Albany Terminal

How quickly we change from a world in which extracting a barrel of oil from some cold distant place and shipping it via a tenuous supply chain across a continent seemed like a great deal – until the price of oil dropped below $50 a barrel, far below the cost of getting that oil from the frozen North.
So who, in these giddy days of easy oil, wants to hear any grousing about old train cars carrying precarious amounts of oil through fragile regions of the USA?

Railroad tank cars at terminal for off-loading oil onto barges

America's new-found oil prosperity has a number of causes, one of the most productive being the Bakken shale formation in the remotest part of North Dakota, near the border with Canada which has pushed the USA up to the lead of world oil producers. So much oil is being pumped there, in fact, that they don't know what to do with it. There is no infrastructure to get it out of this remote location, to the point that drillers are burning off the natural gas found with the oil just to get to the oil. The only transportation infrastructure in the region is the railroad which had been used to haul grain. Now the grain rots at the terminal because the trains are hauling oil, to the tune of 50 trains a week, and that is just on one of the many train routes out of the Bakken. This oil is unusually volatile, and these trains are fully loaded and heavy. This, and the poor state of America's rail lines combine to produce a series of accidents waiting to happen. In summer 2013, a Canadian town, Lac-Megantic, was literally blown off the map by one of these "Bomb Trains." A ludicrous number of these trains have exploded, spilled, and crashed damaging lives, property, and the environment.

Long train of tank cars on Canadian Pacific train line

There are two main rail freight routes across North America, Canadian Pacific (the old Delaware and Hudson Line) which goes north of the great lakes, through Canada, winding down a precipitous cliff above Lake Champlain as it comes back into the USA, and CSX (the old New York Central line) comes through Chicago, and on the south side of the Great Lakes, both terminating in Albany, where it is off-loaded onto barges and shipped to refineries up and down the east coast.
Between the poor maintenance of the infrastructure, the laughable safety record of the industry, the volume of product being moved, and the fragility of the ecosystems through which the network passes, the only question is when will be the next disaster, not if. But perhaps we should wait until one of these trains filled with oil derails and plunges into Lake Champlain before we protest this nonsense, or another small town gets blown off the map (who cares if a few more Canadians die anyway), or perhaps we wait until one of those barges capsizes and spills its contents into the Hudson?

Children on playground next to railroad tank cars

This discussion is about the safety and reliability of the transportation infrastructure, and leaves aside the larger question of our overall reliance on petroleum. As a society, we are ignoring both questions. As New Yorkers, we should address this question of the reckless movement of a toxic, volatile material through our neighborhoods. The geopolitical anomaly of cheap oil is temporary, and soon those trains will once again be running down the Great Lakes.

Red Tide

As summer is finally upon us, I can't help but think about an issue I encountered in a big way while shooting along the Jersey Shore last fall.

Red tide is a (usually) toxic to humans and animals algal bloom caused by a combination of warm water, sunlight, and nutrient overloading (from fertilizer and sewerage). It can cause rashes and other manifestations in people coming in contact with it, the most severe being death for those who eat infected seafood.
Since bivalves and crustaceans continuously strain water, they accumulate large amounts of the algae, which, being toxic, is a real problem for shellfish consumption, both those who consume it, and the economy that provides it.

Red tide is also catastrophic to marine fauna because, when it dies, the bacteria that consume it absorb all the oxygen in the water, thus suffocating the other marine organisms. There have been red tides throughout history, the difference being that now we know the causes and how to decrease the occurrences.

So it was with some astonishment that, while doing a photo flight to look at Post-Sandy construction on the Jersey Shore, I saw a giant red tide in New York Harbor.
Given the health and environmental hazards, I would assume that such a thing would have been newsworthy. Did I miss something, or is it just not "news"?

Algal blooms are one more sign of a natural system in distress, and those come so many and so often these days that such a seemingly insignificant one is hardly noticeable. In fact, we seem intent, as a society, on ignoring them. Facebook posts about nice breakfasts, cute animals, or smiling children garner tremendous response, while those warning about clear and present danger, either to our life support systems or the transparency of our government attract the attention of only the like-minded concerned audience. And certainly many of these issues are complex, seemingly intractable, and come with the erroneous impression that the individual can do nothing about them.

The runoff from excess fertilization causes a surfeit of nutrients in the water, which is the starting factor in the chain of events leading to an algal bloom. The New York Harbor bloom actually posed a serious local hazard to anyone consuming shellfish. But New York Harbor is the least of the problem. The Great Lakes are dying and the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico covered nearly 7,000 sq miles in 2011, and grows larger every year.

Reducing that nutrient loading is a vital but complex issue involving regulation and education. Farmers and homeowners must decrease their fertilizer use, an outcome that will only evolve with a mixture of persuasion and coercion. Success in that goal will require that all the stakeholders realize their contribution to the problem and their gain from the solution.

