Posted on 04/21/2011 6:30:05 PM PDT by decimon
NEW YORK The city will phase out the use of polluting heavy oils to heat buildings and will begin building solar power plants on capped landfills, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Thursday in his first update to a 4-year-old environmental plan that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2030.
Under the plan, the phase-out of heavy oils from the city's boilers would start right away and be completed by the 2030 deadline. It would reduce the presence of airborne fine particulate matter, which the city says is killing 3,000 residents each year and forcing 6,000 to seek emergency asthma treatment.
The update to PlaNYC, first released by the mayor on Earth Day 2007, was missing one measure that had been a key talking point four years earlier. Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan to charge motorists driving in the busiest parts of Manhattan during peak hours defeated in 2008 by state legislators was replaced by other programs.
The ban on the dirtiest heating oils will match or surpass the air quality improvements that had been expected as part of the never-realized traffic fee, said Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He is apparently planning to do so.
First I have heard of it. Better that New Yorkers just inflict themselves with that commie totalitarian than force him on the whole country.
I’d be curious to know how much of the airborne fine particulate matter is from combustion of #6 and #4, and how much is from tire particles. You would be amazed how much is in the air in a big city. We were involved in doing some indoor air quality studies some years ago (mid-90s), and couldn’t figure out why one of the tenant’s floors had all sorts of particulates in the outdoor air being introduced into the space, and the others didn’t. It turned out that the upper floors were getting their outside air from the roof, and the lowest floor was getting its outside air from grates down at grade.
I wonder if the people coming up with these rules have looked at such things, or if they’re just environmental extremists with “ban it all, as soon as we can get away with it” attitudes.
Thanks for the ping!
Purely co-incidentally, the hospital I work at was VERY recently undergoing asbestos remediation in one of the buildings on campus, and (surprise-surprise) several of the nursing staff working INSIDE that particular building got all bent out-of-shape over asbestos exposure (since that was the concern of the moment)...
Of ALL sampling stations on, in, and around the building in question, including the floor, ward, and very STATION of the concerned employee (you have no idea how much I loathe most RN’s),
The station with the MOST asbestos was THE ONE 2 FEET FROM THE STREET!
Oh, and for those who have a clue, crocidolite was NOT detected even in the samples INSIDE the decontamination zone. Amosite was the most common contaminant, and its level of contamination was BELOW 40% of acceptable limits at the HEIGHT of contamination.
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