End Game
Jeff Jones

One of the many sour notes lingering from the 2002 state legislative session is this: no one can say for sure whether or not it is over. Advocates always start off the new year with optimism, and eventual disappointment with New York's leaders and decision-making process has become a cliché. But that's how it went between January and June. The hope, six months ago, was that the desire of lawmakers to go before the voters this fall with a record of achievement would provide significant motivation for accomplishment. In fact, there was real demonstrable effort and movement on some of the state's most intractable environmental problems. What makes this year's fiasco unique is how close the Legislature came, only to seemingly give up within sight of the finish line.

Two key environmental issues tell the tale: Superfund/brownfields and waste tire policy.

Most distressing was the Superfund/brownfields failure (see Directors' Chair, pg. 2). After years of positioning and stalled negotiations, primarily between the Governor and the Assembly, both sides missed an important opportunity when the Senate came out with an independent, innovative compromise that protected cleanup standards yet still had incentives for developers. Fault lies primarily with the Governor, who insisted the Senate retract its initiative and toe his line.

Meanwhile, we can mark a near breakthrough on the waste tires crisis (see Picking Up the Trash, pg. 3). New York's numerous piles of waste tires—50 million strong and growing—received renewed attention in February when a fire broke out at an illegal tire dump in Waterford, a small Capital Region town represented by Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. Subsequent air, land and water pollution caused by the fire and its extinguishing, caught the leader's attention. Advocates know that cleaning up tires has a price, although not as great an ultimate cost as doing nothing about the problem. Until this year, the political courage to put a fee on the sale of new tires, to be used for cleaning up existing piles and investing in tire recycling initiatives, was lacking. It was very encouraging, then, that toward the end of the session, the Senate and Assembly agreed on a comprehensive bill that included a fee of $1.25 added to the cost of each new tire sold in the state. That bill, which earned Environmental Advocates' strongest support, seemed headed for passage by both houses, when, on the Senate's last day of work, it was combined with the Governor's "pave and wave" Superfund/brownfields bill. Without correction, this unacceptable pairing properly dooms it to failure in the Assembly.

Environmental issues weren't the only ones to stumble at the end. Reform of the Rockefeller Drug Law, the minimum wage increase and greater limitations on smoking in restaurants—a significant public health breakthrough for both patrons and restaurant employees—also collapsed at the end. If negotiations between the leaders continue over the summer, lawmakers may return after the primary elections are over. More likely, however, the session is done for the year. The Legislature's 2002 ledger of environmental accomplishment is thin.

Directors' Chair

Val Washington

To ensure the unified support of the environmental community for the 1996 Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act, Gov. George Pataki promised to address the financially troubled state Superfund as a separate measure. Even then it was clear that the money available to clean up New York's most toxic sites was running out, with hundreds of hazards still to be addressed. At about the same time, we joined community-based organizations in New York City to urge passage of a program to clean up the states’ lesser contaminated sites, referred to as brownfields, which number in the thousands. Since then, Superfund has gone broke and it has become clear that New York’s lack of a brownfield program—unique among industrialized states—is not only unhealthy, but is feeding urban decay and suburban sprawl.

With elections in the fall, this was thought to be the year that Superfund and brownfields—the two have become linked—would finally get addressed. There were several legislative proposals on the table and genuine interest from the chairs of both the Senate and the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committees to reach an accord. The Governor also expressed a commitment to a new law this year; unfortunately his actions did not support his stated resolve.

The definitive clue that nothing was going to happen came during the last scheduled week of the session when the Senate raised our spirits with a thoughtful new brownfields bill specifically designed to come closer to the Assembly position. Their initiative was withdrawn only hours later, however, when the Governor moved his own bill with a few changes to meet key Senate demands.

Then, in the last hours of the Senate session, the Governor produced yet another version of his bill that incorporated both his brownfields proposal (which we oppose) and his unrelated waste tire bill (which we support). The new measure went through a hasty committee meeting and then passed to the floor of the Senate where it was approved along party lines, with no hope of success in the Assembly. The Senators received a copy of the 115-page bill only minutes before they voted. As a few Senators spoke to explain their votes, Senator Liz Kruger, who voted against it, was angrily accused by the Senate sponsor of not having read it. But that was true for them all.

