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July 2006 Trailblazer Overflow
The following are important articles that we did not have room for in this issue...
Implementation of the Erie County Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law
Progress in Amherst to Save Wetlands
Guiding Principles
Lawsuit, Website Take on Bush Administration Over Fuel Economy Standards
Questions About the Erie County Forest
Al Gore - Tipping the Debate on Global Warming
Controversy Over Hunting Contest
Sign a Petition to Stop Cruel Poultry Practices
Implementation of the Erie County Pesticide Neighbor Notification Law
What is the Pesticide Neighbor Notification law?
The law requires commercial pesticide applicators to give residents 48-hour advance written notice when certain dangerous pesticides will be sprayed on abutting properties, within 150 feet of their home, to the street line. The notice includes the location of the application, scheduled application date and two rain dates, the name of the pesticides that will be used, the company making the application, and a pesticide information hotline.
The law also applies to retail establishments that sell general use over-the-counter pesticides labeled for commercial or residential lawn application. These retail stores are now required to post, in a conspicuous location as close as possible to each display location of such pesticides, information informing citizens that they are required to post signage on their lawns when personally applying pesticides.
Why is advance pesticide notification important?
A growing body of peer-reviewed science continues to uncover links between pesticide exposure and serious human health problems. These include acute impacts, such as headaches, dizziness, nausea, seizures and respiratory problems; and long-term damage, such as neurological impairment, hormone disruption, reproductive disorders and cancer. Fetuses, infants and children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems are especially vulnerable to these risks. Advanced notification allows citizens to minimize their risk of pesticide exposure by taking sensible precautions, such as keeping children and pets off pesticide-applied lawns, closing windows, and covering gardens and grills to reduce exposure to drifting pesticides.
How can we ensure successful implementation of the law?
By spreading the word about the law to Erie County residents. An informed public will aid successful implementation of the law! Complaints and requests for information from the general public were critical to the successful implementation of the law in 2005. Calls from residents to the County Hotline is essential to the County's efforts to enforce the law in 2006 and assure that county residents receive the proper notification and that commercial applicators, retailers and neighboring homeowners comply with the notification requirements.
What you can do!
Forward this information to your members and encourage them to take action. Let them know that:
• The Erie County Hotline for complaints and questions about the Pesticid Neighbor Notification Law is 858-7070;
• When visiting a retail store that sells pesticides labeled for commercial or residential lawn application, look for the sign informing citizens about the requirement for posting signage on their lawns when applying pesticides on their property. If the sign is not posted in a conspicuous location as close as possible to each display location of pesticides, please call the County hotline and report the violation.
• When a commercial applicator sprays pesticides within 150 feet of your home (to the street line), and you have not received 48 hour advanced written notice, report this to the County Hotline.
• County residents can access the Erie County website at http://www.erie.gov/pesticidenotification or call Erie County Department of Health at (716) 858-7677 for more information on the law.
• Contact Brian Smith, ECEMC member and Program Coordinator for Citizens Campaign for the Environment at bsmith@citizenscampaign.org, with any questions about this alert.
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Progress in Amherst to Save Wetlands
Background:
The New York State Chapter of the Sierra Club has taken on a state wide project that is relevant to Amherst with its problems of sinking homes and shrinking greenspace. Liz Kaszubski, a geologist working for National Fuel, is Sierra NY State Wetland Chair and we are fortunate to have her take a few minutes of her lunch hour to explain this effort.
In 1986 the Federal Government passed the Emergency Wetlands Resource Act. It charged the Fish and Wild life Service to establish a National Wetlands Inventory.
Early mapping of Wetlands was based on black and white aerial photography at a scale of 1:80,000. The FWS has remapped most of the US now using 1: 40,000 color infrared aerial photography. This is a much more sensitive and accurate technology and these maps are now digitally available over the internet.
At the request of the NY State Chapter of Sierra Dr. Joseph Gardella of the State University of NY at Buffalo and a graduate assistant under his direction have taken these new maps and overlayed them on NY State DEC Wetland maps to produce digital maps which show both the current NYS wetlands and the new Federal mapping of them . Generally the Federal maps indicate larger expanses of wetland.
Our suggestion to the Town of Amherst is that the Town ask the DEC to update their wetland maps using the new maps as guidelines.
The NY State Wetlands Law allows for such updating on the request of individuals or municipalities. To accomplish this the DEC would have to send officers out on the ground to verify soil and plant types and determine whether in fact these new maps indicate a real wetlands.
Our suggestion is that the Town make this formal request of the DEC.
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Guiding Principles
Excerpts from a letter sent to Assemblywoman Francine DelMonte by Charles Lamb
Francine, I'll be honored if you take time to read this, and I'd love to hear your response. In the 1970s I was an elected trustee of the Village of East Aurora. There is a creek that runs through the middle of the village, that sometimes becomes too full and floods the basements of nearby homes. This was a chronic concern.
