For Immediate Release:
April 9, 2002

For Information, Contact:
Jeff Jones, 518-462-5526 ext. 233
Val Washington, 518-462-5526 ext. 228

M E D I A A L E R T

On Thursday, April 11^th, the Michigan Environmental Council (MEC) will release GREENING the GOVERNMENTS, Assessing the Environmental Conditions and Performance of the Great Lakes States, an historic first effort to provide information to the people of the region about how well the eight Great Lakes states are doing in protecting the environment. In producing the report, MEC consulted with a panel of advisors with a wide range of experience on environmental matters in the different states. Val Washington, Executive Director of Environmental Advocates of New York, a statewide environmental policy organization, participated as the New York advisor.

The report presents a range of quantitative and qualitative data in graph and chart form showing how the states compare on a variety of environmental indicators, from air and water quality, to sprawl, to energy conservation. While the states are not "graded," conclusions are drawn from the data and recommendations for improvement are made. The report takes special note of the difficulty of this type of analysis because of inconsistent environmental monitoring, reporting and data analysis among the states.

An advance copy of the report may be downloaded from www.mecprotects.org/greening.pdf.

The report is embargoed until Thursday, April 11, 2002.

Summary of the report's findings as they apply to New York State.

For more information contact:
Jeff Jones (jjones@eany.org) or Val Washington (vwashington@eany.org) at Environmental Advocates of New York. (518) 462-5526
or
Dave Dempsey, MEC Policy Advisor (davemec@voyager.net)
(517) 487-9539