Buy A House

I'm a little blue. Circumstances have conspired so that I must leave a house that I love. We have all been there. And of course, the consolation is that this is a great time to buy a house, or so they say. I want to stay in New York State, and Westchester is too expensive, so I am looking north. There are some great places on the market: nice houses, large properties, old farms. I look at the listings and imagine myself there - a beautiful picture. Then I look them up on the map, and my heart sinks, as I cross-reference each location against a map of the existing gas drilling leases in New York State. The sad fact is that much of New York State has been leased for gas drilling, and as a prospective buyer of property, there is no way I would buy something that might have hydro-fracking near it.

Admittedly I have a good understanding of the process, and thus the risks inherent. But even for the layman, all one needs to know can be summarized in this editorial by an environmental engineering technician: “Hydraulic fracturing as it’s practiced today will contaminate our aquifers.” Why would I, as a home buyer looking to invest life savings in a property, buy something that will have poisoned water?

The question arises whether I should believe this technician or the glowing industry reports (from an industry that has wheedled exemptions from the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and hopes to get in and profit and get out). I will err on the side of caution, thank you very much. And of course I feel badly for those who were duped into signing leases for their land, and even worse for those that live adjacent to leased land. Caveat emptor.

SEAL SPOTTING

12 April 2010

Those of us who live in New York and the suburbs don’t pay too much attention to the natural systems that surround the metro area, and I’m no exception. My friend Chris, the naturalist, has been going out on Long Island Sound for the last year or so, documenting the wildlife there, and has extended me an open invitation to join him. Last weekend I was between projects, and had all of my cameras with me, and the tides were right, so we made a plan.

Easter morning was beautiful and unseasonably warm; a perfect day for a boat ride. Leaving Stamford, we encountered a pair of osprey nesting on the harbor light, with the male rather ineptly gathering driftwood to make a nest. It’s such a pleasure to be with an expert that can explain what we see, and Chris is the best. Out of the harbor we ran in to a wall of fog so thick that it felt like being in another world. The waters there are rocky, which would make navigation impossible but for an amazing GPS that allows one to follow previous paths.

After a bit, Chris stopped the boat and announced that we had arrived. “They are right over there,” he said. Of course our senses could discern nothing but fog and the lapping of water on the boat. Slowly we drifted, and shapes began to emerge, and a glint of sunlight on marine skin defined a pair of harbor seals. They watched us with mild suspicion as we rocked and snapped away. The Marine Mammal Protection Act limits proximity, but to see these beautiful animals (on Easter Sunday) with a background of New York and the wealthy suburbs somehow gave a sense of hope of the possibility of coexistence between “civilization” and the natural world.

ROADLESS AREAS

7 December 2009

The Adirondack Council has taken upon itself the Herculean task of trying to document the ATV damage to roadless areas in the Adirondacks Park. Surprisingly, after being in New York for so many years, only recently have I become familiar with this magical space. My first adventure was with the Northeast Wilderness Trust in an effort to save a large parcel of land from development on the Canadian border, ensuring connectivity between the Adirondacks and northern forests.

The Adirondacks is a mixture of public and private lands, set up as a park in 1892, after Verplanck Colvin proposed a bill to the legislature.

In the summer of 2008, at a friend’s suggestion, I flew with Lighthawk to shoot the old industrial scars in the park. This fall, I took a group of students into those same sites on the ground. I’m always game to take up sword against windmill, so with Bob Keller, Lighthawk’s indomitable environmental aviator, and John Davis from the Council, we lofted into the wild blue. On these projects, one is always throwing dice with the weather, and we had been trying to do this for a year, only to be clouded out at the last minute each time. This was no exception, and in a call the night before, Bob had expressed concern that an approaching weather front might trap us in the high peaks. Since I had to take a dawn train from NYC to Schenectady to meet him, mine was the longest trip of the day. But given the three previous aborted efforts, I prevailed that we should take the gamble, and we agreed that if his morning weather check sounded ominous, he could call me and I would just detrain and go back to NYC.

When we rendezvoused, the weather looked hazy-to-cloudy and the front was still in southern NJ, so we decided to move with dispatch, and bypass the paper mill nearby on which I had set my heart of adding to my collection.

It was a windy day, but in this case on our rear quarter, so we were quick getting up to Saranac Lake to get John, where we conferred on objectives and route, and groused about the weather. I’m just the idiot picture maker in the gang, and both of them knew the area, so this was their department. After a final bathroom pit-stop, we boarded, straightened out all gear, and took off. Bob, with whom I have flown many similar missions, and who keeps an immaculate plane, had recently burned a flat spot on his tire, which leads to slightly bumpy take-offs and landings, so I took great pleasure in teasing him about it through the day.

Adirondack high peaks (note the striated air pollution)

POLAR ICE: Who Needs It?

