Tomorrow is Earth Day. If you’re looking to mark the 39th anniversary of a day meant to raise awareness of the Earth’s environment, you can do so tonight in Beacon, NY – just over the line from Cold Spring – with some music and information about climate change. The music comes courtesy of Pete Seeger and the climate change info comes from the front lines, courtesy of James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Science and a professor of earth and environmental sciences.

More information is here.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is looking for nine college students or graduating high school seniors (who are going on to college) for its summer internship program. The interns will be assigned to various upstate locations in the department’s Bureau of Water Supply.

Interns will be placed in assignments that focus on engineering and scientific disciplines and will include tasks in water supply and wastewater treatment operations, water quality, watershed protection, and administration.

The internships will run from early June to late August. Those interested should submit résumés to: New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Supply, P.O. Box 358, Grahamsville, NY 12740 by May 1, 2009.

Read the full announcement after the break.

NYC DEP Announces Internship Opportunities for College Students
Program Envisions Development of Personnel Resources to Lead the Water Supply in the Future

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced today that its Bureau of Water Supply (BWS) is sponsoring a summer internship program for nine college students and graduating high school seniors who are presently enrolled in accredited college programs. The interns are expected to be assigned to six different DEP facilities in Delaware, Schoharie, Sullivan and Ulster Counties. The internships run from early June 2009 until late August 2009, depending upon the academic calendar of each intern.

Interns will be placed in assignments that focus on engineering and scientific disciplines and will include tasks in water supply and wastewater treatment operations, water quality, watershed protection, and administration.

“This program is designed to encourage watershed area college students to consider a career with DEP. New York City is committed to maintaining filtration avoidance of its Catskill/Delaware water supply over the long haul. Hiring employees with local roots to become future leaders at DEP is one way to strengthen our partnership with watershed communities,” said Paul Rush, DEP’s Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Water Supply.

State Senator John Bonacic said, “When local students intern at the DEP, they bring with them their personal knowledge of living in the Catskills and Hudson Valley. Nobody is more committed to a clean environment than the people of the Catskills and Hudson Valley, which is why we choose to live here.”

Students interested in this opportunity should submit résumés to: New York City Department of Environmental Protection, Bureau of Water Supply, P.O. Box 358, Grahamsville, NY 12740 by May 1, 2009.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has a long history of working closely with communities and strengthening its ongoing education and outreach programs to promote stewardship of New York City’s water resources. With this internship program, DEP will provide students with the opportunity to explore, study, and participate in the important work performed, largely by watershed residents, to provide drinking water to nine million people.

DEP is responsible for operating and protecting the City’s water supply system, one of the largest in the world, which serves nearly eight million residents of the City and one million people in Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Ulster Counties, as well as the millions of tourists and commuters who visit the City every year. The watershed of the City’s 19 reservoirs and three controlled lakes includes parts of eight counties on both sides of the Hudson River – Delaware, Greene, Schoharie, Sullivan and Ulster in the Catskill Region, and Dutchess, Putnam and Westchester Counties east of the Hudson.

Read more of this entry »

If so, then get an owl, a fake one that is. That was the thinking of a Con Ed crew in Queens that was fed up with the havoc created by the birds on the local power grid. Read the New York Times story.

Native to South America, the parakeets build huge nests on transformers and other equipment. The nests can cause short circuits and fires and lead to power failures. With no other deterrents working, the crew set up a plastic owl that hoots. That apparently persuaded the parakeets to leave until the owl’s batteries died and the green birds caught on to the fake owl.

Queens isn’t the only place with a population of feral parakeets. I know it’s an issue in Connecticut and in New Jersey.

Chautauqua County out in western New York does, and, probably, a healthy population of turkey hunters, according to the latest statistics from the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The county racked up 2,016 harvested turkeys last year, the DEC says. Westchester had 84, Putnam had 140 and Rockland had 27.

The chart with several years’ worth of turkey data can be found here, at the bottom of DEC’s announcement about May 1 being the opening of the 2009 spring turkey season.

