EPA Releases Hudson River & Chesapeake Bay Progress Reports
This article is the second article in a series of articles about the New York Statewide celebrated Climate Week NYC September 22-29 (CWNYC Articles). The first CWNYC Article can be found here: https://www.tiredearth.com/articles/epa-releases-clean-air-progress-report-ahead-of-world-clean-air-days
World Water Monitoring Day1, World Clean Up Day2 and World Rivers Day3 are celebrated on September 18, 20 & 22 respectively. These days focus on the cleanliness, health of the rivers, oceans, lakes, waters, estuaries of our world.
September 22 also marks the opening day of Climate Week NYC (CWNYC) which is celebrated New York State wide for the first time this year. I collaborated with four Museums including world’s first Climate Change Museum CUHK Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change. I have prepared 12 new art shows for 4 museums and I am holding various CWNYC events at these museums that have a theme of how the environmental movement in the US began in the Hudson Valley and spread around the world.
Cwnyc Art Shows by Selva Ozelli for 4 Museums
During CWNYC I prepared film events with collaboration from four Museums, Climarte, Lord Howe Island Museum, Teiduma, SEACHA and its partner Thai-based film festival Climate Changing Lives (CCCL) Film Festival. These films and videos will be shown at Chesapeake Bay Partner (CBP) – Maryland, New York - Cultural Institutions and Hong Kong, China as follows:
- Howland Cultural Center, Pink & Blue Art Show
Date: September 22
Time: 1-5pm
Address: 477 Main Street, Beacon, NY
- Havre de Grace Maritime Museum, Flowers & Butterflies Art Show by Selva Ozelli
Date: September 22-29
Time: Wed to Sat 10 -5PM, Sun 1-5PM
Address: 100 Lafayette Street, Havre de Grace, MD
- Putnam History Museum, Healing Hudson Art Show by Selva Ozelli,
Date: September 26 from
Time: 12-1pm
Address: 63 Chestnut Street, Cold Spring, NY 10516
Online: https://www.putnamhistorymuseum.org/events/hybrid-lunch-learn-healing-hudson-and-the-american-environmental-movement/
- CUHK Jockey Club Museum of Climate Change, Hong Kong – Ocean Lovers – Angelfish & Orcas & Glaciers Art Shows by Selva Ozelli - Online
EPA Releases Third Hudson River Review Report
Ahead of CWNYC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its draft third five-year review of the Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site (FYR). Through these reviews, EPA evaluates whether the cleanup action done so far by General Electric (GE) that dumped Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River and was ordered to clean it up was enough to achieve the goals of the project. Especially whether the cleanup is protective of human health and the environment.
The Friends of a Clean Hudson (FOCH), a coalition of national, state, and regional organizations including Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson (which supported my Healing Hudson Art Show at Putnam History Museum4), Hudson River Sloop Clearwater (which supported my Pink & Blue Art show at Howland Cultural Center5), Sierra Club, Hudson River Fishermen’s Association, and NRDC, vehemently oppose the findings of EPA’s FYR of the Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site.
David Toman Executive Director of Clearwater explained "Superfund Law in the United States is a formidable tool - it empowers the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remediate contaminated sites with clear goals of reducing risk to human health and the environment. The data on the Hudson River PCB cleanup is clear - the dredging remedy has failed to meet the goals for the cleanup, and every additional delay in action continues to put ecological and human health at risk. Clearwater urges EPA to acknowledge these realities by issuing a 'not protective' determination.”
EPA in its FYR stated, once again, that a protectiveness determination for the Upper Hudson River remedy cannot be made. However, analysis of EPA’s own project data clearly demonstrates that PCB levels HAVE NOT declined enough to reach project goals and ARE NOT declining at the rates expected and needed to finally restore the health of our ecosystems, eliminate fish consumption advisories and fishing restrictions, and protect the health of our communities.
For over 30 years, General Electric (GE) dumped cancer-causing Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River, turning a 200-mile stretch of the waterway into one of the country’s largest Superfund sites. This toxic pollution has burdened the entire region for generations – making it unsafe to consume the river’s fish, shutting down its fishing industry, and compromising its ecological health.
FOCH has been fighting for decades for the restoration of the Hudson River. The FOCH conducted an independent analysis of EPA’s own data and reached a far different conclusion from EPA. The report, released in November 2023, finds that neither fish nor sediment are recovering at the rates needed to achieve the goals established in the ROD.
