Today's Thought

via Jef

Rockaway Volunteer From Williamsburg Tomorrow

A van is leaving tomorrow morning from Union Pool if you can be on it!  There is a lot to do. A lot of need.  

Well, apparently this happened

Today's Thought

via Joce

Water Quality for New York Beaches

VERY IMPORTANT - WATER QUALITY ISSUE

This Message comes from the LBSA via SMASH: 

If you are thinking of going surfing in Long Beach and Rockaway, please read this so you can make an informed decision on whether or not you think it's safe to go surfing. If you do decided to go surfing, wear ear plugs and be very careful! If the water smells foul, get out. 

Dear LBSA Members:

The City of Long Beach experienced unprecedented damage to our beaches,

homes and infrastructure as a result of Superstorm Sandy. The damage

sustained to the Bay Park Sewage Treatment plant has resulted in the

contamination of our waterways. This contamination threatens the

biological, aesthetic, and recreational value of our community and poses a

very real public health issue.

The LBSA believes that it is important to notify its members and all Long

Beach residents that there are serious, legitimate concerns with the local

water quality, including just off the coast and Reynolds Channel. We

recognize that many of us are not in a position to prioritize surfing,

however the longer these issues go without public notification and

rectification, the longer and harder they will be to remedy. The LBSA

believes that we have enough information so that you can make an informed

decision before you decide to surf, fish, paddleboard, etc. We also hope

that with this information you will feel compelled to act.

Scott Bochner, Long Beach resident, surfer, and founder of the

Sludgestoppers is one of the most qualified individuals to make a judgment

on the safety of our waters. He was intimately familiar with the issues

facing local sewage treatment infrastructure long before Sandy. When asked

for an opinion regarding whether or not it was advisable to surf, he

believed it was not. We share his concern. In Scott's words: "No I would

not surf...There is bacteria that still lives and even spreads with

dilution. Until the plants are online don't surf."

Local government (not surprisingly) and the local press (somewhat

surprisingly) have provided little detail on what exactly happened and have

issued no widely publicized warnings on the sewage or current state of our

waters.

Here is a summary of what happened:

- The night of Sandy Bay Park had a 9 foot surge and the electric shut

down. Sewage was not treated for 8 days.

- 56 million gallons of Raw untreated sewage was released into Reynolds

Channel. Reynolds Channel breached all bulkheads along its banks and

flooded Long Beach with all of the waste with it.

- The Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant was off line for 8 days and continued

to dump into Reynolds Channel. This makes its way onto our beaches.

- It was not until the third week after the storm that partial treatment

was restored, mostly with chlorine.

- Additional concern is the home heating oil that flowed from residential

tanks into the plant.

- The plant now has some equipment to remove sludge and chlorine is still

being used.

- All treatment plants have special permits which require cetain levels of

Nitrogen, chlorine, and heavy metals to be met to operate.

- These levels are currently way above permitted levels and are not

considered healthy.

- Under NY State law, facilities with these permits must alert the Board of

Health, DEC and they are required to alert the public using one media

source and a website posting if the facility discharges over the legal

limit. The LBSA does not feel that the Nassau Coungy government and local

media have met their responsibility in this regard.

- There is nothing in place from our officials to warn the public about

water quality until May of 2013.

Bottom Line from Scott: "There is 56 million gallons a day that flows from

all of Nassau County to Bay Park and into our waters. Think of a third

world nation and sewage is not treated. This is a health hazard and the

Board of Health does not even put out a warning. They don't test because

they don't have to."

The LBSA has also been in contact with The Surfrider Foundation's National

Office and it's Blue Water Task Force's administrator, Mara Dias. Ms. Dias

referred us to a recent posting on the surfrider blog which incorporated a

recent New York Times article on local sewage issues as well as an official

warning statement from the Jersey Shore Chapter of Surfrider. Please see

the following links for more information:

http://www.surfrider.org/coastal-blog/entry/sewage-still-a-problem-post-sandy

http://jerseyshore.surfrider.org/

As long as these issues go unadressed, (the longer it takes for the Plant's

function to be fully restored) the greater the chance that any problems

that exist now will compound. As surfers and water people, we do not want

to be the canary in the coal mine.

