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York environmental regulators banned such burning statewide, closing the gap in a patchwork of local restrictions and out-of-date state statutes.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 building incinerators in more populated areas or in tended fires in more open spaces.
You can still have your backyard campfire, whether ceremonial or for food and warmth, but the rest of that pyromania is taboo.
God knows there’s a bit of the fire-tender in all of us. It goes back to when fire was tamed and can be as relaxing as it is warming.
The problem is, when people get to put whatever they want into fire, it ends up creating health problems that don’t show up as quickly as smoke in your nostrils when the wind changes.
Primarily, this statewide ban is focusing on dioxins and other chemicals that float up with the smoke and end up messing up lungs and a host of other organs.
What happens typically is backyard fires aren’t that hot. Sure, they’ll burn you and all, but compared to the 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit that burn plants reach, they’re mild.
Put plastic water bottles into those little fires and they’ll melt in a real cool way, but what’s melting is actually being carried into the atmosphere and ultimately into our bodies.
“These regulations are long overdue,” said Laura Haight of the New York Public Interest Research Group. “Since 1972, the state has prohibited open burning in communities with populations over 20,000, but burning trash has continued to be a common practice in many less-densely populated, rural, parts of the state.”
Haight said our waste stream has gotten more toxic and consequently so have the fumes that come when some of it is burned.
She calls it a “witches brew” of polyvinylchloride, or PVC, and other types of plastic, treated wood, batteries and even bleached and colored paper.
David Carpenter, a professor at the SUNY Albany Institute for Health and the Environment, says the major source of the cancer-causing dioxins in New York is backyard burning.
“Twenty years ago it was incinerators,” Carpenter said. “That changed with that ban.”
Carpenter said dioxins aren’t something that humans would make intentionally. It’s produced anytime anything with chlorine is burned below 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit .
“It deposits on vegetables, on the grass that cows eat,” he said. “It’s a very nasty substance. It increases the risk of cancer at any concentration. We must get dioxin out of the food supply.”
Since open burning is the largest cause of wildfires, the new restrictions should help on that front as well.
As someone who watched the side of a hill next to his house catch on fire one afternoon many years ago, I can still recall the terror when that little barrel fire almost raged out of control.
I thought I was on top of the situation until a moment of inattention showed me I wasn’t.
Who doesn’t love the smell of burning leaves or a backyard burn?
With the leaves changing color, this time of year has always had its own smell because we thought there was no problem doing what we’ve always done.
Now it’s clear that we can’t keep doing that.

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,” said Neil Sheehan, spokes-man for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “We’re somewhat skeptical that it can be done by then.”
Normally, such a review takes 12 to 24 months, Sheehan said, and the NRC just notified Indian Point Wednesday by mail that the application was complete.
Entergy Nuclear, which owns Indian Point, announced its intention to apply in mid-June.
At issue is shrinking storage space for the used uranium rods that have fulfilled their purpose but still hold enough radioactivity to need special handling and long-term storage solutions.
Every spring, one of the two working reactors at the Buchanan site gets a refill of one-third of its fuel, and the rods that no longer can be used have to be stored in deep water or specially built casks.
With a national repository for nuclear waste effectively bound up in Washington politics, the nation’s 104 reactors are storing their used fuel on location, often with limited flexibility because of lack of space.
Indian Point wants to be able to move fuel between storage pools and store some of it in casks that regulators have yet to approve.
“We want to look at their entire plan, including equipment and transfer path,” Sheehan said. “We’re not going to let (their need for more refueling space by 2011) drive the that schedule.”
Sheehan said there will be an opportunity for members of the public to request a hearing on the proposed change.

Today is National Feral Cat Day, which is meant to highlight the needs of stray and feral cats. But National Feral Cat Day is also an opportunity for Audubon New York to ”(call) on cat and bird lovers to work together to protect both the birds and cats.”

“With millions of birds headed south on their fall migration, it’s not only the bird watchers who are eagerly awaiting their return: a silent and stealthy invasive predator sits, grooming paws and claws in anticipation.  In cities, suburbs and rural areas across New York and the nation, feral and free-roaming cats are having an untold and profound impact on bird populations already in steep decline.  And now with colonies of feral cats growing on public parklands and open spaces, so are the concerns over the health and safety of the cats and birds alike.  On National Feral Cat Day, Audubon New York is calling on cat and bird lovers to work together to protect both the birds and cats.”

You can read Audubon New York’s entire press release after the break. Read more of this entry »

The Natural Resources Defense Council is petitioning the federal government to place the Atlantic sturgeon on the endangered species list. The fish, as you may know, is one of the Hudson’s signature species. It appears on the blue-and-white road signs that alert folks to the importance of the Hudson River estuary.

Read more about the NRDC’s petition here.

The Lower Hudson Valley has some decent spots to watch migrating hawks passing by on their way south every fall. Hook Mountain in Rockland County and Chestnut Ridge in Bedford come to mind.

But, if you’re into raptors and hawk watching, you have to head to Cape May, NJ during migration season, roughly September through November. Geography creates a natural funnel of sorts, gathering all the hawks who hug the Atlantic coast and sending them across the southern tip of New Jersey. It’s the last, little bit of land the birds can stick to before making the hop over the Delaware Bay.

