VOICE OF CONSERVATION

You may contact Conservation Chairperson Guy Jacob at:

(Note: e-mail addresses on this site are unclickable to cut down on spam.)

About the film, "Gasland"

The largest nationwide natural gas drilling escalation in history is sweeping across our homeland. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But fracking's negative consequences are as far and wide as its intrusion throughout the American landscape.

When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire! This is just one of the many bizarre and shocking revelations of a new country called Gasland.

Find this film at your local library, borrow it from Netflix or buy it on Amazon.com.

We're Not Fracked Yet
By Guy Jacob

If hydro-fracking sounds like a video game, maybe it's because it’s meant to sound benign.  But it's far from harmless. Hydro-fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing, a process that allows for the extraction of natural gas from shale formations deep below the earth's surface.  A company will usually drill a very deep hole, anywhere between 5,000 to 20,000 feet.  They then pump millions of gallons of fluid into the rock formation itself, creating great pressure, which ultimately fractures the rock and releases the trapped gas.

New York has large bedrock formations known as the Marcellus and Utica Shales. If these areas are opened to hydro-fracking, it would result in thousands of new jobs in areas that truly need them.  It would also produce a huge economic windfall for our state.  But at what price?

There are serious concerns about the safety and environmental impact of the process, and a number of environmental organizations are speaking out about them. The most egregious relates to the liquid slurry that is pumped into the ground.  It is a mixture of chemicals that could penetrate the underground water supplies of nearby communities, as well as the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. There are also questions as to how the chemical waste would be stored and transported, which highlights the hazard of significant ecological damage.

Significantly, there have been instances in other states where some of these problems have already surfaced, making the threat tangible and credible. The EPA has finally commissioned a national study of the environmental and public health effects of hydro-fracking. But this will take time; in the short term, New Yorkers need to respond to these concerns as the NYS DEC begins public hearings in the coming month.

More and more elected officials are speaking out as well. State Senator Jack Martins (R- Garden City) recently wrote, “We should hold off on hydro-fracking, at least until we are certain that concerns have been addressed. We should not let a rush for potential financial stability cloud our judgment or override the safety of our residents. Simply put, relatively short-term economic benefit cannot be permitted to trump long term ecological concerns. We have an intergenerational responsibility to our children to ensure that decisions we make do not negatively impact the environment, especially when it involves the viability of our drinking water. When these concerns are properly addressed, then sure, we can certainly use the jobs and economic benefit that hydro-fracking provides. But until then, the gas is going nowhere.”

If you read my fracking article... [see below] and were considering writing an email, now is the time to do it. You have until December 12, 2011 to submit comments, but please do it as soon as you have a spare minute. Your comments need not be long. Neither must they include technical information. Just tell the DEC that you're concerned and you don't want fracking plans to move forward because you don't want our ground water polluted. If we want to avoid being "fracked" many more of us must speak out.

Visit www.dec.ny.gov/energy/75370.html to learn more.
Submit comments at www.dec.ny.gov/energy/76838.html

What is Fracking?
By Guy Jacob

The buzz over "fracking" has found its way into the news over the past few months. A relatively new term for most of the public, it has already made its way into our dictionaries. Currently, commercials by Exxon Mobil display fracking protest posters even as this multinational corporation tries to ease public worries. But what is fracking? Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing, a process in which fractures in rocks below the earth's surface are opened and widened by injecting chemicals and liquids at high pressure; it is used especially to extract natural gas or oil.  "Fracking" involves injecting toxic chemicals, sand, and millions of gallons of water under high pressure directly into shale formations. This toxic brew, along with any natural gas, is then extracted, or leaked to the surface.

On September 7, 2011 the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released over 1,000 pages of its assessment of natural gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing. This revised draft, Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) will affect nearly 85% of the areas overlying the Marcellus Shale. The Marcellus starts at the base of the Catskills in upstate New York, stretches across upstate toward Marcellus, New York (the town from which the formation is named) and southwest to West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. The millions of New Yorkers whose daily lives will be impacted by increased truck traffic, increased industrial activity, and spills or accidents need the time to fully understand and weigh in on the state's proposed plan. Still missing are comprehensive discussions of the cumulative environmental and public health impacts likely to result if DEC allows fracking to move forward in New York. Moreover, the DEC acknowledges that they don't have the staff to adequately police the activities of the industry, and worse yet, the agency seeks to issue permits before having full regulations in place.