15 October 2009

A study released today announced that polar ice will be gone in 10 years. My initial reaction to such traumatic news is so often sarcasm, that I resist with great effort. The ramifications (those we can understand) are so far-reaching as to leave me a bit breathless. Let's not even talk about the polar bears, as they are already functionally extinct. The estimates I have seen predict that sea levels will rise 250 feet when all the ice has melted; goodbye New York City, Boston, Charleston, and all those places dear to me. It's hard not to think selfishly about these things; after all, we are each the center of our own universe. And therein lies the problem. I know plenty of good people that still drive SUV's and have houses that burn megawatts of electricity. I think we discount the larger effects of our own actions. We think to ourselves: because I can afford it, I am entitled to it. And there are so many rationalizations: "everyone else does it," "it's just a hamburger," "science will provide an answer." Comfort and desire are so seductive, and our contributions to the problem seems so small. Though we might have heard that livestock produce more global warming gas than cars and trucks, why should we deny ourselves that steak? After all, the world will end when we die, right?

SYMPOSIUM @ BLOOMBERG

That's right, folks, yours truly will be conducting a photographic symposium at the NYC Bloomberg L.P. headquarters tomorrow. This event will kick off Bloomberg's BGreen Speaker Series.

ADIRONDACKS - Part I

September 20, 2008

The Adirondacks is the largest intact temperate forest in the world, a vital wild space in itself, and a link to the Green Mountains and the rest of the 80 million acre Northern Appalachians. Though established as a protected park in 1885, much of it is privately held with no protections. I became interested in this magical place as the result of a project with the Northeast Wilderness Trust, http://www.newildernesstrust.org/, which asked me to help in the effort to preserve a thousand-acre parcel of land. LightHawk, http://www.lighthawk.org/, a fantastic group that flies environmentalists, had volunteered to fly us in that endeavor. My idea was a project that would examine the negative environmental impacts on this place that is so essentially part of our American heritage, and LightHawk’s great pilot, Bob Keller, agreed to fly me on this mission, too.
The Adirondacks was once home to much industry that has, for the most part, left the area in recent years; lumber and paper were tremendous, and still are a large presence; numerous mines littered the landscape, with the mills and processing plants that accompany them. With the help of Sid Whelan and some others with local knowledge, I was able to identify and locate a number of these sites, and plot a mission. In addition, I was able to get great support from Peter Kelley and his team at Kelley Campaigns, http://kelleycampaigns.homestead.com/, who brought The Adirondack Explorer and Adirondack Daily Enterprise on board for the project; suddenly, we had a full plane. Bob was going to be doing some maintenance on his plane in Schenectady where the Amtrak from NYC stops at a station minutes from the local airport (love that train). Our plan was to work up the East side of the park, shooting the sites we had identified, then pick up the reporters at Saranac Lake and do the locations in the North and West.

The first target was the defunct Palmer Paper Mill in Corinth, site of one of the original International Paper locations. Though the mill is closed, the site remains, waste tanks full, a deep wound left behind on the town whose livelihood once depended on the mill’s successful operation. The river there was dammed to provide power for the mill, the dam an enduring relic of a different time, and an ecosystem alteration with permanent effects on the flora and fauna that depend on the river.

One of our next sites was a paper mill still operant in Ticonderoga, with an environmental record to make the bold weep. We think of paper as a benign product, made from natural sources, associating it with the Chinese and Egyptians that invented it. The reality is that paper production is an environmental disaster from start to finish. The process is so terrifying that I will not even take a paper napkin at a restaurant any more. We flew over Lake George, looking for the Asian Mille Feuille that has clogged this most bucolic Eastern resort location; but we were too late in the year, and only managed to get some good shots of storm-water runoff into the Lake from residential locations. Bob (the pilot) was so great. Aside from his expert piloting, local knowledge, and understanding of the issues, he was able to provide further insights into the terrain below.


Next on the agenda was the old Republic Steel Mill in Port Henry (great name). Republic Steel was once the third largest steel producer in the country, founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1899. Republic Steel’s Port Henry operation opened its doors in the mid-to-late 1800s, and was headquartered in Mineville and Witherbee, neighboring towns that were built up specifically to serve as communities for the mine workers and their families. All that remains today (as far as one can see) is a mountain of waste, a beautiful old factory building, and some water bodies with mysteriously colored sludge on the surface and lining the edges.

The journalists were awaiting us in Saranac Lake, and from there we flew over the High Peaks to the old Tahawus lead and titanium mine at the head of the Hudson River. Apparently, this was once considered a vital “national security site,” titanium and lead being crucial for many things military. But, imagine a lead mine at the head of one or our most important rivers. The site is beautiful: a mountain of waste, ponds of various bright blues and greens, and strange arrangements of detritus that remind us of nothing so much as unexplainable phenomena often attributed to UFOs.

In the end, we missed the last train out of Schenectady, so Bob flew me down to the next stop on the line in Hudson NY, and a taxi met me at the small airport and raced me to the train station.