When a new development was proposed, a major question would be, "Where will the drainage go if this land is developed? Will it cause more water to enter the creek, and increase the flooding?" If the village engineer said "Yes," that guided our vote. This is a small illustration of how a guiding principle can influence other votes.
Now to a much bigger issue: For thousands of years people lived somewhat in harmony with nature, before automobiles, before electricity, before much drilling for oil, etc. But in recent centuries, a blip in the overall age of the earth, things have changed drastically. We all know that.
But just now, in our era, were are beginning to realize that our developments are having serious consequences: pollution of our fresh water, poison emissions in our air, global warming, etc. Scientists say we had better act now; it is already late in the game.
If we ruin our home (the earth) all other issues become insignificant. If we can't live here healthily, we won't be worrying about employment or education or racial integration, etc. We'll be worrying about survival.
All of that is a way of saying that a principle to ask is always, "Will this improve the environment or further damage it?" The answer to that question should influence the vote on everything from permits for CWM to recycling.
There are always economic consequences; there always have been. We're just now beginning to realize that they can't be avoided. We pay to save our environment or we pay for health care for those who develop cancer, or we pay to try to clean up brownfields, etc. Of course we must worry about our economic situation in western New York, but would that be helped more, in the long run, by a healthy environment that makes this a beautiful, desirable, progressive place to live and where tourists will wish to come, or by short term lowering of costs without facing the consequences in the long term?
I know you are a thoughtful person. I try to think of a few basic principles and then let them influence my attitude toward other decisions. If you agree with the above, it will provide a basis for every specific issue that comes your way.
Thanks for letting me share these thoughts.
- Charles Lamb
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Lawsuit, Website Take on Bush Administration Over Fuel Economy Standards
Washington, DC - As the summer driving season begins this Memorial Day weekend, American families continue to struggle with the rise in gas prices resulting from America's dependence on oil. Due to the President's inadequate response to the growing energy crisis, the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit today against the Bush Administration in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco. At the same time, the Sierra Club launched "I Want My MPG" --a new web-based tool to help American consumers learn about how much they could be saving at the gas pump were the Bush administration to put existing fuel-saving technology to work by raising fuel economy standards.
The lawsuit announced today alleges that the Bush administration recently announced light truck fuel economy standards run counter to law. These standards could raise Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for SUVs, pickup trucks, and other light trucks by a paltry 1.8 miles per gallon by 2011 at best, and may actually erode the fuel economy of new vehicles sold in the United States--actually increasing our dependence on oil. This action is clearly much less than is both economically feasible and possible with existing technology--a violation of the law's "maximum feasible" provision. According to the Bush administration's own estimates, these new standards will save less than two weeks worth of oil over the lifetime of these vehicles. The Sierra Club believes that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)--the Bush administration agency responsible for setting fuel economy standards --failed to follow the law by setting fuel economy standards below the technically feasible level. The Sierra Club joins ten states and other environmental groups in challenging the new standards.
"The Bush Administration failed to follow the law when it set miles per gallon standards for SUVs and other light trucks," said Pat Gallagher, Director of the Sierra Club's Legal Program. "They underestimated the technologies and ignored important benefits, such as the ability to significantly reduce our global warming emissions."
The new light truck standards abandon the existing fleetwide fuel economy standard and replace it with an easy to manipulate size-based standard. Under a size based system, automakers have a perverse incentive to evade more stringent standards by simply building bigger vehicles to qualify for weaker fuel economy standards--decreasing fuel economy from its already low present level.
"The light truck standards are long on political cover and extremely short on oil savings," said Dan Becker, Director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program. "Moving to a size based standard will result in a very meager reduction in our oil consumption at best, and will likely result in even more big gas-guzzlers on our roads."
Undaunted by the severe shortcomings of its light truck fuel economy standards, the Bush administration has now gone to Congress asking for authority to make similar changes to the passenger car fleet. While the Bush administration has admitted in Congressional hearings that it has the authority to raise the current fleetwide average, it refuses to do so and instead is intent on a structural overhaul of the system. Legislation has already passed the House Energy & Commerce committee that provides the administration with this authority, but specifically refuses to actually raise standards. As currently drafted, this legislation will do nothing to save consumers money at the gas pump, curb global warming, or cut America's oil dependence.
"Having just issued weak-kneed mile per gallon standards for SUVs and other light trucks, the Bush Administration now wants Congress to authorize it to create weak standards for cars," said Becker. "The biggest single step our government can take to cut our oil addiction, save consumers money at the pump and curb global warming is to raise the CAFE standards for cars and light trucks."
