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Here at TTF, we are extremely committed to turning vacant lots into community spaces — especially gardens that can help manage stormwater! So we really, really do not want to see the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s vacant land program disappear. Read on for the bad news, courtesy of the Next Great City newsletter, and what you can do to help!
SAVE VITAL FUNDING AND PROGRAMS FOR PHILLY NEIGHBORHOODS
Philadelphians instinctively know, and research shows, that a well cared for lot is better for communities than a neglected one. That’s why Next Great City identified cleaning and greening vacant lots as one of our ten action recommendations for the city. And Philadelphia residents and business owners agree.
Next Great City coalition partner, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), is a national leader in vacant land stabilization.
PHS’s vacant land program has cleaned and greened thousands of vacant parcels in Philadelphia, creating well-managed open space for communities to enjoy and attracting private investment. But now, because of a significantly reduced city budget, $2.4 million in funding for PHS’s vacant land program, which supports community revitalization and employs more than 300 people in full- and part-time green jobs, is on the chopping block.
While these are difficult times, cutting funding to this program will hurt neighborhoods and remove a vital tool for economic development.
Please contact Mayor Nutter today to urge him to continue his support for the valuable work PHS is doing to revitalize our city one vacant lot at a time. Don’t delay, email the Mayor at Michael.Nutter@phila.gov or call the Mayor’s Office at 215-686-2181.
While they are not in our watershed, we really want to showcase some of the great work that’s being done by the Friends of the Manayunk Canal. Here is some great rain barrel news from their recent newsletter:
A CALL FOR ARTISTS!
Friends of the Manayunk Canal & the Schuylkill Project, thanks to funding from WREN, is looking for artists interesting in blending art and conservation. The Art on a Rain Barrel Design Contest is open to any adult or child willing to exercise their creativity on behalf of water conservation and stewardship! Artists wishing to enter the Art on a Rain Barrel Design Contest must submit a registration form and a sketch of their proposed rain barrel design by Friday, June 30, 2010 to fmc@manayunkcanal.org.
Our expert panelists will choose the top design sketches from the registrants for inclusion in the Art on a Rain Barrel Design Contest. Artists whose sketches are chosen to participate in the contest will receive a rain barrel (a $150 value) to keep. Notification will be provided to the artists of the designs selected by the judges to participate in the contest by July 16th and rain barrel distribution will begin on July 19th. Artists will have until August 20, 2010 to complete their designs and return the rain barrels for judging. The completed rain barrel designs will then be installed along Main Street in Manayunk for thousands to see and vote on.
Artists are expected to be present at the EcoArts Festival on September 26, 2010 on Main Street in Manayunk for the announcement of the winners, who in addition to receiving a rain barrel will also win a generous prize basket stuffed with local goods.
We will be holding a refundable deposit for each rain barrel distributed to participants to insure that rain barrels are returned for the contest. Remember registration forms and a sketch of your proposed design must be submitted by June 30, 2010 to fmc@manayunkcanal.org in order for your design to be considered for the contest.
Not an artist? Visit www.manayunkcanal.org to sign up for one of the Do-It-Yourself Rain Barrel Workshops in October, where for $25 you can walk away with your own 100% recycled rain barrel as well as learning how to install, maintain and use your rain barrel!
Thursday, October 14 & 28, 6:30-8:00pm
Art of Recycling Rain Do It Yourself Barrel Workshops
(Location: Tenatively Venice Island Recreation Center)
Friends of the Manayunk Canal & the Schuylkill Project, thanks to funding from WREN, will be engaging the public to act with interactive do-it-yourself rain barrel workshops. For a $25 registration fee, workshops participants will not only receive a 100 percent recycled rain barrel of their own, they will also learn how to install, maintain and use their rain barrels. Additionally, workshop participants will be empowered with the tools they need to tackle other simple stormwater controls at home, like how to build a rain garden.
Email us at fmc@manayunkcanal.org to register for one of the Do-It-Yourself Rain Barrel Workshops in October, where for $25 you can walk away with your own 100% recycled rain barrel as well as learn how to install, maintain and use your rain barrel! Tickets will be first come, first serve.
From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:
Pennsylvania environmental officials on Monday suspended some operations of a Marcellus Shale natural gas operator whose well blew out last week and spewed natural gas and 35,000 gallons of drilling fluid in a remote part of Clearfield County.
Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Hanger ordered EOG Resources Inc. to suspend its natural-gas well drilling activities in Pennsylvania until DEP has completed a comprehensive investigation into the leak and the company has implemented any needed changes.
“The Clearfield County incident presented a serious threat to life and property,” said Hanger. “We are working with the company to review its Pennsylvania drilling operations fully from beginning to end to ensure an incident of this nature does not happen again.”
Read the whole article here.