In June 2024, the FOCH released an addendum to the November 2023 report to provide additional analysis of PCB concentrations in fish and sediment. The persistent nature of PCBs ensures that GE’s toxic waste will continue to travel throughout the Hudson River, resisting degradation, biomagnifying in food chains, and bioaccumulating in human and animal tissue. At the current rate, and without additional actions, the health risks and impacts of those living, working, and playing within a heavily polluted Superfund site along a nearly 200-mile stretch of the Hudson River will persist for future generations.
EPA’s position in FYR turns its back on the clear goals set forth in the 2002 Record of Decision and contradicts environmental justice policies intended to ensure cleanups at polluted sites like the Hudson River address decades-old environmental injustices in overburdened communities. The current risks to human health and the environment from PCB contamination remain at unacceptable levels.6
The Interconnectedness of All Life by Peter Bynum
EPA’s Chesapeake Bay Program Progress Report
Ahead of CWNYC the EPA also announced the results of its evaluation of the Chesapeake Bay Program (CBP) jurisdictions’ two-year milestones to track the progress toward the goals and outcomes of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement. Noting that although most of the Bay states are behind, they are making incremental progress toward the 2025 water quality restoration goals.
This agreement is a unique regional partnership between six states including NY and MD that has led and directed the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay that is the largest of any coastal water body in the world. More than 100,000 streams, creeks and rivers thread through; more than 18 and a half million people and over 36,000 species of plants and animals live.
The partnership has already implemented practices to achieve 100% of the targeted sediment reductions, and practices are in place to achieve 57% of the nitrogen reductions and 67% of the phosphorus reductions. However, more progress is needed to meet the 2025 nitrogen and phosphorus targets.
"Enforcement, engagement, investments & accountability - these efforts have helped us accelerate progress across the Bay and in all sectors - especially agriculture," said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. "The dedication of all our partners working together is paying off and making a difference in the Bay watershed."
"By analyzing the monitoring data in 2023 we can see the Chesapeake Bay improving in most areas of the watershed," said Bill Dennison, professor and vice president at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "This improvement is a testament to efforts to reduce nutrients through a variety of reduction strategies while enhancing riparian buffers throughout the watershed.”
CBP Climate Change Resilience Efforts
The Chesapeake Bay is one of the most vulnerable regions in the nation to the impacts of climate change. In 2018, the CBP adopted five indicators to track the impact of changing climatic conditions on the physical environment. In 2021, the Management Board and the Climate Resiliency Workgroup prioritized these indicators with Average Air Temperature Increases and Total Annual Precipitation Change to be updated regularly.
- Climate Resiliency Management Strategy (pdf), developed by the CBP’s Climate Resiliency Workgroup, guides planning, research, and programmatic efforts.
Philippines - Old Times
https://vimeo.com/976021068
- Climate change modeling documentation (pdf) to determine current estimates for further nutrient load reductions needed to respond to climate risks out to 2035.
Japan – Miwatari
https://vimeo.com/899905467/5c48824d98?share=copy
- Stormwater management practices to respond to climate using current and future rainfall intensity-duration-frequency curves.
Indonesia - The Swallowing Sea
https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/899986798/f6234bfe06
- Agricultural and tidal water BMPs (pdf) that will be most responsive to climate change challenges, in addition to providing various co-benefits for habitats, living resources, and communities.
Philippines - Reflection in the Marsh
https://vimeo.com/899983570/7054ec4fbc?share=copy
- Research on climate change and tidal shallow water oxygen dynamics (pdf) to understand what causes hypoxic and anoxic conditions in shallow tidal waters that communities and homeowners rely on for recreational uses.
Orcas & Glaciers by Selva Ozelli
- CBP climate change indicators to better support the CBP partnership’s information needs, including an increased focus on climate change and its influence on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice.
EPA’s Climate Change Indicators: Marine Heat Waves
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-marine-heat-waves
• Commitment to conserve 30 percent of lands in the Chesapeake Bay by 2030 that aligns the 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement commitment for an additional 2 million acres of land to be protected from development by 2025 with the goal of Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, to conserve 30 percent of America’s lands and waters across the nation by 2030.
Ocean Conservancy is holding 39th annual International Coastal Cleanup® in DC on Sep 28
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2024-ocean-conservancy-international-coastal-cleanup-dc-kingman-island-tickets-932462740157
