Single-use Styrofoam again banned by New York City


Janet Babin reports for NYC News:

For the second time in less than three years, New York City is instituting a ban on single-use Styrofoam containers.

The first ban on polystyrene took effect in July, 2015, but was challenged by a coalition recycling firms and plastics manufacturers. They sued the city arguing that the material is recyclable.

New York Supreme Court judge Margaret Chan agreed, overturning the ban before the Sanitation Department even had a chance to start handing out fines. She wrote that the industry had offered up a feasible recycling plan for the containers, and sent the city back to the drawing board.

The city’s new report issued late Friday again found that Styrofoam is impossible to be recycled economically.

The ban’s reinstatement came on the same day as a New York City Council committee held a hearing on a bill that would make Styrofoam take-out containers part of the city’s curbside recycling program. Dozens of New Yorkers filled the committee room to speak for or against.

The bill was backed by the Restaurant Action Alliance and the Dart Container Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of polystyrene containers. Plastics manufacturers would pay the infrastructure costs to implement the recycling program.

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In Pa., fewer new wells drilling but more gas flowing



COURTESY OF FRACTRACKER ALLIANCE
Natural gas well behind a house in southwestern Pa.. Production reached 5.1 trillion cubic feet in 2016.

Susan Phillips reports for StateImpact: 

Pennsylvania’s shale gas drillers continued to break records for production in 2016, tapping about 5.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Although the increase in production was not as high as in previous years, it still represents an upward trend, while the number of new well permits are declining, according to data published this week by the Department of Environmental Protection. Pennsylvania still ranks second behind Texas in total volume of natural gas production.
The state’s annual oil and gas report is in electronic form for the first time as part of the department’s efforts to put more drilling data online in a publicly accessible format. It includes GIS information on well sites, and charts outlining trends over the past ten years. Continue Reading →
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Questions about Oyster Creek safety? Book this meeting

Patricia A. Miller reports for Brick Patch:

How safe was the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station in 2016?
You can get some detailed answers from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission at a discussion slated for 6 p.m. on May 25 at the Holiday Inn in Manahawkin.
The NRC will discuss the Exelon-owned plant’s performance and the NRC’s oversight of the facility on Route 9 in Lacey Township.
NRC employees and resident inspectors on the site full-time will be on hand to answer any questions, said NRC spokesman Neil Sheehan.
Sheehan said Oyster Creek operated safely during 2016, with no inspection findings or performance indicators outside of the normal range.
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Trump’s EPA puts insecticide rule for farmworkers on ice

         
A week after 50 farm workers were sickened by pesticides, the EPA punts on protecting them. 

Nathaniel Johnson writes for Grist:


In 2015, the EPA released an update to the “worker protection standard” that shields farm workers from insecticide poisoning — the first update in a quarter century. Now it’ll be pushed back for an indefinite period.

The new regulations would ban kids under 18 from mixing and spraying chemicals, mandate that workers get yearly safety training, and direct farmers to keep laborers farther from active pesticide spraying. 


The importance of worker safety standards was highlighted by the recent poisonings of cabbage pickers outside Bakersfield, California. A mist containing the pesticide chlorpyrifos blew over from a neighboring field and settled over them, hospitalizing at least one farmworker. 

The organization representing state departments of agriculture, which requested the delay shortly after Trump’s election, saying that regulators needed more time to prepare.


But worker advocates said that farmers and regulators had plenty of time to comply with the new standards. 


 “We think it took EPA way too long to come out with these rules,” said Earthjustice attorney Eve Gartner. “The fact that a year and a half after these rules are adopted, a new administration comes in and puts them on hold is just outrageous.” 


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Just what New Jerseyans don’t need: a new brand of tick

Another tick-borne disease has spread to New Jersey, and it may produce some strange side effects that could impact the way people eat.


Tom Davis reports for the Brick Patch:

A tick that produces a rash similar to that of Lyme disease has spread to New Jersey, and it may produce some strange side effects that could impact your diet.
The lone star tick produces southern tick-associated rash illness, or STARI, that can lead to fatigue, fever, headache, muscle and joint pains, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But there’s another potential symptom that you may not have expected: an allergic reaction to red meat.
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RPA thinks ReThink’s Penn Station plan is off track


Influential advocacy group says
scrapping Penn South is a mistake but agrees big fixes are a must

Joe Anuta reports for
Crain’s:
The Regional Plan
Association is pushing back on a Manhattan think tank’s proposal for fixing
Penn Station and improving rail transit throughout the region.

ReThink Studio presented a vision last week to make Penn Station a through stop by modifying the
Gateway tunnel project. By scrapping a $7 billion part of that plan to raze a Manhattan block and add new tracks to the south of the crowded
transit hub, the group argues that money could be freed up to build new rail
stations in Secaucus, N.J.; Sunnyside, Queens; and Port Morris in the Bronx
that would connect the regional commuter lines with relatively minor additions
to existing tracks. That change would open up all sorts of additional transit and economic-development
projects.

RPA, which is set to release its own sweeping vision for the tristate area this
fall, said on Tuesday that nixing Penn Station South would be a mistake.

“We don’t believe … that the existing tracks alone are enough to meet
demand,” RPA head Tom Wright wrote
in a blog post. “Growing service demand can only be
accommodated by increasing the number of tracks and platforms to accommodate
through running service.”
Related news story:
How to fix Penn Station? Build a transit hub in Queens
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