Inherent Risks of Hydro-Fracking:
Hydro-fracking activities operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during production. Volumes of toxic, radioactive, and caustic liquid waste by-products pose storage, treatment, and disposal problems. Regular operations, as well as accidents can adversely impact the environment and public health. Especially problematic is the lack of federal protection for drinking water, air quality, water treatment infrastructure, and landowner liability.

Communities from Texas to Pennsylvania have already been impacted from industrial hydro-fracking operations. A peer reviewed study published in the National Academy of Science found water wells near gas wells had 17 times higher methane levels. Families in Dimock, PA live with drinking water contaminated with methane and heavy metals. Blowouts from gas wells have spewed liquid fracking waste into the air and into local streams.

Primary concerns include human and environmental exposure to:

• Radioactivity that is a physical characteristic of Marcellus shale.
• The hazardous cocktail of hydro-fracking chemicals injected into the ground.
• Air pollution from diesel engines, compressor stations, and flaring.
• Brine that is 5 times saltier than seawater that can damage freshwater streams and lakes, as well as corrode infrastructure.
• Hazardous liquid and solid waste that is stored on-site, transported on public roads, and disposed of at municipal landfills or sewage treatment plants.

DEC proposes that the public get only 60 days to read, make sense of, and share their concerns about how fracking could be conducted in New York State. The 60-day period proposed by DEC is entirely inadequate.  The agency provided 90 days on the last draft, and this version is even more comprehensive.  Also missing is the opportunity for public hearings across the state. During the comment period on the first Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (dSGEIS), DEC held hearings in Binghamton, Sullivan County, New York City, and Delaware County.  At a minimum, DEC should return to those areas for hearings on the revised dSGEIS.  New Yorkers have the right to hold the gas industry accountable and help ensure our water and communities are protected.

Act now! Urge our State government to:

1. Extend the public comment period to 180 days, and let them know that the extension is needed because of public concerns about the safety of hydrofracking

2. Schedule public hearings across the state so that all New Yorkers have a chance to weigh in.

Governor Cuomo: (518) 474-8390
E-mail the governor at: Governor.Cuomo@ny.gov

DEC Commissioner Martens: (518) 402-8545
E-mail the DEC Commissioner at: www.dec.ny.gov/about/407.html

Eating Seafood
By Guy Jacob

Visit www.edf.org/seafood for a chart of seafood choices. This chart lists eco-best, eco-ok and eco-worst choices for a particular species. It tells you the best and worst geographic locations for the source of your seafood, so it's helpful to know where your fish comes from. If you click on a particular species, you can find detailed nutritional information, risk factors, recipes, commercial sources, capture methods and facts about the fish. You can also download a Seafood Selector Guide at: www.edf.org/documents/1980_pocket_seafood_selector.pdf

For shellfish lovers, oysters are high in selenium and lower in cholesterol than other shellfish. Locally, after a decade of being off limits, Hempstead Harbor is now open for commercial and recreational digging for oysters and clams. This environmental success story is due largely to the efforts of the Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee, a coalition of municipalities and organizations.

Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org) offers a Supermarket Seafood Sustainability Scorecard. They ranked 20 supermarket chains. Safeway and Target have the best scores, while Winn-Dixie and Meijer score the poorest.

Earthjustice (www.earthjustice.org) lists the Atlantic bluefin tuna and flounder as two of the most endangered fish. The Environmental Defense Fund (www.edf.org) recommends eating albacore tuna from the US or Canada as an ecofriendly alternative to Bluefins. EDF does not recommend eating flounder. They recommend rainbow trout and tilapia from the US as ecofriendly alternatives.

