupted dozens of other American companies. But Bethlehem Steel, once the second largest steel manufacturer in the country, was hit harder than most, and some say mismanagement played a large role in the company’s demise.

That reading of history is embodied for Bethlehem residents in Martin Tower, a swank corporate headquarters built in 1972, just 10 years before the company began massive layoffs that forever changed the region.

The company went bankrupt in 2001, and Martin Tower has been vacant for a decade. But it still looms over Bethlehem, a dark, sleek monolith that — for a few more days — remains the tallest building in the Lehigh Valley.

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On Sunday, after years of uncertainty about the building’s future, the tower will be imploded to make way for new development.

This change is yet one more reminder that the steel era is long gone — but also a reminder Bethlehem has been able to adapt in the industry’s absence.

Unlike many other parts of Pennsylvania that faced declines in the wake of deindustrialization, Bethlehem has been able to preserve its history and legacy while reinventing itself as a hub for education, the arts and tourism.

Still, the demolition feels freighted with meaning for many residents of Bethlehem — both for those who want the tower to stay, and for those who are happy to bid farewell.

A long slow decline

If it weren’t for Bethlehem Steel, Frank Behum’s ancestors may never have come to America. In 1885, his great-grandfather was living in Austria-Hungary and he responded to an ad.

“‘Come to America, passage paid, guaranteed job at Bethlehem Steel,’” Behum recited.

The next three generations of his family worked at the steel plant. Behum, 68, started in 1969 and worked his way up to motor inspector. That’s how it was in Bethlehem — the company was the town. At its height, 31,000 people worked at the plant, nearly half of the town’s population of 75,000.

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Three governors pledge to cooperate to save Delaware River Basin environment

The governors call for more federal support. Gov. Phil Murphy says one way to prepare for climate change is to elect a new president

Jon Hurdle reports for NJ Spotlight

The governors of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware promised on Thursday to work together to preserve the natural resources of the Delaware River Basin but said there is only so much they can do without more federal money.

At a highly unusual joint panel discussion overlooking the river in Philadelphia, Gov. Phil Murphy plus Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and Gov. John Carney of Delaware called for more federal support to protect environmental quality, saying that U.S. government backing is essential to safeguarding the basin which supplies drinking water to some 15 million people.

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The governors, all Democrats, signed a “proclamation” saying they would cooperate to provide clean drinking water, protect wildlife, address climate change using the best available science, and help the Delaware River Basin Commission, a water regulator that already represents the three states plus New York and the federal government.

Although Congress passed the Delaware River Basin Conservation Act (DRBCA) of 2015 during the second Obama administration — providing federal technical support and a modest $5 million a year for local conservation efforts — the U.S. government is now less active than it should be in that work, the governors said.

“It would be really nice to have a national partner,” said Wolf, whose administration this year began a process of setting health limits for two toxic PFAS chemicals after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declined to commit to doing so. “Clean air doesn’t know state boundaries, and climate change seems to have created a lot more localized weather problems.”

Bracing for climate change

Murphy also called for more federal support and accused President Donald Trump of failing to prepare the country for climate change. Asked by moderator Collin O’Mara how communities can prepare themselves for the floods and storms that are expected to come with climate change, Murphy quipped: “How about starting with a new president?”

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‘Extraordinary’: Almost 1/4 of West Antarctic ice is now ‘unstable’

Doyle Rice reports for USA TODAY

More unsettling news from the bottom of the world.

Almost one-quarter of the ice in the West Antarctic ice sheet has been classified as “unstable,” according to a new study released this week.

This is due to the huge volume of ice that’s melted from the ice sheet over the past 25 years. Some areas are losing ice five times faster than they were in the early 1990s.

“In parts of Antarctica, the ice sheet has thinned by extraordinary amounts,” said study lead author Andy Shepherd, a polar scientist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.

An iceberg at Marguerite Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. New research finds that 24% of West Antarctic ice is now unstable. (Photo: Andrew Shepherd)

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The ice has thinned by some 400 feet in some places, the study said. The ice sheet and its glaciers are melting from underneath as warming sea water – overheated due to man-made climate change – chews away at it from below.

This map shows changes to the Antarctic ice sheet’s thickness from 1992 to 2017. Ice loss is in red while ice gained is in blue. (Photo: Shepherd et al 2019/Geophysical Research Letters/AGU.)

“Along an 1,850-mile stretch of West Antarctica, the water in front of the glaciers is too hot,” Shepherd told the Guardian. “This causes melting of the underside of the glaciers where they grind against the seabed. The melting lessens the friction and allows the glaciers then to slide more quickly into the ocean and therefore become thinner.”

A reminder: This isn’t the floating sea ice around Antarctica, which melts and refreezes with the seasons. This is freshwater ice on the gigantic ice sheets and in the glaciers that cover most of the continent.

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