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Highlights
Victory! Tompkins County, NY Passes Fee on Carryout Paper Bags
The Tompkins County Legislature unanimously passed a local law placing a 5-cent fee on carryout paper bags. CCE staff attended the public hearing and provided testimony to the legislature on the environmental and economic impacts of paper bags. This local law, in conjunction with the statewide ban on plastic bags, is necessary to fully address disposable bag pollution and encourage the public to change their behavior and bring their own bag. Tompkins now joins Albany County and NYC, who passed similar laws earlier this year. We still need more cities and counties to step up and do their part to address single-use bags!
Victory! Long Island Towns Ban Balloon Releases
The Town of Hempstead, the largest town in America, and the Town of North Hempstead, have banned the intentional release of balloons. Suffolk County and Long Beach had previously passed similar laws to prevent plastic pollution, reduce beach litter, and protect wildlife. Now that most of Long Island now has balloon release bans, we have one town left to go. Next up in our fight to prevent balloon pollution – the Town of Oyster Bay (not to mention all of NYS!).
Happenings
Eighth Annual “Water We Going to Do?” Conference
The Long Island Clean Water Partnership held our annual “Water We Going to Do?” Conference in November. We heard great updates from our federal, state, and local officials, as well as scientific experts, on the threat nitrogen pollution and other threats pose for Long Island’s waters. It was a great opportunity to learn about our water quality improvement campaign’s progress, discuss ongoing clean water projects, and set the stage for what needs to happen in the next year. Thanks to everyone who turned out and made it our best conference yet!
Gearing up for our NYS Water Priorities in 2020
In November, we attended several hearings of the NYS Assembly Minority Water Quality Task Force across New York State to discuss water protection priorities for next year’s legislative session, including funding for clean water infrastructure, a stronger Environmental Protection Fund, protecting NY’s streams and wetlands, establishing drinking water standards for emerging contaminants, banning toxic pesticides, and combating PFAS contamination. Stay tuned for more info on our upcoming 2020 campaigns!
Talking CT’s Environment
Want to hear more about some of our Connecticut campaigns? CCE’s Lou Rosado Burch appeared on WLIS/WMRD radio program “CT Outdoors with Suzanne Thompson” to speak about the state-wide disposable bag law as well as our campaign to keep toxic PFAS out of Connecticut’s water. You can check out the interview here.
Examining NYS Cancer Clusters
The New York State Health Department identified several communities across NYS, including Centereach, Farmingville, and Selden in Suffolk County, which have higher rates of leukemia, bladder, lung, and thyroid cancers then average. After a year-long investigation into the cause of these cancer rates, the health department failed to thoroughly investigate possible environmental exposures in air and water quality issues. In November, we attended a public meeting where the health department released their findings and we were outraged to hear about the state’s lack of serious investigation into this public health crisis in our communities.
Upcoming Event: Suffolk County, NY: Change Out Your Septic System
We’re continuing our series of forums in 2019 and 2020 highlighting the importance of reducing nitrogen pollution from outdated septics and cesspools and helping Suffolk County residents get grants to change out their old systems for new, on-site, nitrogen-reducing treatment systems. Our next forum is on December 16 at 7pm at the Setauket Neighborhood House.