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Florham Park, NJ — Matrix New World Engineering (Matrix) is pleased to announce Stephen Famularo, PE, BC.PE, has joined the firm as the Marine and Coastal Practice Lead.
Steve is a professional engineer, commercial diver, and board-certified port engineer with nearly three decades of experience in marine and coastal engineering throughout the United States and Caribbean. His expertise includes underwater inspection and rehabilitation of marine structures, asset management system design, coastal engineering, climate resiliency planning and structural/geotechnical design of piers, wharves, bulkheads, and floating structures.
He has led over $500 Million in waterfront construction and rehabilitation as both the Project Manager and Engineer-of-Record. Some of these prestigious waterfront projects include design of two new homeport facilities for NYC’s ferry system, the design-build construction of Terminal 5 at the Port of Davisville in Rhode Island, and field mapping and development of a web-based asset management system for NYC’s waterfront infrastructure.
According to Jayne Warne, PE, Matrix President, “We are happy to welcome Steve to the firm. His expertise and knowledge are wide-ranging and will help Matrix and its True Environmental platform partners continue to deliver exceptional service to our clients.”
Steve has been tasked with developing and expanding Matrix and True Environmental’s, Marine Survey and Inspection Business Line. “Steve is the perfect person for this endeavor,” said Dennis Petrocelli, SVP of Matrix. “He has vast experience and expertise in building this type of service line, which will only bolster Matrix’s extensive offerings.”
Steve has extensive expertise in project and quality management, business development, line management, and strategic planning. In addition, he has managed on-call agreements for the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), the New York City Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) Ferries Division, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
Steve is a member of the Moles, a fraternal organization of the heavy construction industry and the chair of the NYC Department of Buildings Waterfront Code Development Geotechnical, Coastal, and Structural Design Technical Committee. He is licensed as a Professional Engineer in 7 states, an ADCI Surface-Supplied Air Diver, Waterfront Edge Design Guidelines Associate, and Envision Sustainability Provider through the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure.
Steve graduated Magna Cum Laude from Manhattan College with a B.S. in Civil Engineering and earned his M.S. in Coastal Engineering from the University of California-Berkeley.
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Matrix adds Marine and Coastal Practice Lead Read More »
Global emissions of methane, a powerful planet-heating gas, are “rising rapidly” at the fastest rate in decades, requiring immediate action to help avert a dangerous escalation in the climate crisis, a new study has warned.
Methane emissions are responsible for half of the global heating already experienced, have been climbing significantly since around 2006 and will continue to grow throughout the rest of the 2020s unless new steps are taken to curb this pollution, concludes the new paper. The research is authored by more than a dozen scientists from around the world and published on Tuesday.
While the world “quite rightly” has focused on carbon dioxide as the primary driver of rising global temperatures, states the paper published in Frontiers in Science, little has been done to address methane, despite it having 80 times the warming power of CO2 in the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.
“The growth rate of methane is accelerating, which is worrisome,” said Drew Shindell, a climate scientist at Duke University and lead author of the study. “It was quite flat until around 20 years ago and just in the last few years we’ve had this huge dump of methane. It’s made the job of tackling anthropogenic warming all the more challenging.”
So far in the 2020s, global methane emissions have typically been about 30m tons higher each year than during last decade, with annual records in methane emissions broken in 2021 and again in 2022. While there is no single clear reason for this, scientists point to a number of factors.
Methane comes from the drilling and processing of oil, gas and coal, with a boom in fracking causing a rash of new gas projects this century. The gas is also emitted from livestock, primarily through the burps of cows, and increased animal agriculture, as well as to a lesser degree expanding rice production, has contributed.
Meanwhile, rising global heat is causing the faster decomposition of organic matter in wetlands, thereby releasing more methane.
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Scientists warn that methane emissions are rising at the fastest rate in decades Read More »
The Stone Canyon, Lake Shore, Quarry and Alexander Mountain fires are burning amid dry, hot weather affecting the Western United States.
By Annabelle Timsit, Washington Post, Updated August 1, 2024 at 7:49 a.m.
Several wildfires are burning through Colorado’s mountainous Front Range region, threatening popular tourist towns in the foothills as authorities
ordered hundreds of residents to evacuate.
The fires — Stone Canyon, Lake Shore, Quarry and Alexander Mountain — began at various pointsbetween Monday and Wednesday, and have burned through thousands of acres in the counties of Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer around the densely populated mountain range, according to authorities.
The Front Range extends from central Colorado to southern Wyoming, and is part of the Rocky Mountains. Its urban corridor includes cities such as Denver and Boulder that are popular year-round with nature lovers.