If you go to www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch, you can download a Seafood Watch Pocket Guide. This guide lists best choices that are abundant, well-managed and caught or farmed in environmentally friendly ways. It also tells you which fish to avoid because they are overfished or caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment. Among other species, they recommend completely avoiding all species of sharks and skates as well as orange roughy.

As long as there is a market for an animal product, the demand will drive the catch. Laws will be broken, remain unenforced and outright rescinded in order to keep up with demand. It's the decisions we make as consumers that are often the most critically important ones that can make all the difference in determining the fate of a species' future.

Stop the Dumping in Reynolds Channel
By Guy Jacob

Because of an ongoing petition campaign, Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano made the illegal dumping emanating from the Bay Park Sewer Treatment Plant a priority. Signatures helped tell our elected officials to stop the illegal dumping into Reynolds Channel. And it did stop.

With a solid plan, financial resources, and a new team of dedicated commissioners and workers, ongoing repairs have been made and the plant has been discharging in legal limits since January. Much more needs to be done, and a time line of repairs is in place. Sludge Stoppers Task Force, the organization spearheading the campaign, will continue to make sure the plant is in compliance.

We need your help again to sign another petition. We have the right to know when we are fishing and swimming in raw sewage. Please go to this petitions link www.ipetitions.com/petition/righttoknow.
Sign and tell all our Legislators to sign this Bill into law. If high levels of Sewage were to be dumped again, there is no protocol for notifying the public. A group of concerned citizens, environmentalists
and civic leaders formed the Sludge Stoppers Task Force to address this problem of Sewage spills and lack of public notification.

Nassau County Legislator Dave Denenberg introduced the "Nassau County Right to Know of a Sewage Spill Bill." This Bill is in committee and we need to tell our Legislators that "we have a right to know." This Bill simply requires the Department of Public Works to report a discharge over the legal limits to the Board of Health and the Board of Health to notify the public. After you sign the petition, please take the next step. Call your Nassau County legislator, and tell him or her that you support this legislation.

Environmental Resources
By Guy Jacob

Websites are excellent resources for becoming more aware of and knowledgeable about environmental issues. Explore the Pew Environment Group's new home on the web: www.PewEnvironment.org for up-to-date and timely information. Taking action to help reduce the scope and severity of the world's most pressing environmental problems is how one manifests his or her environmental consciousness. This website makes advocacy efforts easier and is a valuable asset in addressing the challenges facing the Earth's future. Get updates about action alerts, petitions and campaigns that mean the most to you. Take action and find out about upcoming events. Learn about areas of focus and what the Pew Environmental Group is doing to make a difference.

There is no shortage of websites and organizations that offer online advocacy opportunities, and I will share others with you in future issues. Thank you for doing your part to protect some of our nation's and the world's most vital and spectacular natural systems.

Contacting Public Officials
By Guy Jacob

Communicating with public officials, be they elected or appointed, is a basic responsibility of citizenship in a democratic society. This may sound cliché, but all one need do is reflect upon the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt to realize that democracy is no guarantee, and life without it often becomes intolerable. Indifference to governmental decisions is tantamount to the loss of public power. We all ought to be making our voices heard when environmental and other issues important to us are front and center. But what's the best way to go about it?

The easiest and quickest means of communication isn't always the best. Organizations often ask their members to call the offices of officials because they believe folks are more likely to call than write, but this is often the least effective method. Calling works best when an office is inundated with phone calls about one particular issue or bill. However, the person answering the phone is most assuredly the staffer who is the lowest on the totem pole; he or she might even be an intern. If he or she declines to take your name and address, it is less likely that your message will even be recorded; you will not receive a response, and you will not know the position of your representative regarding the issue about which you have called. Even if your name and address are taken over the phone, you still have no way of knowing whether or not your opinion is counted, unless you receive a written response, which is unlikely.