While the Bush administration and Congress refuse to help American families by raising fuel economy standards, the Sierra Club has launched an education effort to tell consumers about the benefits of driving vehicles that get better fuel economy. This new "I Want My MPG" website - www.sierraclub.org/mpg - allows consumers to input their own make and model to find out exactly how much money, pollution, and oil they could be saving if their vehicle used existing fuel-saving technology.
"If automakers used existing technology to make our cars average 40mpg, Americans would save over $100 billion dollars a year," said Dan Becker. "Americans can find out how much they'll save at sierraclub.org."
By raising CAFE standards to 40 miles per gallon, we'd save 3 million barrels of oil a day. That's more than our daily fix from the Persian Gulf and the comparatively minuscule amount that we'd ever hope to get from drilling in the Arctic Refuge or off our coasts, combined. If we'd raised CAFE standards in 1990, when Congress voted it down, we'd be using a little more than half the gas we are today.
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Questions About the Erie County Forest by Larry Beahan
The EC Forest is a defacto park used for hiking, skiing, snowmobiling, nature education and animal habitat. There are valuable trails in it. These values will be sacrificed by using this forest-park as a timber source.
People need wood products but there are 700,000 acres of working forest in WNYlets keep these 3500 public acres as they have been for the past 80 years..
Anyway, we'd prefer to have the trees standing when you walk through the Erie County forest.
Was it necessary to spend $50,000 of FEMA money to build fire roads in the EC Forest? Do we ever have forest fires in this wet cold climate so near cold and rainy Allegany?
Is the County getting a good deal money wise out of this logging contract? We've heard that the logger is working on commission and getting rates between 30% and 70 %.
Should there not have been a chance for the public to express an opinion on whether the forest should be logged?
Does the State Environmental Quality Review Act govern what happens in the forest?
Was the forestry managment plan on the county website ever got completed? Are there provisions to control erosion? Have decision been made as to what lots will be set aside as preserves?
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Al Gore - Tipping the Debate on Global Warming
Taken from a June 1, 2006 WBFO Commentary By Walter Simpson
Al Gore says he's given his slide show about global warming about a thousand times. Lucky for us, one of those times was to Laurie David, a Hollywood producer who was so impressed with it that she decided to turn it into a movie. The film, "An Inconvenient Truth," debuted in New York City on May 24 and has received rave reviews. Gore has been interviewed everywhere promoting this film including recently at the prestigious Cannes film festival where he was center stage.
Before I talk any further about Al Gore, I need to disclose my relationship with him. In 1993, Gore published a wonderful book on global warming entitled "Earth in the Balance." By 1995 it became clear to me that the Clinton Administration's disappointing environmental record was completely at odds with the strong environmental message of Gore's book. So, in disgust, I mailed Vice President Gore my copy of his book, suggesting that he read what he had written and shape up. While it is possible that my gesture so shocked him that he went out and negotiated the Kyoto Protocol, frankly I doubt it. Gore did, however, eventually return his book to me with his autograph on the inside cover page. So as you can see, Al Gore and I go way back.
While waiting for Gore's movie to come to Buffalo, I decided to read his new book by the same title, "An Inconvenient Truth." It is a revelation. Judicious text is coupled with eye-captivating pictures, charts and graphs – presumably right out of Al's slide show. The effect is a powerful presentation of what's happening to our planet and why we must address what Gore calls a "planetary emergency." The book is also personal. It lays bare Gore's motivations, his love of family and the earth. Not surprisingly, profits from the sale of the book fund action on global warming; it's also printed on recycled paper and is carbon neutral.
Gore makes the science of global warming easy to understand. It's hard to deny this problem when you see dramatic pictures of retreating glaciers and the Artic ice cap. Kilimanjaro will soon have no snow and Glacier National Park no glaciers. As Himalayan glaciers retreat, water supplies for 20% of the world's population will be in jeopardy.
Also frightening are the diminishing miles-thick ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica. If either should melt, and the one in Greenland certainly is, sea levels could rise twenty feet, submerging half of south Florida and much of Manhattan. Gore's maps show that such a sea level rise would displace 60 million people in Calcutta and Bangladesh.
While some areas will be wetter, climate change will make others drier as well as hotter. Africa will be hard hit as deserts rapidly expand and more people starve. Gore documents the near disappearance of Lake Chad, formerly the size of Lake Erie. One city in Niger used to be surrounded on three sides by this lake and is now 60 miles from what's left of it.
Gore aptly explains the mechanics of global warming. Burning fossil fuels is the culprit, and, as I have said so many times before, we Americans are world leaders at that. Gore explains how ice cores have revealed carbon dioxide data going back 650,000 years. In that period, CO2 levels have never been higher than they are now. CO2 from burning fossil fuels traps the heat and warms the atmosphere.
