Mary Fontana doesn’t trust the water that comes out of the tap in her upstate New York home. Nor do most of her neighbors in Tupper Lake, an Adirondacks village where she is mayor.
“When I’m putting my kid in the bathtub at the end of the night, when the tub fills up with rust-colored water, it’s really hard to look at that and not think that you’re doing some kind of harm,” said Fontana, who has pushed the state for help cleaning up her village’s water.
A bill aimed at strengthening drinking water protections in New York is now awaiting action from Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and local officials are calling on the U.S. Navy to expedite cleanup efforts at a former development site and of a toxic groundwater plume that is inching toward the Peconic Bay.
Schumer appeared in Calverton Thursday to call on the U.S. Navy to resume testing of the plume at Enterprise Park after the Navy pushed back a deadline 10 years to 2039, to conclude its assessment and come up with a plan to clean up contaminants from the former Grumman weapons plant.
“We represent over 2,000 individuals from Nassau and Suffolk counties who have developed four types of cancer — liver, kidney, thyroid and testicular cancers — and also ulcerative colitis, in litigation involving PFAS,” said Jeffrey Guzman, a founding member of a law firm based on Wall Street in Manhattan, Krentsel Guzman Herbert.
The Environmental Protection Agency has named Nicole “Nikki” Tachiki as the new director of the Long Island Sound Partnership, placing a longtime agency scientist and program planner at the helm of a regional effort focused on improving the health of the Long Island Sound and the communities that surround it.
An upstate federal judge ruled that a New York law that would have forced major fossil fuel companies to foot the bill for infrastructure upgrades necessary to withstand the impacts of climate change is unconstitutional, saying the state overstepped its authority by passing it.
A life scientist with the Environmental Protection Agency is the new leader of an interagency program created to improve the health of Long Island Sound.
Nicole Tachiki, named acting director of the EPA's Long Island Sound office in 2025, is now in charge of Long Island Sound Partnership, which began in 1985 as the Long Island Sound Study — an EPA-run effort in collaboration with New York and Connecticut aimed at cleaning up the Sound.
At the head of the Nissequogue River in Head of the River, a home nestled within rolling green pastures that was once a grist mill dating back to the 1700s still stands. But the family that has served as its steward for four generations is seeking to pass it on to preserve it.
As she sat with other family members in the wood shingle-covered home on Mill Dam Road, Molly Micciche said she could tell the exact times when the low and high tide for the Nissequogue River occurred. Micciche, 81, is one of the four children of Herbert G. Luther, who converted the centuries-old mill into a home in the 1950s.
Gov. Kathy Hochul visited the Montauk Lighthouse over the weekend to sign new protections for whales into law.
Called the Whale Awareness Act, the legislation is centered on education and integrates marine mammal protection into both New York State boater safety courses and the vessel registration process.
Key Points
Riverhead is working on draft revisions to its battery energy storage code.
The discussion follows PFAS detections in public water wells near the 2023 East Hampton BESS fire site.
SCWA says PFPrA was detected in water that migrated from the fire; state officials say the source remains under investigation.
Rothwell opposes a moratorium but wants runoff containment and removal of utility-scale BESS from Residence A-80 zoning.
Several Suffolk towns have adopted or extended BESS moratoria while reviewing local rules.
The state of New York has a solid waste problem. At least when it comes to tracking it.
This is according to a new audit from the New York State Comptroller’s Office.
Auditors found the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) “lacks reliable information on how much material is recycled across the state.”
The Trump administration is buying back New York offshore wind leases as it moves forward with plans to expand the use of fossil fuels.
The company RWE U.S. Offshore is receiving more than $1 billion to give up its leases to build wind farms off the coasts of New York, California and Louisiana. It is one of several deals the federal government made with renewable energy companies to get them to invest in fossil fuels instead.
In response to increased collisions between boats and marine mammals off New York’s coast, state lawmakers want better training for boaters to protect dolphins and whales. We discuss this issue with Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment.
