EPA

Niagara’s Manhattan Project Legacy Haunting Homeowners

July 22, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Elevated radiation levels have been detected in the yards of over 120 homes in Niagara County, NY. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has been conducting the first radiological survey of the area since 1984 and at least four families have fled their homes.

Governor Kathy Hochul has called on the EPA to step up testing and accelerate distribution of resources to those affected [Read more…] about Niagara’s Manhattan Project Legacy Haunting Homeowners

Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day

April 15, 2026 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The Gowanus Canal (originally known as Gowanus Creek) is a 1.8-mile-long waterway in Brooklyn that was once a saltwater marsh teeming with wildlife, but is now among the most polluted bodies of water in the United States.

The area’s early settlers, on the first land patents issued in Breukelen (today Brooklyn), named the waterway “Gowanes Creek” after Gouwane a sachem (chief) of the Canarsee, an indigenous Lenape tribe who exploited the waterway’s resources and farmed its shores. [Read more…] about Gowanus Canal is Getting Cleaner Every Day

Remington Arms Environmental Assessment Finds Contamination

April 8, 2026 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

The former historic Remington Arms factory in Ilion, Herkimer County, NY, closed in March 2024, ending over 200 years of operation and laying off 270 workers. In the 1990s the company had employed about 1,100 people.

Many Republicans, including US Representative Elise Stefanik and state Senator Mark Walczyk, who both represented Ilion, blamed New York’s “unconstitutional gun-grab policies,” as Stefanik said, for the closure, according to a report in the Albany Times Union. [Read more…] about Remington Arms Environmental Assessment Finds Contamination

New Study: Adirondack Brook Trout Recovering After Acid Rain Reductions

January 26, 2026 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

A new study by the US Geological Survey shows that a nationwide effort to control acid deposition by reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants has worked, reversing decades of ecological damage and supporting significant recovery of brook trout populations in the Adirondack Park’s 30,000 miles of rivers, brooks and streams.

The study covered a period of more than 40 years, finding that Adirondack brook trout had repopulated streams once too acidic to support them. Of the 42 sites surveyed, more than half had no trout in 1984-89. By 2023 brook trout were living in 33 of the 42. Adirondack brook trout were one of signature species sampled in 42 streams across the Adirondacks. [Read more…] about New Study: Adirondack Brook Trout Recovering After Acid Rain Reductions

EPA Plans To End Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards

July 31, 2025 by Editorial Staff 2 Comments

Local air pollution, regional smog, lung disease, and acceleration of climate change impacts and costs in New York State will all get worse if the Trump regime’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ends tailpipe emission standards and regulations for greenhouse gases as they proposed Tuesday, says the nonprofit advocate Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve. [Read more…] about EPA Plans To End Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards

Twitchell’s Troubled Waters: Adirondack Water Quality History

June 15, 2025 by Noel Sherry 3 Comments

As heir to a log cabin in the Adirondacks, I have caught myself imagining the mile-high glacier that carved out its lake and melted to fill it with crystal pure water. The scrape marks on outcrops of stone here and there in the forest remain as testimony to that primeval event.

Big Moose’s Twitchell Lake became host to a native population of brook trout that sportsmen in the 1860s and following decades measured by the pound rather than the inch. But my summers in the 1950s bring up a very different image, water unfit to drink or even swim in, laced with dangerous e. Coli bacteria and a dumping ground for used-up appliances. This essay will tell the story of “troubled waters” and one lake community’s painstaking quest for good water quality. [Read more…] about Twitchell’s Troubled Waters: Adirondack Water Quality History

EPA Begins Biggest Deregulation in History, Calls Climate Change A Religion

March 18, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

On Thursday, March 14th, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency will undertake 31 actions in what an agency press release described as “the greatest and most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.” [Read more…] about EPA Begins Biggest Deregulation in History, Calls Climate Change A Religion

A Deadly Smog Sparked A Movement for Clean Air

January 26, 2025 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

In 1948, a major industrial pollution event in Donora, Pennsylvania, a mill town on the Monongahela River about 25 miles from Pittsburgh, brought international attention to the harmful effects of air pollution.

Emissions from two companies, the American Steel & Wire Company and U.S. Steel’s Donora Zinc Works, became trapped in the surrounding valley due to unregulated emissions sickening several thousand residents and killing at least 26 people almost immediately. [Read more…] about A Deadly Smog Sparked A Movement for Clean Air

Adirondack Council State of the Park Preview Highlights

October 6, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Adirondack Park is awaiting action from Governor Kathy Hochul on several important decisions including the fate of legislation designed to protect wildlife from automobiles and her appointees to the Adirondack Park Agency’s board, according to a preview of the Adirondack Council’s annual State of the Park Report.

