Why was that large land parcel cleared along southbound I-5 near Olympia? Heres the answer The Olympian
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Why was that large land parcel cleared along southbound I-5 near Olympia? Heres the answer - The Olympian
Why was that large land parcel cleared along southbound I-5 near Olympia? Heres the answer The Olympian
Continued here:
Why was that large land parcel cleared along southbound I-5 near Olympia? Heres the answer - The Olympian
13 Outdoor Upgrades That Will Instantly Increase Home Value AOL
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13 Outdoor Upgrades That Will Instantly Increase Home Value - AOL
Opinion: Lets get the real story on vegetation management Beef Central
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Opinion: Lets get the real story on vegetation management - Beef Central
An average 100 million native animals killed or injured each year from land clearing, mostly for beef farms RenewEconomy
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An average 100 million native animals killed or injured each year from land clearing, mostly for beef farms - RenewEconomy
An Australian resident landed in deep trouble for damaging a vast portion of national park land.
The unnamed offender was fined almost $22,000 ($14,600 USD) after clearing 0.35 hectares, about 8 acres, of native vegetation and building a structure in Koonyum Range, New South Wales, The Echo reported in January. The sanction included court costs and an $8,000 remediation penalty plus two one-year community corrections orders.
Since the parcel was located in Mount Jerusalem National Park, they were convicted in Mullumbimby Local Court on multiple charges of violating the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 and National Parks and Wildlife Regulation 2019, per The Echo.
"The seriousness of the offences is reflected in the penalty imposed by the court," the outlet reported, noting the person did not check property boundaries.
Multiple endangered and vulnerable plants and animals live in the park.
"The felling of forest oaks impacts directly on the habitat and food resources of the glossy black cockatoo, a listed vulnerable species known to occur in the area," NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service area manager Jenny Atkins said.
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"Trees are highly valued in the Byron Shire and their removal, without permission, is not tolerated by NPWS, or the broader community."
The beautiful bird juveniles have yellow plumage around their necks and other body parts, and adults feature red tail feathers has suffered from habitat loss since European colonization. Changes to bushfire patterns in the same timeframe as well as predation by feral cats and possums are among its other problems.
Deforestation contributes to the rapid heating of the planet by releasing stored carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and other gases envelop the planet like a blanket, trapping heat and creating a positive feedback loop.
This changes ecosystems, damaging some and shrinking habitats, for instance, whereas others are supercharged, allowing pests such as ticks to expand their ranges and increasing disease incidence.
Stiff penalties may have a deterrence effect, educating and warning others about potential pitfalls. But deforestation is increasing worldwide despite conservation efforts.
At least in one corner of southeast Australia, government officials are committed to prevention efforts.
"This sends a strong and very clear message to people that before you clear land or cut down any trees or do any building work, even on your property, you should know where the property boundaries are," Atkins said.
"You should always check with the local council to see what is allowed and what is not."
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Resident faces colossal fine after clearing national park land for illegal building construction: 'This sends a strong and ... - The Cool Down
Tree-clearing on Beacon Island, along the Hudson River and Normans Kill, is among the missteps at proposed turbine manufacturing site. Lets pursue wind energy without collateral damage to the local environment.
As our society enters the necessary but challenging transition to clean energy to combat climate change, it is important to ensure that we do not cause collateral environmental damage along the way.
New York State has a laudable plan to develop 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind energy by 2035. Riverkeeper supports generating clean, renewable power through wind energy. New York is working quickly to build out its supply chain to create massive wind turbines and is improving existing industrial ports to achieve this goal. The Port of Albany has proposed Beacon Island as one of these sites for the manufacture of offshore wind turbines.
Beacon Island is an 82-acre parcel just south of the Port of Albany on the Hudson Rivers west bank. It is immediately south of a tributary called Normans Kill. The Port of Albany bought the property three years ago for the purpose of developing the property to build components for offshore wind turbines.
A controversy arose in May, when 80 acres of wooded land on the site were suddenly clear cut under a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation permit but before required federal approvals were obtained.
In June and July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) called out several significant problems with this proposed project.
It appears that potential impacts to anadromous and resident fish that use this section of the Hudson River as migratory, spawning, nursery, resting, and foraging habitat were not fully considered during project planning and design, NOAA stated in comments to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Both the EPA and NOAA recommend that the Army Corps permit for the project not be granted until proper assessment and modifications are made:
The EPA and NOAA state that alternatives, including other locations, must be considered in the proposal.
