If your power stays on this winter, thank a zoo giraffe

The Philadelphia Zoo has partnered with PECO to share removed branches for gorillas, giraffes and other herbivores.


Peak Johnson reports for BillyPenn:

                                                                                                                    Photo: Sydney Schaefer/BillyPenn


The zoo has seven gorillas who eat more than 1,800 kilograms of food — that’s more than 4,000 pounds — per year. This August, the zoo and PECO formed a new collaboration called the Philadelphia Zoo Browse Program, through which PECO provides the zoo with weekly deliveries of leaves, twigs and branches, called browse. Asplundh, the tree company contracted with PECO to facilitate the tree cutting and removal, delivers the browse to the zoo.

There are 40 species of animals that have browse put into their diet. Besides primates like the gorillas, other animals — giraffes, gazelles, kangaroos and tortoises — all benefit from browse.
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NYC mayor fueling up on electric car recharging stations


Michael Gartland writes for the New York Post:

Mayor de Blasio on Wednesday rolled out a $10 million plan to install as many as 1,000 new electric-car charging stations throughout the city by 2020.
The plan, which aims to have one new charging hub in each borough by 2018, is part of a larger effort to have one-fifth of all city vehicles be electric by 2035.
Each new hub will include 20 “fast-charging” stations, which can power up vehicles in 30 minutes, instead of the eight hours it can take on lower-level chargers.
“The easier we make it for electric vehicles, the more manufacturers will build and the more prices will go down,” de Blasio said. “The future is electric.”
The city is also setting aside at least 100 parking spots for slow-charging electric vehicles and is looking to bring in 50 more charging stations exclusively for cabs and other for-hire cars to encourage a switch from gasoline.
There are currently 307 charge sites in the city with 526 low-level chargers and just 16 fast chargers.
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House moves to cut millions from Chesapeake Bay funding

Jeremy Cox reports for Delmarvanow:

Since 2010, millions of federal dollars have streamed into the eastern shores of Maryland and Virginia under a revamped effort to restore the Chesapeake Bay, America’s largest estuary.

But that flow of money could slow under House of Representatives legislation that calls for cutting about $1 for every $6 currently allotted to the program.

What’s more, an amendment to that bill, sponsored by Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, would block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing the plan’s cleanup targets.

“Through its implementation, the EPA has basically given every state in the watershed an ultimatum: either the state does exactly what the EPA says, or it faces the threat of an EPA takeover of its water quality programs,” Goodlatte told the House last Thursday.

His amendment, he added, “ensures states’ rights remain intact and not usurped by the EPA.”

More: Harris amendment aims to stop Chesapeake sturgeon effort

The measure passed largely along party lines. But 13 of Goodlatte’s fellow Republicans voted against the bill, including Maryland’s Andy Harris and Virginia’s Robert Wittman, Scott Taylor and Barbara Comstock.



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Puerto Rico entirely without power as Hurricane Maria hammers island with force not seen in ‘modern history’

Samantha Schmidt and Sandhya Somashekhar report for The Washington Post:



SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Maria raked across Puerto Rico Wednesday as the most powerful storm to strike the island in more than 80 years, ripping roofs off buildings and filling homes with water, and knocking out power to the entire population.
“Definitely Puerto Rico — when we can get outside — we will find our island destroyed,” Puerto Rico’s emergency management director, Abner Gomez, said at a midday press conference, adding that 100 percent of the island is without electricity. “The information we have received is not encouraging. It’s a system that has destroyed everything it has had in its path.”
The storm first slammed the coast near Yabucoa at 6:15 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds — the first Category 4 storm to directly strike the island since 1932. By midmorning, Maria had fully engulfed the 100-mile-long island as winds snapped palm trees, peeled off rooftops, sent debris skidding across beaches and roads. By afternoon, the intense gusts had become less frequent and the lashing rains eased, giving residents their first glimpse of the storm’s wake.
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NJ soil and water conservation grants for preserved farms

New Jersey’s Agriculture Secretary Douglas H. Fisher today announced that $500,000 is available in cost-sharing grants to farmers and landowners to help them implement soil and water conservation projects on preserved farms.
Soil and water conservation projects include those designed to control and prevent soil erosion and sediment damages; control pollution on farmland; impound, store and manage water for agricultural purposes, and improve management of land and soils to achieve maximum agricultural productivity.
Examples of eligible projects include terrace systems; diversions; stream protection; water impoundment reservoirs; irrigation systems; sediment retention, erosion or water control structures; drainage systems; animal waste control facilities; agrichemical handling facilities, and forest tree stand improvement.

U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will provide technical assistance to applicants and will assist landowners in planning and implementation of conservation practices in support of the Soil and Water Conservation Grant program.

Landowners should apply for soil and water conservation grants at their local NRCS office. Completed applications will be forwarded by NRCS to the State Soil Conservation Committee, which will approve and recommend eligible projects to the SADC for funding.

The State Agriculture and Development Committee (SADC), the grants administrator, will provide 50 percent cost-sharing for eligible projects. Maximum grant amounts will be determined by acreage under common deed ownership. 

The grants are funded by legislation recently signed into law by Governor Christie that appropriated $65.3 million for farmland preservation, including $1.5 million for soil and water conservation grants and other stewardship activities on preserved farms.

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NJDEP updates remediation standards for 16 contaminants

                                                                Keltbray.com photo

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) has changed the soil remediation standards for 19
contaminants based on revisions to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s carcinogenic dose database for
the compounds.

The updated soil
remediation standards are operative as of September 18, 2017. 


A copy of the Notice of Administrative Change can be found here. 


The NJDEP also published a separate correction for two of the contaminants: Hexachloroethane and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane. which can be found here 

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