One Bad Apple Wont Spoil the Whole Green Bunch by Sewall Chan - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog

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To mark Earth Day on Tuesday, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued its second annual “Green Apples and Bad Apples” report, which identifies five promising environmental developments and five things or places that aren’t so good for the environment. One of the biggest complaints: businesses that leave the doors open while running the air-conditioning at full blast. Our colleague Clyde Haberman has complained about this phenomenon in his NYC column, in 2006 and 2007, but it was interesting to see a leading environmental advocacy group take up the banner.

The Natural Resources Defense Council said in its report:

Whatever benefits it may have as a customer lure, this practice has significant adverse energy and air pollution impacts. According to the Long Island Power Authority, retailers increase their electricity consumption by 20 percent to 25 percent when they leave their doors open. And increasing power demand on the hottest summer days also leads to increased air pollution, as the auxiliary backup power supplies are called upon to meet peak demands. Unnecessarily boosting summer peak power demands can even make occasional brownouts more likely. In short, this is a practice that places personal business considerations over societal needs.

Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer, a Manhattan Democrat, has proposed legislation that would forbid businesses from leaving their doors open while air-conditioners are running. It is hard to say what the bill’s prospects are.

The defense counsel listed these other “bad apples”:

• The M.T.A.’s recycling program. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority does not provide separate recycling receptacles for paper and for metals, glass and plastic, as the transit systems in Chicago, Washington, Boston, Montreal and San Francisco do. The M.T.A. does perform “post-collection separation” — picking through the trash, after collection, to cull out recyclables — but that process, in which recyclables are mixed in with food waste and other trash before being separated, “inevitably leads to higher levels of contaminated recyclables,” according to the council. (The M.T.A. has provided large paper recycling bins at Grand Central Terminal for Metro-North Railroad riders.)
• The New York Organic Fertilizer Company and Hunts Point Wastewater Treatment Plant, both in the Bronx. Under a city contract, the fertilizer plant, which opened in 1992, treats several hundred tons a day of sludge from city sewage plants, drying the sludge and turning it into “pellets” for eventual use as fertilizer. The wastewater treatment plant, a few blocks away, treats raw sewage from parts of the Bronx (and from Rikers Island and City Island) before discharging it into surrounding waters.
• The former site of the Ridgewood Reservoir in Queens. The Ridgewood Reservoir was a major source of drinking water for Brooklyn in the middle and late part of the 19th century and into the 20th century. After 1900, as city relied more on its Catskill and Delaware system, the Ridgewood Reservoir was used and less; its last use under regular repair service was in 1959. The complex was transferred in 2004 to the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which wanted to turn much of the area into recreational like bike paths and artificial-turf ball fields. “But the Reservoir’s water storage basins, empty for decades, now provide a unique area for observing the process of urban reforestation,” the council said.
• An undeveloped site, formerly scheduled for a Nascar track, on the west shore of Staten Island. The International Speedway Corporation, a Nascar affiliate, had to build an 82,500-seat stock-car track, but fears of congestion and community opposition scotched the proposal. Plans for a large distribution warehouse also fell through. Now some officials want the Port Authority to take over the site for a maritime-related use. The defense council says that any potential redevelopment of the site must take into account traffic and air quality. In addition, the site is a former oil tank farm, abuts “ecologically important tidal wetlands” and contains “contaminated fill” that was placed there while the racetrack project was under consideration, the defense council said.

Depressed about the environment now? The Natural Resources Defense Council found some good news to share, citing these “green apples”:

North Mount Loretto Woods on Staten Island. In November, the New York Archdiocese sold the woods, a 75 acres of woods, wetlands and wildlife on Staten Island’s south shore, to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, by way of the Trust for Public Land. The new parcel, north of Hyland Boulevard, is in addition to 194 acres south of the boulevard that have already been conserved for protection. “In addition to public recreation and other uses, the new acquisition will serve as a preserve for osprey, migrant birds, raccoons and possums,” the defense council wrote. “And it apparently represents the single largest land protection measure in New York City over the past year.”

Public School 154 in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn. In the spring, it became the city’s first public school to abandon polystyrene lunch trays, the result of voluntary action by parents and help from donors. Starting in the fall, the school will use trays made from bagasse, an organic byproduct of sugar cane stalks that quickly decomposes in landfills.

The Queens Botanical Garden visitor center in Flushing. The buildling, which opened in September, gets 17 percent of its energy from rooftop solar panels, heats its water using geothermal power and has an 8,000-square-foot “green” roof. The building also captures and reuses stormwater.

Street trees, in the Bronx and elsewhere. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has set the goal of planting one million new trees in New York City by 2017. Almost 55,000 trees have been planted in the past year, many of them in low-income neighborhoods like Morrisania and Hunts Point.

West Harlem Riverfront Park, in Manhattan. The creation of the Hudson River Park in 1998 began the transformation of the waterfront from the Battery to Midtown. Environmentalists hope a similar transformation will start this summer, with the opening of a four-block-long esplanade between St. Clair Place and West 133rd Street. An asphalt parking lot is being replaced with lawns and play areas. Two new piers will be used for kayaking, fishing and water taxi service. The Science Barge — a children’s museum — will be docked at the new park.