If you do call, follow up with a letter or an email. Writing is much more effective than calling and significantly increases your chances of receiving a response. Sending an email is often the best method of communication: you know for sure that your message was received as soon as you click send because you will see a "Thank you. Message sent" note; you often receive an auto-reply within hours, and you're likely to receive a detailed written response much more quickly than you would if you mail a letter. Besides saving the paper and the stamp, an email allows you to get your thoughts out quickly, and if it's a time-sensitive issue, that becomes all the more important. Bills are often voted on in a matter of days after you find out about it, and in this situation you will not have time to send a letter in the snail mail.

Various officials have different requirements for your contact information when you send an email. Some require your phone number, but your contact information will not be given out. It is unlikely that you will receive a phone call anyway. For all the emails I have sent, I rarely receive a phone call from a staffer, but I welcome it when it does happen. Send an email by going to your representative's official government website. For example, Senator Gillibrand's website will have a link that states "Contact the Senator." Click on it and fill in your contact information. Write your message succinctly and click "send." Email messages need not and should not be long-winded. After all, it's your position on an issue that gets counted, not all the reasons why you feel the way you do. Some websites are a little more complicated to navigate. When sending an email to Senator Schumer, click on "Contact Chuck." Then click on "Send Chuck an email." Scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says "Please choose an option from the menu below." Then click on "Send the Senator an email."

Writing a letter can be effective, but letters can and do get lost in busy offices. Staffers more quickly get emails sent out than they can stuff envelopes. When offices deal with thousands of constituents, it's easy to understand why you're more likely to get a response via email. If you don't have access to the Internet or you're representing an organization and writing on letterhead, then by all means drop it in mailbox.

And if you don't receive a response to either your letter or your email, be tenacious. Call repeatedly and tell them you have a right to an answer. Receiving a written response gives you the gratification of knowing your voice was heard and helps you understand the official's take on the issue. It's your democracy. Don't settle anything less.

Egyptians and Tunisians are risking their lives for a chance to gain democracy. Some have paid the ultimate price for freedom, just as our own forebears did. A somber duty, providing our own government with our peaceful, persistent voices today is our gratitude to our ancestors and our gift to posterity.

How Green is Your Footprint?
By Guy Jacob

Green. Greener. Greenest. Green compared to what? Greener than what? Or is it merely green washing? These questions are often hard to answer, but if we follow the trail of a plastic water bottle, we can gain a better understanding.

If someone carelessly discards this bottle onto a street, it will likely make its way to a storm drain if it isn't tossed down one to begin with. Storm drains empty into bodies of water, so what starts off as unsightly litter ends up as marine pollution.

What would you do instead of what he or she did, and how green would your action be? Discarding the bottle in the nearest wastebasket is a green act, but greener yet would be to deposit the bottle into a recycling bin. Even greener behavior: don't buy the water in the first place; save money and spare yourself leaching chemicals from the plastic bottle by purchasing a reusable metal water bottle, fill it with tap water and take it home again. But the greenest act would be never to use any water at all.

And that's the point. It's all relative, and our very existence on planet Earth makes it virtually impossible to live the greenest lifestyle because to live is to use natural resources. The best we can strive for is to be greener than we've been, but that's very doable.

Any product that one purchases and any packaging that comes along with it require energy for their production, and this energy largely requires the burning of fossil fuels. Any paper or plastic, recycled or virgin, requires some degree of energy in its manufacture.

Subsequently, incinerating the waste from products and packaging adds pollutants to the atmosphere. Recycling is much preferred over incineration, but it also requires energy and further adds to our carbon footprint.

Consequently, the greenest agenda within reason is the one that altogether eliminates the product and the packaging whenever possible. That being said, we humans are not about to return to the wild anytime soon, so we'll never fully eliminate our carbon footprint, that is until we utilize only clean energy resources. Nevertheless, even if we fully eliminated the use of fossil fuels, we'd still have to use other natural resources.

Yet, there's a lot we can do to minimize our impact, model good stewardship and live up to our personal financial responsibilities. It's all a matter of using less and using what do use judiciously.

