Emergency responders from multiple state and county agencies will participate in a security exercise Wednesday at the Indian Point nuclear plant in Buchanan. Westchester County officials are advising residents who live near the plant that emergency vehicles, police cars, fire trucks and ambulances will be used – without lights and sirens – during the exercise. [...]

New York communities moved a significant step closer to $322 million in federal money to rebuild crumbling water and sewer pipes, with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, announcing that the money was included in combined House and Senate Interior appropriations bill.
“The federal government has stepped up to the plate to help localities break ground on many [...]

General Electric’s dredging of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) finished up for the season early Tuesday morning, with the company removing more than 285,000 cubic yards of sediment since last spring. The amount was well above the Environmental Protection Agency’s goal of 265,000 cubic yards for Phase 1. Barges will continue at work on the river for [...]

Indian Point will conduct a full-volume test of its emergency alert sirens Thursday at 10:30 a.m. The four-minute test will involve all four counties — Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Orange — within the 10-mile emergency evacuation zone. There will be an activation of the Emergency Alert System on radio and television stations immediately following the [...]

If you’ve been burning your trash and raked leaves in a charred, 55-gallon drum in the backyard, it’s time to find another way.
On Wednesday, New York environmental regulators banned such burning statewide, closing the gap in a patchwork of local restrictions and out-of-date state statutes.
Not so long ago, burning trash was the norm, whether in [...]

BUCHANAN – Federal regulators are set to review Indian Point’s plans for moving and storing spent nuclear fuel on site, but say they won’t be pushed by the company’s desire for a fast-track approval.
“The company wants it by August of 2010 … so they’ll be ready for Indian Point’s refueling in the spring of 2011,” [...]

SUNY Purchase will be helped in building a 24,000 square foot green roof with more than $2 million in federal stimulus money.

The green roof will decrease stormwater runoff by about a third.

“This is huge for us. It helps change the central infrastructure of our plaza,” said Geri Sanderson, the college’s spokeswoman wrote [...]

Lisa Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is announcing tighter limits on what big emitters can release through their smokestacks by next year and environmentalists say the changes will help clean the air and lessen the pace of global warming.
EPA officials say the just announced limits parallel standards already in place for cars [...]

With organizers pitching the car-free alternative and its annual day of recognition, there are those who don’t see it that way.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, “a non-profit, non-partisan public interest group that studies the intersection of regulation, risk, and markets,” wants to remind everyone “of the value of personal mobility and the advantages of car [...]

Organizers of “World Car-Free Day” have chosen September 22, as the annual opportunity for people from around the world to get together in the streets, intersections, and neighborhoods to remind the world that it doesn’t have to be a “car-dominated” society.
The group wants every day to be as car-free as possible, but taps this day [...]