During a recent New Scotland Town Board meeting, resident Jacob Kruzansky asked board members “to implement some kind of green initiative in the town so that we can do our part, we can help reduce the hassle for our neighbors, and you know, we can also contribute to the wellness of the environment as a whole.”

Helderberg Lake Association President Tom McQuade told The Enterprise this week that there have been discussions about using the herbicide ProcellaCOR — which was recently at the center of a legal battle between Lake George residents and the Adirondack Park Agency — to control weeds in Helderberg Lake, but that repairing the high-hazard dam is still the association’s only priority.

Ahead of a presentation on the Inflation Reduction Act in the town of Knox on Aug. 8, League of Conservation Voters Communications Director Devin Callahan spoke with The Enterprise about the group’s efforts to spread awareness of the green-energy incentives currently offered to people, businesses, and municipalities. 

A draft of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Solid Waste Management Plan lays out a vision of a reduced-waste society, which will be implemented through legislative and agency policy. Waste accounts for 12 percent of the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions, the plan says. 

ALBANY COUNTY — By Friday afternoon the air quality in Albany County had reached the “unhealthy” level with an index number of 158 because of particulate matter in the air caused by the wildfires in Canada.

Wildfire smoke downwind affects not just health but also wealth and mortality, according to new research from Cornell University, Nanjing University, and the University of Houston, published earlier this month.

ALBANY COUNTY — The Albany area on Thursday, June 15, along with part of the Adirondacks had “moderate” as opposed to “good” air quality, according to AirNow.gov, a website run in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Using data reported for “respiratory symptoms” on June 8 from Emergency Medical Services response data, which is a timely early-warning source, the health department observed a statewide increase of 17.8 percent in the rates per 100,000 on Wednesday, June 7, as compared to the average of the five-day period of June 1 through 5. At the same time, for the metropolitan New York City region, the increase was 28.4 percent and for the Capital Region, it was 12.4 percent.

ALBANY COUNTY — Speaking from the University at Albany on Wednesday evening, Governor Kathy Hochul said the poor air quality throughout most of the state caused by wildfires in Quebec was “unprecedented.”

More than 100 wildfires burning in Quebec are causing hazy conditions across much of the state.