The Virtues of Composting
By Guy Jacob

Composting reduces waste, saves money, provides for exercise and enriches gardens and lawns without the use of toxic fertilizers. It transforms garbage into rich, nourishing earth, even as you witness the process over the seasons. The experience affords an intimate connection between you and your land. Composting removes mostly plant material from the waste stream. Meat, dairy and meat by products should never be added to a compost pile as they develop harmful bacteria and putrid, rotting smells. Coffee grinds, fruit peels and the inedible parts of any fruit or vegetable are good sources of compost. Human and animal hair, leaves, grass clippings, newspaper (in small amounts), lint from your dryer and the contents of vacuum cleaner bags can be added as well. I even add biodegradable peanuts, which are green starch packaging peanuts that dissolve with a little water; conscientious companies are using them to replace harmful Styrofoam peanuts. Shells from eggs and shellfish add calcium and heat even as they aerate the bin, but they will be removed when you clean up your compost. In truth, anything other than meat, dairy or toxic chemicals is fodder for the bin.

You can just create a hill of compost in the corner of your yard, but a bin allows for neater, cleaner composting and expedites the decomposition process. I started out with one compost bin, and now I have three. I've never once noticed pungent smells emanating from the bins. Commercially purchased plastic bins are convenient and easy to assemble; you just need to plan where to best place one on your property. It should be in an out of the way place where you will have space to harvest your compost. Harvesting requires the use of a wire mesh that sifts out unwanted debris, such as plastic, stones and pieces of glass. Even though I try to carefully remove unwanted inorganic matter before I add anything to the bin, it is still necessary to clean up the compost with the wire mesh. Once I even removed a fork from the mesh!

When you first establish your compost bin, add earth worms to the mix because they love to eat your garbage! Every couple of weeks (except for when there are frigid temperatures), add a couple of gallons of water and turn over your compost with a shovel in order to aid the decaying process. Bins contain rap doors on the bottom for harvesting. When your compost is ready, clean it with a wire mesh; I keep cardboard on the ground to catch the clean compost and then store it in garbage pails I use solely for compost.

Spread a thin layer over your lawn in the spring and fall and rake it around. Add compost to your vegetable and flower gardens and under and around bushes. Your soil will be enriched and manifest its health in rich, colorful plants that, in turn, will invite beautiful butterflies, beneficial insects and a host of birds.

To find out more about composting, visit the following websites:
www.eartheasy.com/grow_compost.html
http://compostinstructions.com
www.howtocompost.org

Fisheries in Peril
By Guy Jacob

Landlubbers and sailors alike are stakeholders of our seas, rivers and lakes. No one ecosystem is an island, and any one ecosystem has the potential to affect another, however unrelated the two might seem. Much like our individual human bodies, our planet is merely one body with varied, interconnected body systems. Our globe is seventy percent water, and its diverse fisheries have been severely, negatively impacted by human consumption and abuse. But the latest research is clear: as individuals, as groups and as nations, we can turn the table and reverse the impacts that we have caused.

What can we do as individual consumers who purchase seafood? The Blue Ocean Institute (www.blueocean.org) has compiled a 2009 Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood. This extensive guide discusses the current status of dozens of species. US-Farm raised Barramundi and Tilapia are among the most eco friendly fish you can consume; raised in closed aquaculture systems, these species have low environmental impact. The abundant rebounding of Striped Bass populations due to effective fisheries management is a notable success story, but these fish contain levels of mercury or PCB's that may pose a human health risk; to find out more about chemical levels in fish, please refer to the Environmental Defense Fund's website (www.edf.org/seafood). Pacific Cod, Pacific Halibut and Black Cod all have sustainable numbers are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (www.msc.org).

The Blue Ocean Institute's color-coded guide also advises consumers to stay away from Atlantic Bluefin Tuna, Atlantic Cod, Atlantic Halibut, Chilean Sea Bass, Groupers, Orange Roughy, sharks and imported shrimp among others. All these species have severely depleted population numbers, which also negatively impacts other species, and their consumption poses a human health risk due to high levels of mercury and PCP's in the flesh of these animals. As educated citizens, we can also lobby our public officials about the importance of national and international actions to bring our fisheries back from the brink. Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org) and other organizations have initiated a letter-writing campaign to Secretary Clinton regarding pirate fishing fleets that are marauding global fish stocks and robbing poor African nations of desperately needed resources. What's worse, much of this pirate booty is ending up in US grocery stores!