Meanwhile, the Governor’s cynical tactics within the Legislature were being outdone by his administrative actions. In May, the Department of Environmental Conservation published a regulatory version of his brownfields bill as an agency guidance, scheduled to go into effect this summer without a hearing. This is a clear affront to the legislative process, but even more outrageous is its timing; it emerged at the precise time that negotiations began with the Legislature, serving as a silent threat of unilateral action. We also see it as illegal in the absence of authorizing legislation and will challenge the guidance in court.

Picking Up The Trash
More, not less, recycling is needed in New York
Val Washington

In the last 20 years recycling has progressed from an obscure, crankish vision to an accepted, human-scale demonstration of individual respect for the Earth's limited resources. Unfortunately, that success has also left a false sense that this accomplishment is complete. It is not.

Witness, for example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s startling retrenchment on recycling in New York City. For now, the city has stopped collecting plastic and glass. But at least the Mayor’s retro approach has brought recycling back into the public debate. Environmental Advocates would like to see that discussion go well beyond a return to the status quo, to include plans for spent consumer products that may not be so readily given to reuse without the creation of new manufacturing techniques and markets. In this year’s state legislative session, several thoughtful recycling initiatives were introduced that go beyond conventional thinking about the management of solid waste.

Waste tires—New York's rural landscape is blotted by more than 50 million waste tires, each made from about two gallons of petroleum and a host of other toxic materials, inviting poisonous, hard to control fires and providing an ideal breeding ground for insects, including those bearing the West Nile Virus. Another 18 million waste tires are generated each year. Similar bills introduced by Senator Carl Marcellino and Assemblymember William Colton would create a state policy for the reuse and recycling of waste tires, both those currently stockpiled and those generated annually, funded by a fee to be collected when tires are purchased. The bill includes most of the important ingredients necessary for responsible scrap tire policy: a system for cleaning up tire stockpiles, a program for creating end-user markets for recycled rubber from waste tires, and a dedicated revenue stream for accomplishing these ends.

E-waste—Another bill introduced by Marcellino and Colton would require state agencies to work with local governments to recycle electronic waste. Rapid growth in computer use has overwhelmed New York with electronic junk, including toxic materials such as lead, cadmium and chromium. Between 1997 and 1999 the US dumped, burned, shipped abroad or stored for later disposal some 50 million computers. Ideally, the kind of program suggested by the legislators would include a fee on the purchase of electronics that could in turn fund incentives for start-up recyclers.

Dental amalgam—The Environmental Conservation Committee chairs of both houses of the Legislature, Assemblymember Thomas DiNapoli and Senator Marcellino, have advanced a bill that would require that elementary mercury from dentists’ offices be recycled and that all waste mercury amalgam from dental practice in the state be encapsulated. Mercury is now recognized as one of the most persistent bioaccumulative toxins, responsible for substantial neurological damage and other harms. Increased awareness of its dangers has caused most users to find component and production process alternatives to mercury, resulting in an 80 percent decline in mercury usage over the last two decades. Dental use of this toxic metal, however, stands out as a glaring exception to this downward trend. The use of mercury amalgam (a metallic alloy made up of 50 percent mercury with the balance consisting of silver, copper and tin) by dentists has actually increased. Approximately 100 million amalgams are placed in patients each year; about 70 percent are replacement fillings, which means that much of the waste mercury winds up in private or municipal waste water systems. This bill would be an important first step toward the promulgation of rules governing these practices.

Oil filters—Currently, service stations are required to accept used waste oil from consumers for recycling. A bill introduced by Assemblymember Gary Pretlow would also require the collection of used oil filters from automobiles. Used oil filters contain a significant amount of scrap steel, the most commonly and easily recycled material. The Steel Recycling Institute estimates that if all the oil filters currently discarded in the US were recycled, they would yield enough steel to build 16 arenas the size of Atlanta’s Olympic Stadium. And, by including oil filters in the state’s waste oil diversion system, the 700,000 gallons of waste oil that remain in the 18 million used oil filters New Yorkers discard annually could also be recycled.

EANY Executive Director Val Washington welcomed the crowd. Arm of the Sea's Mama Water performed at the noon rally. Also speaking was Senate Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Carl Marcellino.