It is important to get this information out. Please send this to as many

people as you can - not to cause panic, but constructive alarm. The more

people know about what has happened, the better response we will get from

local government. The LBSA is in the process of planning a way to press

the Nassau County government for more answers and a clear solution. We

will keep you updated.

Surf Art By Any Other Name

Tadanori Yokoo

Fiscal Cliffs and Abstract Numbers

So while the nation's capital embroigles itself with the abstraction it has so fitfully created, real things are happening.  And someone says "I need this much!" and someone else says "We don't have that much!" and someone else yells "Gold standard!" and some other goof cries out "Let them eat cake!" And maybe we have a good chuckle at our own expense. But our expense ends up being their expense and expenses are an abstract valuation in themselves.  For the wages of sin is death.

Today's Thought

via C. Pfeil

Zebulon Passing

On Sunday, Dec 9 Zebulon will be closing its doors after ten exciting years of pioneering music and arts. Williamsburg has changed significantly since we opened, and unfortunately it is no longer possible today to continue the business in the manner in which it was conceived. Nevertheless, it's been a great run. We are proud to have given many celebrated artists a chance to play in an intimate setting or develop their sound in readiness for a larger audience. Zebulon has employed and supported struggling artists and their families, connected them to a wider musical community in New York and given them a stage on which to experiment. This is our final week so if you haven't been down in a while, please come and say hello/wave goodbye, and pay your respects to this gem of an institution. Thank you for your support and stay tuned for news of our next endeavors and adventures!

I've often spoken of Zebulon here on the Endless Bummer. It is something of a second home for my family and many of my friends. It has been a place of refuge and celebration, inspiration and hope for us. I'd like to start a sentence with "it's one of the last blah blah blahs" but I feel neither locally qualified nor simply old enough to do so. Suffice to say, of all the places I've been and lived, and of all the years I've spent in this bit of North Williamsburg, in this bit of New York City, I've never found another place like it. Straight out of that mythological movie in my dreams, Zebulon is the epicenter of culture, taste and cool to me.  Dare I say, in the non-cheesiest, proudly lame-ass surfy haole way I can: it is my own personal personification of ohana aloha.  Jef, Guillaume and Joce, their families and all the incredible people who've worked there will be indelibly burned inside my son's skull as well. His regular drink, the cranberry/ orange juice/ spicy-water combo will forever be called the "Zebulon" for the remainder of his days. Please stop by and show your love if you've got it, and if you don't have a clue of what I'm talking about, stop by this week and feel the love. This is one more passing of what my generation of gentrifiers would call Old Williamsburg and it is the loss that hurts by far the most.

Zebulon on EBNY:     1   2   3

Zebulon Elsewhere :    1    2    3

You will find me there at some point tomorrow night, later Friday night, sometime Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday.  See you there, or frankly, you should feel a little square.

more here...

Today's Thoughts

More WAX. Please.

Surf Art By Any Other Name

Alessandro Puccinelli via BDIF

Bramble & Briar

Surfed in New York for the first time since the storm yesterday.  Planted the boy in a tent on the beach with a laptop and a movie and paddled into the fog. He was happy, I was happy.  Better than the last time I planted him on the beach for a winter surf, spun up like a turban in a few wool blankets, wrapped tight as a little sand burrito in 30ish˚ weather bored and sweating while I struggled on a board too small, drenched in my own mixture of sweat and salt water.  Yesterday offered some very speedy little beach break waves that were 70/30 on the "too fast" side, the 30 being just enough to stoke.  Cleared brush brought in by the storm, removed dead flooring and tried to wrap my head around getting the place ready for the next flood.

Today's Thought

Sandy: A Million Things

There is so much news to be had out there about relief efforts.
Legal issues, planning issues, issues of bad government issues in broken promises and news of acts of incredible perseverance and generosity of time and energy. I have not been able to keep track of them here, but I get them all the time on Facebook feeds and via texts and emails.  Ruth Mamaril is always saying something interesting.  The Rockaway Relief feed is always putting something out there.  Thomas Brookins is on the ground. The Sandy Help LB feed is on top of it.  And of course the other guys and gals listed up top...