So what happens half way around the world and the economic and environmental fallout of these illegal and unsustainable fishing practices is exacerbated by what we purchase in our own neighborhoods.

Now with the appropriate tools in hand, next time you plan on preparing or purchasing a fish dinner, think about how your choice affects your own body, your family and others around the world as well as the health of our planet today and for future generations to come.

ACTION ALERT: Write Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the U.S. Department of State, 2201 C Street NW Washington, DC 20520. Ask her to take measures to fight pirate fishing by speaking out at international forums including the United Nations and fishery management organizations.

Search the Net
By Guy Jacob

The Internet provides a wealth of paperless environmental information right at your fingertips. Even if you don't have access at home, you can surf the Internet at your public library. And your librarians can be quite helpful in getting you acquainted with their computer services.

A variety of websites emphasize different environmental subjects.

• To obtain information on how to reduce your energy consumption, and save money in the process, visit the Long Island Power Authority's website at: www.lipower.org.
  
  
• To learn about organic lawn care, check out the LI Neighborhood Network's site at: www.longislandnn.org and click on "Pesticides & Alternatives."
  
  
• To learn about tree care and to order trees inexpensively, see the Arbor Day Foundation website at: www.arborday.org.
   
• Find out about international environmental issues at www.greenpeace.org.
  
  
• The US government's official Earth Day website has a plethora of practical suggestions as well as links to other environmental websites: www.earthday.gov. 

No Dumping. Drains to Bay.
By Guy Jacob

"No dumping. Drains to Bay." It's a concise, germane message with huge potential for affecting behavioral change. It's the kind of message that could fit nicely onto a 140-character Twitter page.

Become part of the solution. Glue this message unto curbs above the storm drains throughout your neighborhood. Municipalities all around Long Island provide durable, colorfully-inscribed plastic medallions and special glue to organizations and individuals who wish to participate in this project. All you need is a wire brush to remove grit before gluing down the medallion.

Storm drains are covered by metal grids and can be found on residential streets and highways throughout Long Island. These drains connect to a network of underground pipes that empty directly into bays or into estuaries, ponds, lakes and rivers that make their way into bays, the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

Uncommon in third world countries, Storm drains are critically important because they minimize the potential for flooding and the possibility for disease carrying agents that thrive in still water. These drains are symbols of wealth and health, but, because we abuse them, we've created conduits for polluted waterways.

Commonly and erroneously called "sewers," the contents of these storm drains receive no treatment prior to making their way into bodies of water on and around Long Island. When you flush your toilet, or run your sink faucet, your bath tub, or your shower, this water empties into an underground system of pipes called a sewer system that makes its way to facilities where it is filtered and chemically treated before it is released into bays. Without sewer systems, also uncommon in poorer nations, we would be plagued by raw sewage fouling our waterways. And while this treatment doesn't completely eliminate all pollutants, it goes a long way toward keeping our water clean. There is no above-ground access to Long Island's sewer system. Storm drains, on the other hand, because of their purpose are always accessible on ground level. Storm drains are not connected to sewer pipes, and whatever they carry makes its way untouched to waterways we swim in, boat in and admire from ashore.

Storm drains are for rain water, period. Yet people dump paint, used oil and a host of other chemical solvents through these grids.  While such dumping is illegal and punishable by fines, legal applications of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides migrate onto driveways and sidewalks, down streets and into storm drains as well.  Moreover, dog feces, within and without plastic bags, litter of all sorts, in effect, anything that wind and water runoff can carry, make their way down storm drains, and, ultimately, into our waterways where they pollute and sicken marine life, other wildlife, pets and people.

The land and the sea are inseparable, merely different habitats on one globe. While the shore is the best known place where land meets sea, storm drains are important bridges to our marine ecosystems.

