NYCkayaker NYC 2030, Mayor Bloomberg's Green Vision

[Erik Baard]

Hi All,

Just back from Mayor Bloomberg's major policy speech to the League of
Conservation Voters at the Queens Museum about creating a sustainable
city. The year 2030 is given as a target date for a handful of goals. A
quick assessment of the issues nearest and dearest to the hearts of
readers of this list is as follows:

1) CLEAN WATER! He set as a prime goal making 90% of New York City's
waterways safe and accessible for recreation. He noted that central to
this is bringing water quality up to grade. 

His solutions, however, seemed focused on traditional infrastructure,
like expanding and improving waste water plants, and didn't make
explicit mention of the benefits of habitat restoration and the
stormwater reduction benefits of green roofs.  The fact that we still
have 2 billion gallons of raw sewage hit our waterways each year was
mentioned, but not the term CSO. 

2) GLOBAL WARMING. As much as we might dream of kayaking up Broadway,
the mayor wants to improve our city's ecological profile by reducing
greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. He skipped any discussion of
what kinds of power plants might be constructed and ***where*** in
setting that goal. Higher performing buildings, such as those with green
roofs, got a nod for energy efficiency. But green roofs were not the
focus of any significant comment. Also, the restoration of marshes as a
storm buffer was not mentioned when the fear of flooding was raised.
This is despite the fact that New Orleans was invoked as a cautionary
tale. Many experts believe that New Orleans would have been greatly
protected by its formerly exansive wetlands.

3) BROWNFIELD CLEANUPS. The mayor announced that he wants to remediate
huge swaths of land. This might turn out to be one of his more radical
goals, and one with great waterways benefits too. We'll need to learn
more details. Composting was not mentioned. 

4) CLEAN AIR. The mayor wants NYC to have the cleanest air of any major
American city. See below a note on transportation. No mention of the
Midwest blowover pollution. He did emphasize the need for more parks and
playgrounds, stating that each resident should live within a 10-minute
walk from a park. But he didn't specify that these parks should be
green, as opposed to asphalt activity areas.


5) IMPROVED TRANSPORTATION. Bikes made it into a photo/video
presentation, but it was atmospheric. He made no explicit mention of
expanding bike paths and such. I don't even recall the greenways being
pulled into the spotlight. During the panel discussion afterwards, Tom
Brokaw mentioned congestion pricing, though not by name, which drew
great applause. He also noted the success the city was having in
replacing diesel engines in garbage trucks.

In short, his goals were "apple pie" in terms of controversy and missing
vocabulary we might yearn to hear. The spur for the policy platform is
our our expected population surge to over nine million people in that
2030 timeframe, so expect the center of his logic to be seeking ways to
maintain largely unaltered versions of current lifestyles. But the goals
are commendable regardless, and he did explicitly say that his new
Office of Sustainability and Long-term Planning would be seeking input
from neighborhood groups and grassroots activists.

I hope this is useful!

Best rgards,

Erik




Erik Baard

LIC Community Boathouse
http://www.licboathouse.org

Nature Calendar
http://www.naturecalendar.com