Emergency personnel discovered the remains of one person in a residence engulfed by a fire near the town of Lyons, Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson said Wednesday. Four firefighters were injured while battling the fire and several homes were destroyed, according to the Denver Post.
The Pleasant Valley Fire has consumed more than 28,000 acres in Goshen and Platte counties in eastern Wyoming. Firefighters are furiously battling flames, heat and rattlesnakes, but the fire remains 0% contained. [READ MORE]
| ‘It Was Armageddon’: Eastern Wyoming Community Evacuated By Wildfire Hartville and a neighboring subdivision in eastern Wyoming were evacuated overnight Tuesday when a fast-moving wildfire ballooned to more than 25,000 acres. “It was Armageddon,” is how a local woman described watching the flames advance. [READ MORE] |
By Li Cohen, CBS News
The Park Fire tearing across Northern California is destroying homes and burning up land – and its destruction is only part of a far larger problem this year. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said this week that as of Tuesday, wildfire activity is 2,816% higher than last year for the same time period.
“As of July 30, 2024, wildfires have scorched a staggering 751,327 acres across our state,” Cal Fire wrote on social media on Wednesday. “This year’s wildfire activity is 2,816% higher than last year, 29 times the amount of acreage burned.”
This year’s fires are far above both last year’s numbers and the five-year average, the department found. In 2023, there were 3,746 fires burning 25,763 acres through July 30, while the five-year average for the period is 4,416 fires and 140,996 acres.
As of early Thursday morning, the state is battling 16 active wildfires, including the Park Fire that started just over a week ago after a man was seen pushing a burning car into a ravine. Ronnie Stout, who’s charged with reckless arson, appeared in court for the first time Monday.
So far, the Park Fire has spread across 392,480 acres and four counties, with Cal Fire saying in their latest update that it “continues to burn in heavy, receptive fuel beds.”
It’s at just 18% containment and has grown so much that it is now the fifth-largest wildfire recorded in state history, trailing just behind the SCU Lightning Complex Fire in 2020 that burned 396,625 acres.
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Multiple wildfires raging across the U.S. West Read More »
On July 29th, the Department refreshed EJMAP with new stressor data made publicly available since its release on 1/31/24.
Any permit application submitted on or after 7/31/24 must use the new stressor data layer for analysis.
The tool will default to that revised layer. Previous stressor layers remain as archived layers within the tool with its own button for those permit applications received within previous date ranges.
A summary addendum explaining which stressors were updated and other changes on its Office of Environmental Justice website. Information on which data sets were used is included within an updated to the technical guidance document, also on the OEJ website.
If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for a full month.
New Jersey DEP updates its environmental justice ‘stressors’ map Read More »
Please be aware this grant opportunity is not through the NJUCF program.
Applications must be submitted on/before August 23rd by 5pm ET
The Center for Regenerative Solutions (CRS) and Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), through USDA Forest Service IRA Funding, have opened applications for capacity building and workforce development grants for communities to accelerate urban forestry through the launch and management of Community Forest Corps and Fellowship programs:
Community Forest Corps sustains tree canopy in climate-vulnerable communities by empowering and employing youth to simultaneously provide community-based tree care and protection while also gathering critical urban heat data essential to developing urban forestry-based cooling strategies.
Urban Forestry Equity Fellowship Program places individuals from diverse backgrounds in jurisdictions that have demonstrated suitable progress toward implementing urban forestry initiatives and are committed to collecting urban heat data and enhancing tree care and maintenance through Community Forest Corps.
Available Funding
Individual sub-awards will range from a minimum of $100,000 to a maximum of $600,000 total over a 3-year period, depending on the scope of work, project work areas, partnerships engaged, and capabilities of the applicant. A minimum of $5,500,000 in total funding is available. Cost-share or match is not a requirement for your sub-award agreement.
Grant Eligibility
All municipal/county-level jurisdictions, Tribes, and community-based nonprofit organizations are eligible. All work must directly impact disadvantaged communities as defined by the EPA IRA Disadvantaged Communities Map.
Resources Required for Community Forest Corps
Please review the Community Forest Corps Overview and keep these required resources in mind as you complete your Application:
Resources Required for Urban Forestry Fellowships
Please review the Urban Forestry Fellowship Program Overview to determine your community’s ability to employ and manage a Fellow for 1-3 years. Fellowship applicants will receive an additional questionnaire to learn more about:
If you liked this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Please do not take our word for it, try it free for an entire month. No obligation.
Community Forestry Youth Corps Funding Available Read More »