This is why it is so vital that as hikers, motorists, cyclists and pedestrians we never ever litter or carelessly discard toxic substances. More than just unsightly, as disturbing as that is, litter directly and negatively impacts the quality of our marine habitats. What we carelessly do on land hurts much more than landscapes. And when you pick up and remove litter, you benefit much more than just the land. So carry an extra plastic bag next time you're out and about, just in case the opportunity arises to do good deeds, as it most assuredly will.

And help others become more conscious of their actions. Participate in a storm drain medallion project. It's a perfect opportunity for a civic organization, a scout group, neighborhood friends or individual families to develop their environmental consciousness even as they help do others to do likewise.

ACTION ALERT: If you live within the Town of Hempstead or within any village inside the town, contact Jim Browne at the Department of Conservation and Waterways at 516-431-9200 to receive your storm drain packet. If you live in another municipality, call its department of environment/conservation and inquire. Also check out this link.

Duck Stamps Rock!
By Guy Jacob

Have you ever imagined walking into a US Post Office and doing something really special for the environment? Well you can. Buy Duck Stamps.

Since 1934, Duck Stamp funds have been buying up critical wetland habitats. In fact, a majority of our nation's 400 National Wildlife Refuges, which are dispersed throughout the US, were purchased in part or in whole by Duck Stamp revenues.

Much more than just protect waterfowl, the Duck Stamp program benefits a diverse array of wildlife. One third of all endangered and threatened species call wetlands their home. Protecting wetland ecosystems profits all the flora and fauna that make up the habitat.

What's more, wetland preservation has a direct, positive impact on humans. Wetlands are vital to both healthy coasts and resourceful oceans. Their grasses serve as breeding grounds for economically important species of juvenile fish. Acting like sponges, they provide natural flood control. Studies by the US FWS show that an acre of wetland can store more than 1.5 million gallons of floodwater. A study
by the Illinois State Water Survey found that destroying just 1% of a watershed's wetlands increases total flood in the watershed volume by almost 7%.

Wetlands intercept chemical laden runoff, then remove and retain its nutrients. They process organic waste and reduce sediments before the runoff reaches our open waters. They control erosion, then filter and recharge our groundwater. Wetlands are second in overall productivity only to tropical rain forests and coral reefs.

Wetland preservation is one of the most important environmental issues of our day. And as always, when you conserve nature, you directly benefit people as well. Conservation is one of the most commonsense, selfish endeavors humans can undertake.

A great success story, Duck stamps have already saved 3.5 million acres of wetlands. But in the face of growing development pressure, about 458,000 acres continue to vanish annually. Time is of the essence, and we've much more self-serving work to be done. Buy a colorful Duck Stamp today.

ACTION ALERT: Collectors' item Duck Stamps cost $15.00 and can be purchased at major post offices. Officially known as The US Fish & Wildlife Service Migratory Bird Hunting & Conservation Stamp, the 75th Anniversary 2008-2009 stamp features northern pintails in a colorful marsh setting.

There is a way to reduce your energy consumption with outdoor lighting. While it's true that compact fluorescent bulbs don't make a perfect outdoor replacement for incandescent bulbs, you can actually meet your outdoor lighting needs without affecting your electric meter. Let the sun do the work for you with solar-powered outdoor lighting. Solar outdoor lighting is easy to install, requires little maintenance, and reduces your electricity bills.

Solar lighting works by charging the batteries during the day. The brighter the day, the better the charge, but even if the sun is not out, there is still some charging.

This past summer, I installed solar lighting in my front and back yards and have been quite pleased with both the aesthetic and the practical results. Solar lights give off a subtle nighttime glow that is quite sufficient to light up your walkway and accent your garden during the evening. The ones I purchased have a round appearance, like a flying saucer, that adds to their character, and the best part is that they run all night long without my ever having to turn on the switch and remember to turn it off-there is no switch!

Now that autumn's bright colors are inundating our senses, you might not be thinking about summer nights in your backyard garden. But now could be a good time to get some great summer clearance sales. Check out the ones for exterior solar lighting.