Mayoral candidate Rachel Barnhart has raised the possibility of selling the city’s water system to the Monroe County Water Authority to help fund her proposed 50 percent tax cut for Rochester residents and business. Barnhart, a Democrat, didn’t say she’d definitely pursue a sale if elected; she merely mentioned it as an example of a […]
water
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Standing Rock: The fight’s not over
The Dakota Access pipeline is not dead and there’s no guarantee that it’ll even be routed away from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. And that’s why the thousands of Water Protectors encamped on the reservation haven’t budged, even though the US Army Corps of Engineers recently issued a decision that puts a […]
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Less water being taken from the Great Lakes
A US-Canada treaty that greatly restricts large-scale water withdrawals from the Great Lakes is working, says a new study prepared for the International Joint Commission. The commission is a bi-national organization that oversees water bodies shared between the United States and Canada. The IJC is accepting comments on the study through June 30. You can […]
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Who’s worrying about the water?
Much of California is coping with a severe, multi-year drought. The state’s water supplies and reservoirs are depleted, urban residents are now required to limit their water use, and many farms in the state are losing their crops. By comparison, the Rochester region is hydrologically gifted. Lake Ontario provides people, farms, and businesses with massive […]
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Honeoye Falls braces for new limits
The Village of Honeoye Falls will use a $30,000 state grant to study the future of its waste water treatment plant. Officials expect that the plant’s treated water will eventually be subject to new limits on the amounts of phosphorous and copper it can contain, says village administrator Greg Emerson. Village leaders say that they […]
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Marina questions
Environmental questions and concerns continue to surround the Daniele family’s plans to expand their marina in Irondequoit Bay. The latest: the Penfield Town Board says that the project needs a full-scale environmental review. The board concluded at a meeting last week that the expansion could significantly affect the bay’s biology and ecology, says Jim Costello, […]
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Paper details plastics pollution in several Great Lakes
Researchers have released a new paper on microplastics in the Great Lakes and in it they say that the concentration of plastic fragments in many cases exceeds that of the world’s oceans. The paper was written by researchers from the 5 Gyres Institute and SUNY Fredonia and covers samples from Lakes Superior, Huron, and Erie. […]
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The Hemlock-Canadice balancing act
Anti-fracking groups in the Rochester area want the state Department of Environmental Conservation to state strongly and unequivocally that it won’t allow drilling on the Hemlock-Canadice forest lands. And they’re pushing for the state to make the property either a unique area or a state nature and historic preserve — defined designations that limit use […]
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EPA critical of Keystone XL review
Consider it an Earth Day gift: yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency submitted its comments on the State Department’s Keystone XL environmental review. In short, EPA officials say the review doesn’t contain enough information on some critical areas, including greenhouse gas emissions, pipeline safety, and alternative routes. The State Department oversees the approval process for the […]
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Week Ahead: Sierra Club’s annual environmental forum
Today is Earth Day: a day meant to focus the collective consciousness on the environment, locally and globally. And on Thursday and Friday, the Rochester chapter of the Sierra Club will hold its annual environmental forum. This year’s event features keynote speaker Maude Barlow, a Canadian activist who’s well-known for advancing the concept of water […]
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Sounding the alarm on water
The Aral Sea in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was once one of the world’s largest saltwater lakes. But in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Soviet Union ramped up agricultural programs in the sea’s basin, which included diverting the freshwater streams that fed the sea and using the water for farming. By 2010, the Aral Sea was […]
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Judge voids Southern Tier village’s water sales
A judge’s ruling calls for a halt to the Village of Painted Post’s water sales to a Shell subsidiary, SWEPI, LP. The company was using the water to frack wells in Pennsylvania. Under the agreement the village would have received a minimum of $3.2 million over a five-year period. In 2012, Painted Post officials signed […]