The project proposes to permanently impact .81 acres of wetland without considering alternatives to avoid and minimize environmental impacts. The proposal does not provide justification for why these locations were chosen.
Proposed in-water construction would fragment habitat, disrupting and damaging a .21-acre bed of important underwater grasses and the many fishes that use this section of the Hudson River as migratory, spawning, nursery, resting, and foraging habitat. Similar to the wetland impacts, there is no justification provided for why construction of a wharf in this location is needed. The EPA and NOAA call for studies of alternatives, and NOAA calls for fish impacts to be properly considered.
As stated by the EPA and NOAA, the projects plan to replace the affected habitat is inadequate, and the project cannot proceed until a proper plan is identified.
The entire site is within the 100-year flood plain of the Hudson River, which leaves it prone to flooding, especially as climate change intensifies.
The tree clearing went beyond the limits of the proposed permit. EPA recommends full restoration of cleared forested wetland areas that are not authorized for impact under the proposed permit, the agency wrote in its June 23 letter to the Corps.
Riverkeeper is a member of the NY Offshore Wind Alliance, and fully supports wind energy development and other alternatives to fossil fuels. Riverkeeper also supports the recommendations by EPA and NOAA concerning local environmental impacts of the proposed project. We call upon the New York DEC and the Town of Bethlehem Planning Board to follow the federal agencies in examining these issues closely, and consider alternative sites and designs to minimize impacts.
In addition, community members have raised concerns about the environmental impacts from the disturbance of 2 million tons of coal ash on the site, and the projects infringement of the Town of Bethlehems zoning code. The coal ash is a waste product from a local coal-fired power plant. Coal ash contains contaminants such as arsenic, lead and mercury. The zoning code requires a 100-foot no-build buffer along the Normans Kill Creek, and prohibits development within the 100-year flood zone of the creek bank. Riverkeeper urges all regulatory entities to seriously consider the local communitys concerns, and uphold the local zoning code.
New York State has failed in its oversight of the Beacon Island site, and must do better. We cannot reach a sustainable future if we disregard our local environments and communities in the process.
More information:
Letter from EPA to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, June 23, 2022
Letter from NOAA to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, July 11, 2022
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EPA and NOAA identify problems with Port of Albany wind energy site - Riverkeeper
The Central Java Police are investigating a slash-and-burn that created thick smoke, allegedly causing a pile-up collision involving 13 vehicles killing one and injuring 18 others on a toll road in Brebes.
Brebes police chief Adj Sr Comr Faisal Febrianto said on Monday that the accident began when a Toyota SUV driver suddenly braked after having difficulty seeing the Pejagan-Pemalang toll road due to thick smoke at kilometer 253.
The drivers of the other vehicles were not able to respond in time. One of the drivers was killed in the accident.
We have summoned the toll road operator and owners of the land around the toll road patch, Faisal said.
According to Faisal, the toll road operator and the highway patrol have held routine patrols, but due to the toll road length of 57.5km, the smoke was not detected before the accident happened.
Separately, Central Java Police head of traffic directorate Sr Comr Agus Suro Nugroho said the police are calling all toll road companies and state-owned toll road operator Jasa Marga to meet and discuss preventive measures for the future.
Were calling for not only the management of the toll road, but also the surrounding environment. Lets not have any more rice straw burning which can create thick smoke, disrupting the toll road traffic, Agus said. The Jakarta Post/ANN
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Police look into alleged land-clearing smoke in crash - The Star Online
The Two Rivers Land Bank got a boost from the City of Jacksonville last week that will help to mitigate vacant and blighted properties.
The Jacksonville City Council approved a request by the citys Director of Community Development Brian Nyberg for $200,000.00 in funds to be put into the land bank.
The money going into the land bank is a portion of the more than $2 million in American Rescue Plan Funding that was awarded to the city by the federal government last summer.
Nyberg says the increased funding heading into the Two Rivers land bank is a big win for both the city and Morgan County. The purpose of the land bank is to help cities and municipalities and counties deal with the vacant and abandoned properties that we have. And we all have them, its not just Jacksonville, I mean its everywhere.
In Jacksonville that has been my top priority to help clean up and do something with these vacant and abandoned properties, and the main goal is to get with them before they need to be demolished and back on the tax rolls. Which would be good for the city for the county.
The payments that go for your property taxes, that umbrella, goes for schools, it goes for the police department, fire department, all of the things under that property tax umbrella. So this is a win for the city and the county.
