Dear UESiders,

Fasten seatbeats for a multi good news week:

*Focusing on happy developments UES, most happy to say tech and battery recycling’s returned to Best Buy 86th!!

(Knowing you want to be the best battery recycler, please-please wait till you’ve accumulated enough batteries to fill a 6″X6″ ziplock bag to drop off and – to prevent Best Buy folks getting battery acid on their hands –  those batteries should be packaged in that 6″X6″ bag!!)  

*Happy UES Item 2:  NYPL’s just announced that the 67th Street Library Branch will be re-opening as of Monday, August 3rd!!  (Think grab-and-go pick-up and return services.)

*On the broader Manhattan front, as of this Saturday (i.e. tomorrow), Lower East Side Ecology’s compost collection returns  to Union Square 4 days a week!!  

Okay, so that drop-off’s not on the UES, is tens of blocks distant and a long way to be transporting food scraps, BUT it’s the beginning of back to a bit of green normal!!

(Meanwhile, rest assured CM and co-author of the CORE (Community Organics and Recycling Empowerment) Powers is pushing hard for re-activation of our area’s established drop-off sites!!)

*Going state-wide:

And we quote, “After years of hard work by NYS Health and NYS DEC, NYS has adopted the nation’s first drinking water standard for 1,4 dioxane & the lowest for PFOS & PFOA, protecting communities from these emerging contaminants!”  (For more…)

Not that there aren’t some issues…  There certainly are…  i.e.:

*As in, NYC is now lagging not only behind the rest of NYS but America as a whole in Census response!!  Really, people.  Time to start directing everyone in our circles – especially those lolling about on the Island or upstate – to proceed promptly to the 10-question online form!!

*The need for blood and plasma donation remains really high…  To make an appointment to give… 

Time for Maxima Market Manager Margaret with her market update: 

“Dear Green Marketeers,

What would a 2020 Greenmarket day be without some craziness?  This week that being another change in the 82nd Street set-up because…  Believe it or not, the school yard’s being repaved this Saturday!!  This despite repeated promises that it would not happen on a Saturday!!  The good news is it’s just one day and, although there’ll be trucks coming and going in and out, they will absolutely not be driving through the market.  Instead, they’ll back into 82nd and on into the schoolyard, then drive out the way they came in!!

Better news still is that Sunday at 92nd will be so, so calm and orderly!!

And tables at both will be brimming with summer bounty at it’s finest!!

Happy August,

Margaret“

Moving on to a tidbit of activism:

*Nope, NYS isn’t completely protected from deadly fracking waste…

And a green summer activity to consider:

Checked out the trees on your block lately?  Really showing the effects of this summer’s rain deficit, huh?  So, how about we – or enlist our building staffs –  slake their thirst with several buckets of cool water, say, once a week??  (You know that when planted each baby tree costs us taxpayers $1,200-$1,600 each??)   (While you’re at it, why not check for naughty insects??)  

Diverting diversions of the week:

Why we should not only brake for but love opposums…  FDNY tips to prevent electrical fires (good for young folks viewing, too)…     Ocean Wildlife Fact Sheets…  And unlikely ocean creature friendships…  Our own Columbia U may have come up with a 30-minute COVID test…  CM Powers’ approach to saving small NYC businesses…  Upcoming virtual programs from the great Hawk Mountain…  Yearning to be a NYS Outdoors Woman?  Here’s how…  Hell’s Kitchen’s creative solution to DSNY’s diminished waste collection…  Hunter@Home’s August 11th online “Road to WWII” lecture…  Consumer Reports on food additives to avoid…  Citizen scientists and a NYS Turkey Survey…  Rock dust and climate change…  A Central Park duck rescue…  Daily online tech classes from the NYPL…  Daily free concerts…

The Hudson River Almanac weighs in:

7/20 – Manhattan: Our Hudson River Community Sailing program captured a lined sea horse in our eel mop today. We will keep it in our aquarium for educational purposes and will release it soon. – Miles Hupert, Russell Jacobs

7/21 – Manhattan:  Hudson River Park’s River Project staff members went out to check a series of minnow and crab pots suspended from a floating dock on Pier 40 today.  Our traps yielded a small oyster toadfish (55 mm), a young-of-year butterfish (35 mm), and several blue crabs including one that was missing a claw.  Our crab pots also yielded a range of invertebrates, including amphipods, isopods, shore shrimp, and a juvenile spider crab. – Olivia Radick, Daisy Rivera

[Blue crab are decapods, Latin for ten feet, or ten legs: six walking legs, two swimming paddles, and two claws. When one of a crab’s appendages is lost, the crab will begin a process called regeneration. A lost leg is often the result of a “release” called autonomy.  Blue crabs frequently conduct territorial battles with other crabs or find themselves in the bill of a heron, at which point they can release a leg and escape. Eventually, through many moults, blue crabs have the ability to grow a new leg. – Tom Lake]

Together we’re keeping our city healthy and green,

UGS