We went down there this past weekend. On a day where Hook Mountain saw 191 raptors go by and 353 flew by Chestnut Ridge, 1,536 were counted at Cape May. That’s not even the high for the month to date, if you go back on the chart and look at Oct. 5.

The photo shows turkey vultures soaring past in a neat-looking formation.

Plenty of them roam the streets of the Lower Hudson Valley. I’m talking about minivans, which, according to a just-released study, are the “top choice of vehicle by black bears in Yosemite National Park.”

Like you’re probably thinking, my first thought upon reading about this study was that minivans typically mean kids and kids don’t ride anywhere without eating and drinking. Therefore, minivans must mean food to the bears. Food, researchers say, is the underlying cause of the bears’ interest in minivans.

“The bears seem to base this decision on “fuel efficiency”—that is, which vehicle offers the best opportunity of finding a meal. As a result, black bears have shown a strong preference for breaking into minivans over other types of vehicles.”

1) Minivans are more likely to emit food odors, based on the fact that minivans are designed for families with children—who are more likely to spill food and drink in a vehicle. 2) Passengers of minivans are more prone to leave large amounts of food in a vehicle parked overnight. 3) Minivans may be structurally easier to break into than other types of vehicles. Bears most often gained access to minivans by popping open a rear side window. 4) A few individual bears could be responsible for all the break-ins, and they are displaying a learned behavior for choosing minivans.

Want to know more about penguins and how climate change affects them? The Bedford Audubon Society can help you with that. It’s hosting a talk tomorrow night (Wed./Oct. 14) titled “Penguins in Peril: How Climate Change Impacts Penguins Worldwide” with J. Alan Clark, Ph.D., J.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University.

“The southern hemisphere is home to 17 species of penguins, and climate change is impacting many of them. For many penguin species, the choice will be clear: adapt or disappear. By focusing on a group of well-known and beloved creatures, Dr. Clark hopes to boost the public’s awareness and concern about climate change, as well as help them appreciate some of the more subtle, and even unexpected, consequences of this the most serious environmental challenge facing our planet.”

The AP photo shows a Gentoo penguin feeding two chicks by regurgitating a snack on Ardley Island, Antarctica.

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Putnam County is hosting a forum about water called “Sustainable Putnam 2009 Water Wisdom.” The gathering from 9 a.m. to 12 noon on Oct. 24 will cover several topics: Connecting with Water: Why We Need It; What’s in Your Well Water? How to Find Out; Protecting Your Lake: Ecology and Impact; Harvesting Water: How to Design and Build a Rain Garden; Water Wisdom – Facts, Fads and the Future.

Registration is $15. The event takes place in the Lawlor Building at routes 164 and 311 in Patterson. More information can be found on the extension’s Web site.

Want to know why trees lose their leaves and why forests go the technicolor route come fall? Here’s a good explainer from Audubon magazine:

But first, why do deciduous trees drop their leaves? Jeffrey A. Simmons, an environmental scientist at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, had a concise explanation for me. “Leaf shedding was forced on deciduous trees if they wanted to survive winter,” he said. Conifers are able to ignore snow, ice, and harsh cold because their leaves, or needles, have a small surface area and the cells contain an antifreeze, Simmons explained. Maples, oaks, birches, hickories, and such, on the other hand, have broad leaves that would be severely frost-damaged by repeated freezing and thawing.

All of those autumn leaves, naturally, were once various shades of green because of chlorophyll pigments that effectively mask any other color pigments present in the leaf cells throughout the long growing season. The job of chlorophyll is to take energy from the sun and use it to manufacture sugars—the carbohydrates trees need for growth and development—from carbon dioxide and water. Photosynthesis hard at work. Since chlorophyll breaks down in the process, it is constantly replenished until autumn approaches, bringing shorter days and cooler nights. As sugar production slows and the supply of chlorophyll dwindles, those hidden pigments begin to appear. These are the carotenoids (as in carrots) that reward us with the wide range of yellow, orange, and brown hues.

For a look at where the color is, you can check out the foliage map put out by Yankee magazine. While New England-centric, the map dribbles over into the Hudson Valley.

Sure, they’re called Canada geese and some are actually from our neighbor to the north.

“There are more than 200,000 year-round “resident” Canada geese in the state. They are joined every fall by the geese that migrate from northern Canada.”

As Ducks Unlimited Canada points out, the birds don’t just reside in their namesake country.

Although they are named for Canada, Canada geese are found all over North America at various times of the year. In the summer, Canada geese make their homes throughout most of Canada, Alaska and the northern United States. Some northern populations even make the trip over to Greenland!

In the winter, most Canada geese seek warmer climates. While many do winter in southern Canada, most make their way to the mid and southern United States. Some even go the extra mile and fly all the way to northern Mexico!

In terms of habitat, Canada geese use different habitats for different reasons. They tend to like low areas with lots of open water, which provides them with safety from predators.

For nesting, Canada geese like upland areas near water. Quite often, they will nest on an island.