
New York City council members Stephen Levin and Corey Johnson introduced legislation today—Introduction 853—that would ban the discharge, disposal, sale or use of any wastewater or natural gas waste produced by fracking.
“Hydrofracking waste is highly toxic and doesn’t belong in any of the five boroughs,” said Council Member Stephen Levin. “With this legislation we can keep this toxic waste out of New York City and send a clear message that we are opposed to fracking in our state."
“Extracting natural gas by fracking creates a tremendous amount of toxic waste and we must ensure its disposal or alternative use does not endanger our city” said Council Member Corey Johnson.
This legislation would prevent fracking waste from being treated at any of the 14 wastewater treatment plants in New York City owned and operated by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, and privately owned facilities. Wastewater treatment plants release effluent back into the surface water throughout the city and council members Levin and Johnson want to be sure that this water is free of dangerous contaminants found in hydrofracking waste. This legislation would also prevent wastewater and other fracking waste products from being used during deicing and snow removal.
"Toxic, radioactive waste is the dirty underbelly of the fracking process, and it certainly has no place in New York City," said Alex Beauchamp of Food & Water Watch. "We need to do what our neighbors on Long Island and upstate have already done, and protect ourselves by banning fracking waste once and for all."
Riverkeeper staff attorney Misti Duvall "applauds the important step that New York City is taking today to protect New York City residents from the improper reuse and disposal of fracking waste." She urges city council to pass strong legislation as soon as possible.
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By Katherine Kornei
Clear-cutting a forest is relatively easy—just pick a tree and start chopping. But there are benefits to more sophisticated forest management. One technique—which involves repeatedly harvesting smaller trees every 30 or so years but leaving an upper story of larger trees for longer periods (60, 90, or 120 years)—ensures a steady supply of both firewood and construction timber.
A Pattern in the Rings
<p>The <a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/coppice-standards-0" target="_blank">coppice-with-standards</a> management practice produces a two-story forest, said <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Muigg" target="_blank">Bernhard Muigg</a>, a dendrochronologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "You have an upper story of single trees that are allowed to grow for several understory generations."</p><p>That arrangement imprints a characteristic tree ring pattern in a forest's upper story trees (the "standards"): thick rings indicative of heavy growth, which show up at regular intervals as the surrounding smaller trees are cut down. "The trees are growing faster," said Muigg. "You can really see it with your naked eye."</p><p>Muigg and his collaborators characterized that <a href="https://ltrr.arizona.edu/about/treerings" target="_blank">dendrochronological pattern</a> in 161 oak trees growing in central Germany, one of the few remaining sites in Europe with actively managed coppice-with-standards forests. They found up to nine cycles of heavy growth in the trees, the oldest of which was planted in 1761. The researchers then turned to a historical data set — more than 2,000 oak <a href="https://eos.org/articles/podcast-discovering-europes-history-through-its-timbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">timbers from buildings and archaeological sites</a> in Germany and France dating from between 300 and 2015 — to look for a similar pattern.</p>A Gap of 500 Years
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