The 43rd Edition of State of the Park is due out next week, the theme “Poised for Action,” reflecting both a desire for the Governor to act and the need for the Adirondack Council to increase advocacy efforts on multiple fronts in the year ahead. [Read more…] about Adirondack Council State of the Park Preview Highlights

Seagrass Research Could Aid Restoration Efforts

September 17, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Eelgrass meadows, the dominant seagrass species in the Northeastern United States, provide food and habitat for countless marine organisms, as well as erosion control and many other benefits to humans and the ecosystem. [Read more…] about Seagrass Research Could Aid Restoration Efforts

EPA Researchers Develop Forecasting for Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms

July 24, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Freshwater cyanobacteria are found in all lakes and reservoirs, are naturally occurring, and are important to water ecosystems; however, excessive growth of some cyanobacteria can result in harmful cyanobacterial blooms (HCBs, also called cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms or HABs).

These blooms can cause unsightly scums that smell like rotting eggs or septic. Toxins from HCBs can negatively impact people, animals, and the environment. [Read more…] about EPA Researchers Develop Forecasting for Harmful Cyanobacterial Blooms

Supreme Court Decision Endangers Adirondack Progress on Acid Rain

July 4, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Adirondack Park advocates and a member of Congress say the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to prevent enforcement of federal Good Neighbor Rule would endanger public health and the health of Adirondack forests and waters by exempting two coal states from new limits on interstate air pollution. [Read more…] about Supreme Court Decision Endangers Adirondack Progress on Acid Rain

Air Pollution Spotlight: Fine Particulate Matter

May 28, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

Fine particulate matter, or PM_2.5 (particles 2.5 microns (µm) in size and smaller), is a mixture of microscopic particles of solids or liquids in the air. PM_2.5 is released into the air when burning fossil fuels to heat buildings, generate electricity, and run motor vehicles. Other sources of PM_2.5 include locomotives, airplanes, ships, industrial processes, waste handling, asphalt production, commercial cooking, and burning wood. [Read more…] about Air Pollution Spotlight: Fine Particulate Matter

Champlain Basin Program Awards $5.3M to Support Habitat

January 6, 2024 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Lake Champlain Basin Program has awarded more than $5.3 million in grants to protect and restore water quality and habitat. The funding, which was made available through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, is supporting local watershed organizations, conservation districts, and municipalities in New York and Vermont for projects extending into 2025. [Read more…] about Champlain Basin Program Awards $5.3M to Support Habitat

Sediment Characteristics & Hypoxia in Estuaries

December 25, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

In many estuaries and coastal environments – such as the Hudson River Estuary – low levels of dissolved oxygen, also known as hypoxia in water, pose a threat to habitats and local ecosystems.

Hypoxia can lead to fish kills and algae overgrowth, causing extensive damage to the ecosystem, fisheries, and other businesses that rely on the coastal environment. [Read more…] about Sediment Characteristics & Hypoxia in Estuaries

The Clean Air Act of 1970: A Federal Law Built in Stages

December 18, 2023 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

On December 31, 1970, Republican President Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act of 1970 into law. This law was a direct result of rising concerns about air pollution within the United States, including a reoccurring haze in Los Angeles, California, and a toxic temperature inversion in Donora, Pennsylvania, which led to 20 deaths. [Read more…] about The Clean Air Act of 1970: A Federal Law Built in Stages

EPA Grants to Train Environmental Workers in Newburgh, Rochester

February 5, 2022 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced the selection of 19 organizations to receive a total of $3,797,102 in grants for job training programs across the country, including organizations in Rochester and Newburgh, New York.

Funded through the Agency’s Brownfields Job Training Program, these grants provide funding to organizations that are working to create a skilled workforce in communities where assessment, cleanup, and preparation of brownfield sites for reuse activities are taking place. [Read more…] about EPA Grants to Train Environmental Workers in Newburgh, Rochester

Update On Grasse River Superfund Site Restoration

October 28, 2021 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Alcoa Massena-West Plant is an aluminum production plant on the north shore of the lower Grasse River. In the 1950s, Alcoa began using and discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Grasse River, contaminating water and sediment. [Read more…] about Update On Grasse River Superfund Site Restoration

2019 State of the Great Lakes Report Released

June 7, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) have released the 2019 State of the Great Lakes (SOGL) report, which provides an overview of the status and trends of the Great Lakes ecosystem. [Read more…] about 2019 State of the Great Lakes Report Released

State Efforts Against EPA Rollbacks Applauded

May 24, 2020 by Editorial Staff Leave a Comment

The Adirondack Council has thanked New York Attorney General Letitia James, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos for standing up to the Trump administration’s rollbacks in environmental regulations and enforcement. [Read more…] about State Efforts Against EPA Rollbacks Applauded

EPA

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