Please read the following press release from American Rivers regarding the press event that took place on Wednesday. Sarah was there representing TTF, along with the President of our Board, Gerry Kaufman, who is quoted below. It’s long, but chocked-full of important information about protecting the Delaware River.
American Rivers Names Upper Delaware River Most Endangered in U.S.
Philadelphia Leaders to DRBC: Cease Construction on Exploratory Wells; Deny Water Withdrawal, Drilling Permits
Industry Response: Unconventional Drilling, Conventional Obfuscation Strategies
Iris Marie Bloom
Philadelphia: June 3, 2010
The Upper Delaware River, the drinking water source for 17 million people across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, is at risk from shale fracking for natural gas, a process that poisons groundwater and creates toxic pollution. This threat landed the Upper Delaware in the number one spot in America’s Most Endangered Rivers 2010, a report released yesterday by the national nonprofit group American Rivers.
In Philadelphia yesterday, American Rivers spokesperson Liz Garland opened a press conference at City Hall, “In shining the spotlight on gas drilling in the Upper Delaware River, we chose a time when preventive action is still possible. The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) is making major decisions right now which will affect the fate of this river, and the people who drink this water have a chance to weigh in on that decision.”
Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, said, “The Delaware River is the longest free flowing river east of the Mississippi, much of it designated Wild and Scenic. Many, many people have worked and billions of dollars have been spent to bring the Delaware back to life after decades of abuse. As we face the advent of gas drilling in the Upper Delaware River Watershed, we face the possibility of losing everything.”
Philadelphia City Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, who introduced a successful resolution earlier this spring calling on the DRBC to ban shale gas drilling until an Environmental Impact Statement is assessed for the Delaware River Watershed, drew parallels to the Gulf disaster. “The BP rig which blew up was an exploratory well. It had special exemptions. We have to learn something from this. The DRBC is exempting exploratory wells right here in our watershed, which supplies our drinking water. The have to stop letting companies drill without a DRBC permit, and they should deny the Stone Energy water withdrawal permit, and all drilling-related permits, until we have the Environmental Impact Statement. We don’t need a disaster here.”
§ Read the rest of this entry…
On Wednesday, I was pleased to attend the first annual progress report for Philadelphia’s Greenworks Plan, a six-year plan for making Philadelphia the greenest city in the country.
The event was inspiring. It was great to see so many environmental and community organizations working together to celebrate our city and help it become as sustainable as possible. Often times, in a big city with an old infrastructure like Philadelphia, it can seem like positive environmental change happens very, very slowly. We hear the complaints all the time: “Nothing is happening!” “Where are my tax dollars going?” “Why isn’t Philadelphia as ‘green’ as other cities?”
Well, change IS happening all around us. It will take some time, but Philadelphia has already made some really great strides in the realm of greening. Read the report here and check out all the amazing progress that’s been made citywide in just one year!
This article from the Philadelphia Daily News spells out some of the achievements:
Divert 70 percent of solid waste from landfills - In other words, increase the recycling rate. And it is ticking up. Over the past year, the diversion rate was 16 percent of waste, compared with 12 percent during the previous year. Officials expect it to go even higher now that the recycling-rewards program is set to go citywide.
Provide park and recreation space within 10 minutes of 75 percent of residents – The plan is to add 500 acres of public space. Gajewski said the city is working with neighborhoods to figure out what they want.
Plant 300,000 trees – This is one of the more ambitious goals. Since Greenworks started, 2,846 trees have been planted. In April, the Department of Parks and Recreation kicked off a tree-planting campaign called “Green Philly, Grow Philly.” It is seeking partnerships with private businesses, nonprofits and other organizations to increase the number of trees. But Nutter last week said he would cut $2.5 million the city budgeted to tree-planting, due to financial constraints, which will undoubtedly slow this effort.
Double the number of green jobs – Last year, the city said it wanted to increase the number of green jobs – loosely defined as jobs with an environmental benefit – from 14,379 to 28,800. So far, it has created at least 520 jobs, largely through stimulus funding for types of construction work.
Of course, here at TTF, we are most excited by all the great progress made in the arena of stormwater management, thanks in large part to the Philadelphia Water Department’s Green City, Clean Waters plan. We’re looking forward to the 2011 progress report. In the mean time, we’ll keep doing our part to help make Philadelphia the greenest city in the country!
Here is another great article in the New York Times’Toxic Waters series. This time, Charles Duhigg takes a look at the cost of replacing crumbling urban sewer and water infrastructures in cities like Washington, DC. He notes that:
State and federal studies indicate that thousands of water and sewer systems may be too old to function properly.
For decades, these systems — some built around the time of the Civil War — have been ignored by politicians and residents accustomed to paying almost nothing for water delivery and sewage removal. And so each year, hundreds of thousands of ruptures damage streets and homes and cause dangerous pollutants to seep into drinking water supplies.
