Almanack Contributor Ry Rivard

Friday, July 31, 2020

Trying to keep a lid on Lake George pollution

In the latest action trying to spare Lake George from turning green, the lake’s main regulatory agency is proposing new rules to curb runoff from lakeside development, including a ban on lawn fertilizer within 50 feet of the lake.

The Lake George Park Commission recently posted its new stormwater regulations, which have been several years in the making, and is accepting feedback for the next two months. Stormwater is the term environmental regulators use for rain and snowmelt that sweeps pollution into streams, lakes and the ocean.

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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Water, water everywhere, but still the need to conserve

by Ry Rivard

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While recent rains have helped some parts of the Adirondacks, other parts are stuck in a dry spell that began with the mild winter.

On Tuesday, the Town of Long Lake told residents to stop washing their cars and watering their lawns to conserve water.

Long Lake’s water superintendent, Keith Austin, said a dry spell left the town unable to keep up with current demand. The system serves about 800 full-time residents and a seasonal population of 2,000 people in a typical year.

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Thursday, July 9, 2020

Check your flood risk

by Ry Rivard

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New national maps suggest flood risk is far higher than most people realize, in New York and across the country.

In some Adirondack counties, thousands more properties are considered at risk of flooding than federal flood estimates have shown, according to data by First Street Foundation, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit.

The group released a simple online tool, called Flood Factor, that lets people look up their flood risk by address. The website is part of a growing body of work by data scientists trying to reckon with the risk of disasters, like floods and fires, that occur at the boundary of development and nature.

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Sunday, July 5, 2020

Report puts focus on Upper Hudson

by Ry Rivard

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When people talk about the Hudson River and its problems, my mind immediately goes to the GE cleanup of toxic waste around Fort Edward and Hudson Falls.

There are problems closer to home, though. The river, after all, begins atop Mount Marcy. It flows off as Feldspar Brook and turns into the Opalescent River before becoming the Hudson.

All along the 7.5 million acres that drain into the river before it reaches Troy, the part known as the Upper Hudson, are threats to the river and its natural flow. The lingering effects of acid rain that make fish dangerous to eat. Road salt. Eroding stream banks. The habitat disruption caused by even small dams.

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Saturday, June 20, 2020

Tracking the salt

by Ry Rivard

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Over the past several months, as we’ve investigated road salt pollution in homeowners’ water, we’ve been keeping an eye out for lab tests that show salt getting into town and village water supplies.

It stood to reason that since road salt can run off roads into private wells, it could also get into water supplies used by larger public drinking water systems.

But tracking the spread of salt is complicated because of uneven testing by public water systems across upstate New York. The state’s Department of Health decides which contaminants public water suppliers have to test for each year.

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Sunday, June 7, 2020

Dam failure and implications for the Adirondacks

by Ry Rivard

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Recent dam failures in Michigan are a reminder that humanity’s efforts to hold back rising water with aging infrastructure are not guaranteed to succeed.

The Michigan case, where two dams on the same river failed, makes it hard to point fingers at a single problem. But it provides a particularly well-documented example of what happens when a privately owned dam isn’t maintained. In a blistering piece that appeared in Slate, a former native of Midland writes about the history and current owners of one of the failed dams. The full piece is worth reading because it shows how a private dam owner can avoid making upgrades until it’s too late.

Regulatory failure is also usually a factor in dam failure: In Michigan, there are two dam safety staffers for the whole state and 2,500 dams, the Detroit Free Press reported. In New York, as of 2018, there were 11 staffers looking out for more than 5,800 dams.

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Saturday, April 4, 2020

Your help needed in obtaining water quality reports

by Ry Rivard

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(Calling all citizen scientists! The following is from Water Line, a weekly newsletter by Adirondack Explorer water reporter Ry Rivard.)

Late last year, I began requesting documents from the state of New York to help me understand who around the Adirondacks may be drinking potentially unsafe water.

While larger communities in the state of New York post their annual drinking water quality reports online, not all smaller communities do this.

New York is notoriously slow in responding to requests for public records. To give state officials the benefit of the doubt, it’s a big state and a lot of people want to know things about it. The other explanation is that government officials like to control information, particularly information that might scare people or make themselves look bad.

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