Iroquois
Ash for Trash swap ignites incinerator debate across two counties
In addition to our continuous action on fracking, the Iroquois Group is focused on a local issue called Ash for Trash. It involves the legislature of our neighbors to the south, Cortland, and Onondaga County.
In what seems to be a very secret and confusing tale, it has been proposed that the ash from the incinerator in Onondaga County be sent to the Cortland landfill and the same trucks would bring back Cortland’s trash to burn in Onondaga’s incinerator. The threat is that if this is not allowed, the incinerator could become private and local control would end. So the incinerator as a private facility would be able to bring in any kind of trash to burn. This raises the issue of emissions levels.
We are still sorting out the options and trying to make sense of the process. The Group’s only statement to date is that we oppose it until all the facts have been made known.
Our Excom has participated in National’s climate dialogue process. An hour of very interesting discussion on three questions proposed to guide the national Climate Movement Task Force was held in mid-February. This effort is meant to insure that all parts of the Sierra Club are involved in developing an effective and inclusive movement to fight climate disruption. So our answers to the discussion questions will help frame the planned movement. Leaders of the action were members David Fischer and Michelle Wolfe. (See Michelle’s article on the Climate Movement Task Force on page 6).
Martha Loew
Group joins labor leaders in speaking out against TPP
One of the issues of great concern to the Sierra Club is the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Michael Brune has spoken very forcefully against efforts to fast-track this new international trade agreement because there are enormous concerns about its potential adverse local, regional, national and global environmental impacts. One such concern involves the possibility that the TPP could essentially force governments to allow companies to pursue fossil fuels regardless of citizen concerns.
The Atlantic Chapter is especially concerned about hydraulic fracturing, so I was pleased to speak on behalf of the Iroquois Group at a press conference in January in downtown Syracuse. Local labor leaders joined Congressman Dan Maffei (D-Syracuse) in speaking out against the proposal. The Sierra Club was the only environmental organization represented. Here, in part, is what I said:
Multinational corporate industrial interests are hard at work, behind the scenes in Washington, and TPP is the latest instrument to further their interests. Environmental regulation is clearly necessary. Think about the Deepwater Horizon incident, the Exxon Valdez, the Fukushima disaster, the contamination of the public water supply in West Virginia... We can only guess how many more industrial environmental disasters—how many more as bad as Deepwater Horizon, or worse—we would have with weaker regulations and less enforcement.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership threatens regulations that are essential to protecting our air, our water, and most importantly, Earth’s climate. A clause called “investor-state dispute settlement” raises corporations to the level of nations in the sense that it empowers them to sue governments to block sensible environmental protections. Similar provisions in other trade agreements have allowed corporations to do this.
For example, one company based in the U.S. is using investment rules under the North American Free Trade Agreement to sue Canada over its fracking restrictions. The TPP could also endanger U.S. environmental protections. It would strip our government of its ability to manage exports of natural gas, opening the floodgates to more fracking here at home to satisfy foreign markets.
Those who are ardently pushing passage of the TPP via fast-track authorization are in a discomforting hurry. The legislative proposal to fast-track TPP intends to bypass the normal process of congressional review.
I’m here today to convey the Sierra Club’s deep thanks to Congressman Dan Maffei and his colleagues for standing up for sensible democratic deliberation.
David W. Fischer
Lower Hudson
Water coalition girds for final push against Hudson River desalination project
One year ago, Suez/United Water’s proposal for a desalination plant to treat water from the Hudson River for Rockland County’s drinking water appeared slated for approval, despite years of opposition by our local Sierra Club and other activists. Looking back, 2013 has been an extraordinary year, in which we were able to turn this process around, so that today New York is seriously reconsidering the project.
After years of discussion, Rockland County is moving ahead in some very exciting ways on water policy. Last year’s truly remarkable progress built on years of hard work by the Rockland Water Coalition, a group co-founded by the Club’s Rockland County Committee.
The Lower Hudson Group and its allies worked hard last fall to help bring out 1,600 citizens and elected officials to hearings held by the Public Service Commission (PSC) in October, overwhelmingly opposing desalination. We hired three experts, including Al Appleton, NYC’s former commissioner of environmental protection, thanks in part to a grant from the Atlantic Chapter. Since then more than 855 comments were submitted to the Public Service Commission (PSC), including some by local high school students with whom we have been working on a water conservation challenge.
Most important, there is now strong evidence that state agencies are seriously re-evaluating this project. In addition to the public hearings last October, the PSC has established two new formal hearings on rate increases, apparently out of concern for the extraordinary and still unexamined total costs of this mammoth project. This re-examination is extremely unusual and it is the work of the coalition that has made it happen. In addition, the NYS Department of State has stepped in on all three PSC cases as a legal party, with an interest in protecting Rock-land ratepayers. Again, this signals a very serious review of the issues.
At the same time, elected officials have responded to the overwhelming opposition to this massively expensive, highly energy-intensive and destructive desalination project in the water-rich Northeast. The new Rockland County administration is very supportive of our fight, and the county is in the process of setting up a task force to craft new water policy. The public will now exists to meet Rockland’s water needs through safer, more affordable options than desalination, which include conservation, fair management of Rockland’s water sharing agreement with UW’s N.J. customers, and repair of leaking infrastructure.
This David & Goliath battle is not over, but we have made remarkable progress. A decision from the PSC is expected by July. We are using this time to organize and raise funds, knowing that an adjudicatory hearing is likely. After many years of hard work, the coalition and its allies are determined to make 2014 the year in which we not only bring this proposal to a halt, but we begin to move ahead with an economically and environmentally sound plan for Rockland’s water future. And that’s one victory we’ll celebrate with a large glass of water!
Gale Pisha
Susquehanna
Binghamton airport pioneering use of geothermal energy
Greater Binghamton Airport, the first airport in the country to use a geothermal system to heat an aircraft parking ramp, is expanding its system.
The $1.25 million project, funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, is expected to reduce 103 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
In 2010, the airport, in conjunction with Binghamton University, submitted a proposal to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a prototype snow melting system in a portion of the terminal pavements. The system is based on a submission by BU students in association with an FAA design competition.
The airport is expanding the system to cool the terminal building during the summer months, using the same geothermal wells that melt snow. The airport will also have an educational energy display so visitors can see how the building is performing.
Geothermal systems use the relatively constant temperature of the Earth instead of the outside air temperature to provide efficient heating and cooling. The systems use water-source heat pumps throughout the building. Heat energy can be extracted from the Earth in the winter, and carried to the building. In the summer the process is reversed when unwanted heat is extracted from the building and released into the Earth.