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| Photo credit: Lynda Selde |
Riverkeeper Sweep Volunteers Remove 7 Tons of Trash!
More than 450 volunteers cleaned up an estimated seven tons of trash on June 2 for the Riverkeeper Sweep, our first-annual day of service for the Hudson River. Volunteers organized more than 30 cleanups and other service projects, spanning more than 100 miles of river, from New York City to the City of Hudson. Nearly 100 groups and municipalities collaborated on the event. Carl Steiniger, a volunteer Sweep leader at Croton Point summed it up: “When Hudson Riverkeeper Paul Gallay joined us for an hours-long, back-busting, digging, trash-hauling endeavor, it proved what we did today goes straight to the top. We are all in this together.”
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Do Your Part: How do you want to get involved? Take our volunteer survey.
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Donate: Please join us as a Riverkeeper member to support our efforts to clean the Hudson. If everyone who receives this email
gave Riverkeeper just one dollar, we’d raise about $1 for every pound of trash removed June 2.
A Major Victory on Nuclear Waste
Riverkeeper and our allies claimed a major victory in our multi-faceted campaign to Close Indian Point this month when the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., ruled in our favor, tossing a dangerous Nuclear Regulatory Commission rule that had allowed it to relicense aging nuclear reactors without addressing the risks of storing highly radioactive spent fuel on site. More than 1,500 tons of radioactive waste is stored, unsecured, at Indian Point, where it has leaked into the Hudson – and if Entergy were to be successful in relicensing its reactors for another 20 years, it would add an additional 1,000 tons. Because of our victory, the NRC must confront this real and dangerous risk.
How You Can Help on Water Quality, Fracking, the Lower Esopus and Sturgeon
With the close of the legislative session imminent in Albany, and several big issues reaching milestones, there are several important ways Riverkeeper supporters can do your part:
Sewage Pollution Right to Know Act: Use our online action center to tell your state Assembly and Senate representatives to vote Yes on the Sewage Pollution Right to Know Act, which would require public disclosure when sewage treatment plants discharge into the Hudson and other waters statewide.
Fracking: Use our online action center to urge the state Legislature to label fracking wastewater accurately, as hazardous waste; and to extend the moratorium on fracking until June 1, 2013.
Lower Esopus Creek: Send comments, and plan to attend a June 19 public hearing at SUNY New Paltz to ensure that the city and
state take appropriate actions – via a fully transparent public process – to stop damaging muddy releases to the Lower Esopus from the Ashokan Reservoir.
Sturgeon Reports: Atlantic sturgeon were recently declared an endangered species. If you see a dead sturgeon, please report it following these guidelines.
Riverkeeper in the Press
6.11.12:: The Journal News
Court tosses spent-nuclear-fuel plan
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the NRC didn’t adequately consider the hazards of on-site storage, which could hamper the commission as it considers relicensing Indian Point and other nuclear power plants. “Previously, the NRC had excluded radioactive waste storage from the relicensing process…the NRC will have to do a review process before they decide on Indian Point’s relicensing,” said Phillip Musegaas, Riverkeeper’s Hudson River Program Director.
6.07.12::Albany Times Union
EPA dredge report faulted
"EPA acknowledges that a large stretch of the river will fail to meet cleanup targets by a wide margin because of PCB contamination that the federal cleanup doesn't address. Yet no further federal action is proposed. That's just not good enough." – Paul Gallay, President and Hudson Riverkeeper
6.02.12:: Syracuse.com
Alec Baldwin Attends “Gasland” Screening at the Landmark Theatre
Kate Hudson, Riverkeeper Watershed Program Director, spoke on a panel about fracking led by Alec Baldwin where among other issues, she explained that gas being extracted by hydrofracking is being piped to the coast, not for U.S. consumption, but for export.
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