In one of many interesting charts Gore compares U.S. vehicle fuel economy standards with those of other countries. While the U.S. requires a 25 miles per gallon average, Europe's standard is over of 40 miles per gallon and Japan's is over 45.
Ironically, Gore is an optimist. While he predicts the end of civilization if we fail to act, he also says solutions to climate change are at hand. We just need to muster the political will to change policy (which will obviously require changing leaders) and the personal will to change the way we live and do business. Sound easy? It won't be but at least it's possible, and his book ends by spelling out some action possibilities.
In print, on screen, and in person, Al Gore is impassioned and compelling. His book deserves to be read by all and passed around. Wrap one up and send it to your favorite legislator. Go see the movie when it opens in Buffalo on June 16. And carpool, drive a hybrid, or bicycle to Chautauqua Institution to hear Al Gore on July 24. Gore is right on this issue. Let him move you to join others in the Buffalo area as we mobilize to take action on this planetary emergency.
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Controversy Over Hunting Contest
The Sierra Club recently offered a prize of a hunting trip to Alaska for the best essay on "Why I Hunt." Hunters may be allies in fighting for a better environment, and approximately 20% of Sierra Club members may be hunters.
However, being neutral on the issue of hunting probably should prohibit the Club from sponsoring a contest that may be seen as promoting hunting. This is true even though the prize money was donated and not from dues or the regular budget.
Some have called for the Club to refrain from such contests in the future. In line with that, a resolution was recently passed by the Atlantic Chapter. It was sponsored by Don Young, and his comments follow:
Resolution Passed by Atlantic Chapter
Regarding Hunting Contests, by Don Young
At the April 29 Chapter ExCom meeting, I introduced the following motion, which passed 12-3. It was one of two hunting-related resolutions approved that day.
I stated that the idea for my resolution was not original with me but had been planted in my mind by an email that I had seen prior to the meeting. I said I wasn't sure whose idea it was, and I didn't confirm that until I reread my emails after the meeting.
"The Atlantic Chapter asks the Board of Directors to establish a contest, "Why I Don't Hunt." The contest will be conducted within the same framework and promotion of the contest "Why I Hunt" sponsored by the Sierra Club in 2006. Prizes will also be comparable in value. The contest will provide an opportunity to participate by the vast majority of Sierra Club members and Americans who had no interest in or indeed were not even eligible to enter the first contest."
Walter Simpson's letter concerning the hunting contest...
I think the National Sierra Club made a mistake by promoting hunting with it's recent "Why I Hunt" contest. Not only are the majority of Sierra Club members non-hunters, many actively oppose hunting especially when it is done just for sport. For us, this type of hunting is morally repugnant. We view sport hunting as "recreational killing," a form of violent sadism and, as such, an activity deeply inconsistent with our moral obligation to be respectful and compassionate to other sentient beings. Moreover, many Sierrans have problems with the negative impact hunters have had on state wildlife services. These agencies have evolved to provide "game" for hunters at the expense of other conservation goals. Hunters and non-hunters may never see eye to eye on this. While I support finding common ground where we can, i.e. to protect wildlife habitat and wilderness, I think national Sierra Club should stay out of the hunting promotion business.
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Sign a Petition to Stop Cruel Poultry Practices
(The following is furnished to The Trailblazer by Judy Turk)
After reading an email regarding a film maker who was jailed because he illegally documented the poor conditions of a Wegmans egg farm, I recently signed a petition asking Wegmans to phase out battery cages and the eggs that come from these poorly treated chickens. I did receive a note back from Wegman's in which they said they have to provide cheap eggs for people on limited budgets and to give a choice. It is interesting to realize how much work a chicken has to go through and how little she is "paid" for this product she makes. She has her beak cut off when a tiny chick so she cannot peck her very close neighbors. She never sees daylight because she spends her short life in a tiny cage in a warehouse type barn where she can eat, poop, and lay eggs before she is killed for another purpose. And she is injected with antibiotics for a variety of reasons. Eggs are a complete source of protein. One free range egg laid by a chicken that can be outside and given better treatment costs between 15 and 25 CENTS (depending on whether or not it is organic and if you buy it at a farmer's market or a grocery store).
This costs less than a CANDY bar. So, can people afford a free range egg? They can if they can afford to buy a candy bar or gum or a mocha latte! But the good news is that Wegman's is offering free range eggs and has a wonderful organic food section. If we all stop buying the regular ones and only buy free range...it will send a message!!! There are many sources of free range products. We vote with our dollars. And by the way...I eat both organic butter and organic eggs and have great cholesterol. To view and sign the petition, log on to http://urveg.org/campaigns/wegmans/petition.
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