Nyberg says that even though the land bank is shared between Jacksonville, Quincy, Morgan, and Adams Counties, any money put into the land bank by the city, stays in Jacksonville. That will go into the land bank and pay for the method to get clear title from these properties that have delinquent taxes. They have liens on them. There has actually been a few properties weve had gifted so that makes that process even better and that money from those properties will go back into the land bank.
It starts with attorney fees and it goes to clearing out the liens and settling any judgments, any delinquent property taxes. A lot of the properties we look at are already going through the tax abatement process, and thats actually this month. So we do have a few properties that we have interceded with the property tax redemption.
Nyberg says the land bank is also getting a boost from state funding as well. The Illinois Housing Development Authority has already paid for a lot of what attorneys are doing for land banks. And they just signed on for another two years to pay for a lot of the stuff we are doing through the land bank.
So good things are happening. Look for multiple properties to be on the land bank website. That should be happening very quickly. Theres already a couple of properties on there from Quincy that were donated to the City of Quincy, and we will have the same thing coming up very shortly.
More information about the Two Rivers Land Bank including properties available for sale can be found at http://www.trlba.org.
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Jacksonville to Benefit from ARPA Funds Sent to Two Rivers Land Bank - WLDS-WEAI News
Trees are our best green technology to fight climate change and build healthy, beautiful communities, especially as heat and storms intensify, Wu said. Dedicating staff and resources to our new forestry division will empower the city of Boston to strengthen our tree canopy citywide, so every community benefits from these treasured resources.
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Wu said the new forestry division will grow Bostons tree team from five to 16 city employees, with resources to plant new trees and inspect, maintain, and prune existing ones, focusing on under-canopied and environmental justice neighborhoods.
The new division will include a director of urban forestry, three arborists, three three-person maintenance crews, and other support staff.
The larger staff, supported by the citys new investments in trees, will improve the Parks and Recreation Departments ability to respond more quickly to tree maintenance requests and clear a maintenance backlog, with the goal of reducing tree mortality, city officials said.
Bostons trees beautify our communities, create oxygen, and mitigate the urban heat island effect, while cleaning pollution from our air, said Reverend Mariama White-Hammond, the citys chief of environment, energy, and open space.
She added: We know that Bostons history of disinvestment has led to inequitable access to trees. I am thrilled that the citys new forestry division will take proactive steps to correct these inequities.
The city has a history of failing to live up to its promises to plant and protect new trees.
In 2008, Mayor Thomas M. Menino vowed that Boston would plant 100,000 new trees by 2020, expanding the citys tree canopy by 20 percent.
Boston, however, fell woefully short.
Between fiscal years 2008 and 2017, the city planted 9,809 street trees and removed 5,815 a net gain of fewer than 4,000, according to a Globe review of records in 2018.
While many more trees were planted on private property, which makes up about half of all land in Boston, the citys canopy may have actually decreased in that period.
When Menino announced his plan in 2007, city officials said a comprehensive assessment found that 29 percent of city land had trees.
A decade later, an assessment of the citys canopy that used more sophisticated, high-resolution aerial imagery and lasers determined that just 27 percent of Bostons land had trees. A 2014 study by a Boston University professor placed the figure around 25 percent.
While Boston has challenges that some other cities lack, such as densely populated neighborhoods and limited amounts of open space, its tree canopy lags behind most other cities. Overall, urban areas in Massachusetts have about 65 percent of their land covered by trees; nationally, the figure is 35 percent, according to a 2012 study by the US Forest Service.
The trees have also been concentrated in some neighborhoods, leading to temperature disparities in those neighborhoods with fewer trees.
In a city report last year, city officials noted that temperatures in leafier neighborhoods are often significantly lower than in more densely populated areas. For example, on one summer day in 2019, city officials found afternoon temperatures in Chinatown and Lower Roxbury exceeded 105 degrees, about 10 degrees more than in Franklin Park and West Roxbury. There was a similar disparity at night.
Wus creation of a forestry division follows the first recommendation of the Urban Forest Plan, which has a series of strategies to improve the urban canopy.
The other efforts include a cyclical care program to proactively protect trees; improving the quality of planting sites and clearing space for trees to grow; and providing more tree data to local groups to enable them to help care for trees in their neighborhoods.
Our new tree division will significantly expand the citys capacity to plant and care for trees in every neighborhood, said Ryan Woods, director of Boston Parks and Recreation. We are committed to increasing the survival rate of our new plantings and supporting the growth and maturation of trees across Boston, particularly in communities that need more canopy.
David Abel can be reached at david.abel@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @davabel. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @TAGlobe.
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Wu announces forestry division to preserve and expand tree canopy in Boston - The Boston Globe