“Turkey hunting is a challenging and exciting activity that is enjoyed by thousands of residents and visitors each spring and fall,” DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said. “Along with trying to provide a quality hunting experience, DEC in recent years has launched several studies on these important game birds, collecting a large amount of useful data that have helped give us a greater understanding of our wild turkey population. We intend to continue this work in 2009 with the continued support of the public.”

Last year saw a slight decline in spring and fall turkey harvests, the DEC said, due to a number of factors. Variable amounts of rainfall across different parts of the state had an effect. A good crop of nuts and other turkey food in the fall probably kept the birds closer to home and out of the path of hunters, the agency speculated.

The photo by TJN photographer Ricky Flores shows a couple of Harrison turkeys.

Almost half of all wildfires in New York occur in April and May, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation. As such, the agency is asking residents to not burn brush “at a time when conditions are ripe for fires to spread.”

Read the announcement.

Here’s something for you Smokey fans.

Entergy has restarted Indian Point 3 after a 35-day outage to refuel the 1,000-MW reactor for the next two years.

When the 1975 plant was taken offline March 11, it had just finished its most successful streak of uninterrupted operation – 678 days.

Indian Point refuels one of its two working reactors in early spring every year, alternating each to refill about a third of the uranium rods used to power the reactor and turn steam into electricity.

Furnace Brook in Cortlandt was especially productive this week for the Ossining High School students conducting American eel research on the Hudson River tributary.

Students Laura Hellmich and Dara Illowsky “found 302 glass eels in the net (on Monday)—a new record!,” wrote Chris Bowser, a science educator with the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Chris wrote that in two years of conducting the eel study on Furnace Brook, Fall Kill, Crum Elbow, Indian Kill and Constitution Marsh, 302 glass eels was the single, largest haul he’s seen.

A quick refresher: Glass eels refer to the tiny, transparent young eels born more than 1,000 miles away in the Atlantic Ocean. They’re now migrating into coastal rivers, where they will spend most of their lives.

Previously on TNOT: Eels, eels everywhere.

Chris’ photo shows the two students conducting their fieldwork.

This just in from a woman sharing her home with “two baby squirrels and one baby rabbit so far.” She, being Maggie Ciarcia of Carmel, and other local wildlife rehabilitators are always looking for supplies to help raise the orphans of the animal world.

In an e-mail, Maggie said she’s set up a collection box at the Feed Barn in Mahopac, where folks can drop off needed items.

What do wildlife rehabilitators, who are all state-licensed volunteers, need? Here’s a supply list:

Heating pads (not the automatic turn-off type), Purina Kids Goat Milk replacer, paper towels, white tissues, Q-Tips, flannel or fleece pieces for bedding, unscented baby wipes, Kaytee exact baby bird formula, Beech Nut Stage 1 or 2 baby food (mixed, peas, carrots, squash, string beans), Purina Cat Chow, EVO cat food, Oral feeding syringes-O Ring Syringes in 1-cc, 3-cc, 5-cc, 10-cc sizes, bags of Timothy hay, Mazuri/Brown rodent blocks.

Here’s Maggie’s e-mail if you have further questions: maggie119mae (at) yahoo.com.

Previously on TNOT: More on wildlife rehabilitators.

OK, if there was a program for the video posted below, the order of appearances (sound-wise) would go like this: Woodpecker 1, Dog, Woodpecker 2, Woodpecker 1.

The sounds you’re about to hear come from the busy swamp that is part of the William Clough Preserve in Patterson. I stopped by there yesterday and, in addition to the trio mentioned above, spring peepers and red-winged blackbirds were also calling.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has some information on woodpeckers and their habits.

Drumming is the term given to a woodpecker’s habit of hammering loudly and rapidly onto some resonating surface, such as a dying tree, stop sign, chimney, or house. Since woodpeckers do not have a song as do passerine birds, drumming may serve as a territorial signal similar to bird song and it may also serve to attract a mate. Both sexes are known to drum.

Previously on TNOT: Info on the William Clough Preserve and adjacent Ice Pond.

woodpeckers1.mov

No updates, as far as I can tell, on the whale last spotted yesterday south of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

Thought to be a humpback, the whale showed up off of Rockaway Beach on Wednesday and headed into New York Harbor yesterday.

Here’s a video from the AP showing the swimming mammal.

Previously on TNOT: Whales Among Us