Earth Day Lobby Day 2002 Hundreds gather for annual event, offer united voice at the Capitol More than 350 activists from around the state, including students from several high schools, came together on Monday, April 22 in Albany to lobby the state Legislature on an agenda of pressing environmental issues. The list featured two bills from last year: a measure to refinance the state Superfund, and a five-year moratorium on the planting of genetically modified crops in New York. New initiatives included: power plant siting reform; a law that would require labeling of genetically modified foods; fully funding the Environmental Protection Fund at a minimum of $250 million; brownfields clean-ups, and; continued funding for healthy school environments. An important focus of this year’s lobby day came in response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal to cut recycling in New York City. Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Tom DiNapoli and members of the environmental community have begun to work on a "bigger, better" bottle bill, which would expand the current bottle recycling law to cover non-carbonated beverages, require unclaimed nickel deposits to be collected and used to fund municipal waste reduction and recycling projects, and specify the exact materials that must be recycled in New York and prohibit them from being put into an incinerator, landfill, or thrown out with regular garbage. Despite inclement weather, and an unexpected visit from President George Bush to Whiteface Mountain in the Adirondacks the same day, Earth Day Lobby Day was a great success. Along with direct lobbying, activities included a workshop on population and the environment presented by Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood and a rally featuring music by the Solidarity Singers, puppet theater by Arm of the Sea and the return of the NYPIRG dancing nickels in support of the new bottle bill.

A giant, inflatable bottle was brought in to demonstrate the need for an expanded bottle bill. The audience was treated to puppet theater by Arm of the Sea. New Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Tom DiNapoli addressed EDLD participants.

All Earth Day Lobby Day photos by Will Waldron

Environmental Advocates in Short

Follow that (California) Car

A new California law, the first in the nation to limit greenhouse gas emissions of carbon dioxide (C02) from motor vehicles, was passed and signed into law in July. Even before California Governor Grey Davis had put his pen to the bill, however, New York State Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee Chair Tom DiNapoli announced he would introduce legislation to bring the next generation of California cars to New York. The bill will require the state Department of Environmental Conservation to adopt the Golden State's C02 emissions standards no later than one year after the California Air Resources Board finalizes its regulations. Under the Clean Air Act, New York can opt to follow California's automobile emission standards, which are tougher than federal law.

DiNapoli cited a number of recent studies, including one by the National Academy of Sciences, that conclude that emissions of greenhouse gases from passenger vehicles and light trucks could be cost-effectively reduced by 30 percent to 40 percent using readily available technologies. Cars and light trucks emit one-third of all greenhouse gases nationwide.

"Once again, Tom DiNapoli is taking leadership on a critical environmental issue," stated Val Washington, executive director of Environmental Advocates of New York (EANY). "With the federal government refusing to take action, we welcome his vision for having New York make a real difference in reducing global warming pollution." Washington said EANY will make support of the DiNapoli bill a major part of the organization's global warming agenda.

It Makes Sense

In one of the choicer barbs of her novel Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen’s heroine reflects that a particularly opinionated, though ill-informed, suitor "did not deserve the compliment of rational opposition." And in one of the more satisfying moments of judicial wisdom, this was also the message sent by the New York State Court of Appeals to commercial pesticide applicator organizations in July when it declined to hear their challenge to the state’s pesticide neighbor notification law, enacted in 2000. The repeated failures in court that led up to this dismissal had not deterred the applicators from unwinding one baseless argument after another. But happily for all those who seek a little warning before they are sprayed, the challenge is now history.

Now it is time for the members of these applicator organizations, whose dues are repeatedly squandered in litigious windmill-tilting, to ask themselves and their leaders whether cooperation might be easier, more productive and less costly overall, than reflexive opposition.

Mighty Mouse

Since its launch in January, Environmental Advocates’ EAdvocacy website has become an important tool in our work to advance sound environmental policy. The online activist network has grown in just a few months to hundreds of members who, with the click of a mouse, have sent nearly 5000 faxes and emails to policy makers on key environmental issues.