The article explores how many people take their water infrastructure for granted, and rate increases have been fought tooth-and-nail in cities around the country, including Philadelphia. The article ends with this powerful quote: “This is the fight of our lifetimes. Water is tied into everything we should care about. Someday, people are going to talk about our sewers with a real sense of pride.”
Read the whole article here.
PennFuture is leading the way on challenging the Marcellus Shale Drilling. Go PennFuture!
Drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale is growing at a breakneck pace – often destroying water supplies and damaging local communities, with no tax in place to restore and repair the damage and reimburse our citizens – it’s clear that taming the Marcellus Shale drillers is Job 1 for next year.
National gas drillers from around the world are coming to Pennsylvania to tap one of our most valuable natural resources – natural gas in the vast Marcellus Shale formation that underlies most of the state. Some of the drillers are conscientious about protecting the environment, but many are not. This brings tremendous risks to our land and water. And right now, those risks are being shouldered by local communities and environmental treasures.
In almost every state that has substantial natural gas deposits, drillers must pay a severance tax on the extraction of the resource to compensate for the depletion of the resource and for damage done to the environment and public infrastructure.
But not in Pennsylvania. This past year, we successfully pushed for a vote in favor of the tax in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, but the Republican-controlled Senate and the oil, gas and drilling industries blocked any consideration in the Senate.
We are determined to push the tax through in 2010…
Visit PennFuture’s website to learn how you can help! Also check out our past posts on Marcellus Shale to learn more about the issue.
Here is a great New Year’s Resolution for Pennsylvania recommended by PennFuture:
Enact mandatory recycling of electronic gadgets and computers. There is nothing to prevent people from simply dumping electronic gadgets, computers and televisions into landfills, even though many are classified as hazardous waste and often contain toxic materials. Legislation being considered by the House and Senate will protect our environment and grow Pennsylvania’s green economy. The proposed law requires the manufacturers of electronics to arrange for them to be responsibly recycled, usually bylocal e-cycling businesses. Enacting e-cycling legislation will be yet another win for the economy and the environment.
Contact your state legislator to make sure that Pennsylvania adopts the right resolutions!
The New York Times has recently published some more truly fascinating articles in their “Toxic Waters” series. In “Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show,” Charles Duhigg explains how some water treatment systems have gotten away with illegal concentrations of harmful substances in drinking water. From the article:
More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data.
That law requires communities to deliver safe tap water to local residents. But since 2004, the water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.
Regulators were informed of each of those violations as they occurred. But regulatory records show that fewer than 6 percent of the water systems that broke the law were ever fined or punished by state or federal officials, including those at the Environmental Protection Agency, which has ultimate responsibility for enforcing standards.
In “Sewers at Capacity, Waste Poisons Waterways,” Duhigg explains the problem with combined sewer overflows, with a brief mention of how Philadelphia is addressing the problem through the Green City, Clean Waters program.
Duhigg explains the problem in a nutshell:
One goal of the Clean Water Act of 1972 was to upgrade the nation’s sewer systems, many of them built more than a century ago, to handle growing populations and increasing runoff of rainwater and waste. During the 1970s and 1980s, Congress distributed more than $60 billion to cities to make sure that what goes into toilets, industrial drains and street grates would not endanger human health.
But despite those upgrades, today, many sewer systems are still frequently overwhelmed, according to a New York Times analysis of environmental data. As a result, sewage — including human excrement and dangerous industrial chemicals — is spilling into waterways.
In the last three years alone, more than 9,400 of the nation’s 25,000 sewage systems — including those in major cities — have reported violating the law by dumping untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into rivers and lakes and elsewhere, according to data from state environmental agencies and the Environmental Protection Agency.
You can read all of the articles in the series here. Don’t forget to check out the accompanying videos as well!
This New York Times article shows how much damage we’ve done to our oceans.
From the article:
Light bulbs, bottle caps, toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks and tiny pieces of plastic, each the size of a grain of rice, inhabit the Pacific garbage patch, an area of widely dispersed trash that doubles in size every decade and is now believed to be roughly twice the size of Texas. But one research organization estimates that the garbage now actually pervades the Pacific, though most of it is caught in what oceanographers call a gyre like this one — an area of heavy currents and slack winds that keep the trash swirling in a giant whirlpool.
Scientists say the garbage patch is just one of five that may be caught in giant gyres scattered around the world’s oceans. Abandoned fishing gear like buoys, fishing line and nets account for some of the waste, but other items come from land after washing into storm drains and out to sea.
Plastic is the most common refuse in the patch because it is lightweight, durable and an omnipresent, disposable product in both advanced and developing societies. It can float along for hundreds of miles before being caught in a gyre and then, over time, breaking down.
But once it does split into pieces, the fragments look like confetti in the water. Millions, billions, trillions and more of these particles are floating in the world’s trash-filled gyres.
Yikes! Read the whole thing here.
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