Free New York From Fossil Fuels

Dear Friend,

We have learned that New York Power Authority is going all-out to win state and federal approval for the Power Plants in the South Bronx before New Year’s so that it can keep polluting for five more years. We have got to mobilize a public outcry right now if we are going to stop NYPA from giving South Bronx and NYC residents a continuous fossil fuel nightmare for the holidays.

Here is what you need to know: NYPA cannot proceed without a Title V and Title IV renewal permits from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Sadly, the NYSDEC has totally ignored community concerns raised in hundreds of your comments and from an in person meeting with NYPA and DEC staff. They recommended NO PUBLIC HEARING and NO CHANGES at all in the EXPANDED operations in response to HUNDREDS of comments.

But the Federal Environmental Protection Agency can reject any Title V permit according to the Clean Air Act!

So it is crucial that Congress Member Jose Serrano hear from hundreds of us immediately — telling him to stand up to NYPA and the NYSDEC and encourage the EPA to reject the permit and stop the disastrous pollution and misuse of our precious waterfront land.

Because this threat is so extraordinary and so imminent, I am asking you to take one minute to email the office of our Congress Member for maximum impact.

Please click here to send an automatic email message. You will be linked through to the office of Congress Member Serrano where you can send an email message.

Feel free to add your own personal thoughts and feelings about this threat. I cannot stress how important your action is. The NYSDEC has already given conditional approval to the power plants. So prevailing on the Congress member is our last best chance to stop it.

The NYPA Power Plants were forced on us years ago. They pollute our air, contributing to the asthma epidemic and completely prevent far wiser uses of our shoreline. The four power plants on our waterfront use natural gas and thereby encourage an increase in fracking. After Paris the world knows the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels. NYS is shutting down dirty power plants and converting to renewable wind and solar, but only upstate. Why not shut down power plants in the South Bronx?

Continuing to keep the FOUR power plants burning in the South Bronx would deepen our addiction to climate-destroying fossil fuels and impede the move to renewable energy. Big Oil and Gas could even use it as a stalking horse to roll back our historic ban on fracking by clamoring for more so-called natural gas.

Please click here to send an automatic email message. You will be linked through to the office of Congress Member Serrano where you can send an email message.

Thank you, as always, for standing with our community in defense of our environment and communities.

From all of us!

A generous Donor is challenging you with an annual year end matching
gift challenge to benefit Friends of Brook Park. They will match
every single donation up to $5,000 through December 31st! This means
we’ll be able to do twice as much – grow twice as many vegetable
seeds, host twice as many school groups, lead twice as many canoe
trips, and impact twice as many families and children in the South
Bronx.

*Your $40 donation becomes $80 which helps buy enough vegetables
seeds for a whole garden, feeding at least a dozen families.

*Your $50 donation becomes $100, which helps build a raised gardening
bed for our Youth Farm.

*Your $250 donation becomes $500 which helps us cover most of the
costs of guiding a canoe trip with 8 canoes for South Bronx youth.

These are just a handful of examples. What your donation really goes
to: a better community, a greener community, a smarter community –
where we can do twice as much.

Visit
HERE   to make your gift today and double your impact!

–

Volunteer in the Garden

December 12th  SATURDAY 11pm to 1pm

 

All ages welcomed. Children can plant daffodil bulbs. Everyone can help us weed, spread wood chips and help rebuild the small fence around the Rain Garden.

Plus special Hands-on Workshop: Learn to Winterize your Fig Tree

led by Certified Pruner Adrienne Bubbins

Together with leaves, cardboard, twine and tarp we will winterize a fig tree.

 

Last year’s Winter was hard on our fig trees in NYC.  See this NYTimes article here about how many died.

 

“Fig trees are a popular Mediterranean fruit that can be grown in the community or home garden. While it is commonly found in warmer climates, there are some methods for fig cold protection that can allow gardeners like us in cooler climates to keep our figs over the winter. Fig tree care in winter takes little work, but the reward is delicious. Fig trees need winter protection in areas where the temperatures will drop below 25 degrees F. (-3 C.).

RSVP & More information at www.friendsofbrookpark.org

See this great clip about our collaboration with Bronx Hot Sauce.  All year long young adult participants in our Alternatives to Incarceration program with Community Connections for Youth have mostly been responsible for tending the Serrano pepper plants.

Weeding all year, watering, especially on the hot Summer days, spreading mulch and more.  Besides learning urban farming skills and teamwork and an appreciation for Nature, they get paid.  A great initiative that keeps our youth out of the criminal justice system and cultivates community,

See the clip by clicking the photo below.  And you can contribute to our  End of Year Fundraiser Drive click here, or contact us for other ways of giving.

From the NY1 piece:

“Nineteen-year-old Junior Leiva has carefully plucked peppers that will end up in stores across the country in bottles of Bronx Hot Sauce – a product made with produce grown at community gardens across the borough.

“We give these 23 urban gardens seeds. They grow the seeds. We buy them back from the people and we pay them $4 per pound,” said Julia Fitzgerald, Bronx Hot Sauce VP of Sales.

Those gardens already have grown 750 pounds of peppers this year. It’s enough to make 30,000 bottles of hot sauce and earn Leiva and three others working at Brook Park some pocket change.

“I think it’s pretty cool because instead of going to big companies they come to us,” Leiva said.

The folks behind all of this want Bronx Hot Sauce to become a kitchen staple, but there’s more to it than that.

“When you purchase a bottle of this sauce, it helps a lot of people,” said King Phojanakong, Creator of Bronx Hot Sauce.

A major goal is supporting struggling communities in the Bronx and the often overlooked people who live there like Leiva, who’s growing peppers at Brook Park as part of a program for teenagers who got in trouble with the law.

“They can have a sense of the possibilities for them as a result of  learning the really fine art of urban agriculture and now having an opportunity to take it up to a level where they could earn income,” said Ray Figueroa, Program Director at Friends of Brook Park.

The peppers which become hot sauce virtually go from community gardens like the one in Brook Park to businesses like the Bronx Beer Hall where they sell the product to their customers….” See the rest by clicking the photo below.