The campaigns have focused on some of the major issues facing New York’s environment: carbon emissions from power plants, nuclear safety at Indian Point, the need for a brownfields policy in the state, protections for nuclear whistleblowers, power plant siting, pesticide use and genetically modified organisms. Those who sent a fax to New York City Mayor Bloomberg asking him to reconsider scrapping most of New York City’s recycling program were part of a record-breaking EAdvocacy campaign. Hundreds of faxes went to both the Mayor and City Councilmember McMahon, chair of the Sanitation Committee. Faxes from people across New York made a difference: metal recycling will continue, although plastic and glass recycling have been temporarily suspended.

To join the EAdvocacy network, go to www.eany.org and enter your email address in the sign up box.

l to r: Pam Babb, Christine Vanderlan, Linda Beebe, Rebecca Gornbein, Nicholas Giammaria and Danielle Masterson photo by: Joe Putrock

Spring Arrivals
Welcoming new staff and interns

Environmental Advocates welcomed the arrival of two new staff members and a slate of interns this Spring and Summer.

Energy Program Associate Christine Vanderlan works on education and advocacy projects relating to air pollution, energy, transportation and global warming. She also develops outreach materials for EANY’s Cap Carbon in New York Campaign website, and manages our legislative tracking process. A Cornell University graduate with a Bachelor of Science Degree, Christine has an extensive background working with various organizations, including the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Clean Air Policy, on many environmental initiatives. Before joining the EANY staff, Christine was a Forestry Extension Volunteer with the Peace Corps in Guatemala.

Pam Babb is Environmental Advocates’ new receptionist. With experience in management and customer service, she is responsible for much of the organization’s administrative work, maintaining databases and working with the finance director on bookkeeping. A mother of two, Pam earned a degree in business management from Albany Business College and volunteers for several organizations in the community.

Also playing an integral role at EANY this summer are four skilled and talented interns. Linda Beebe has been doing brownfields research and is also studying the effectiveness of the state's Environmental Notice Bulletin (ENB) as a communications tool. Linda, who attends the William and Mary School of Law, is a Georgetown University graduate with a B.A. in Government. She previously interned with the National Abortion Rights Action League, and has studied in the Czech Republic. Nicholas Giammaria is working on global warming and the Cap Carbon Campaign. Nicholas spent this past winter in Italy and will be a senior at Dartmouth College this Fall majoring in Environmental Studies and Philosophy. Danielle Masterson has been writing for the EANY website. A sophomore at the University of Rhode Island, she is active in two of the university’s environmental groups, and is majoring in Journalism and Environmental Management and Economics. Rebecca Gornbein is also writing for the web and is working with Linda on the ENB review project. A Bard College Music Performance major with an emphasis in political science, Rebecca is a violinist in the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra and the Bard Symphony Orchestra. After graduation, she plans to attend law school.

2002 Board of Directors

HONORARY DIRECTORS
Peter Berle
Arthur Crocker
Hamilton F. Kean
Richard Ottinger
Edith Read

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES OF NEW YORK 2002 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Robert Abrams
Steve Allinger
Oakes Ames
Richard Amper
Edward Bautista
Cynthia Bing
Ludovic Blain III
Richard Booth
Steve Breyman
Helen Burgess
Dr. David Carpenter
Majora Carter
Helen Chapman
Oona Chatterjee
Carolyn Cunningham
Blythe Danner
Mark Dunlea
Paul Elston
Irvine Flinn
Michael Gerrard
Lawrence Gross
Kris Heinzelman
Charles Kruzansky
Christine Lehner
Holly Leicht
Leslie Lowe
Suzanne Mattei
Jim Melius, MD
John Mylod
J. Henry Neale, Jr.
Gail S. Port
Hon. Herbert Posner
Gordian Raacke
Julie Robbins
Andrew Sabin
David Sampson
Arthur Savage
Larry Shapiro
David Sive
Theodore Spencer
Mathy Stanislaus
Elaine Gail Suchman
Edna Sussman
James T.B. Tripp
Charles Updike
Charles Warren
Lee Wasserman
Blaikie Worth

EPL/ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCATES 2002 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Richard Allen
Oakes Ames
Richard Booth
Eric Goldstein
Laura Haight
Cara Lee
Ellen Pratt
Lee Wasserman