By Jennifer Wilson Pines
The Legislature has gone home for the rest of 2024 unless a special session is called. A number of environmental bills made it past both houses and now await the governor’s signature.
Here’s a rundown on several of these bills.
A Ban on Taking Horseshoe Crabs. A.10140 (Glick) / S.3185-A (Hoylman-Sigal): This bill prohibits the taking of horseshoe crabs for commercial use as bait and biomedical purposes without a permit. Passage came as somewhat of a surprise since Sen. Brad Hoylman has been offering a form of this bill since 2015.
The justification for the bill states: “Horseshoe crabs are a vital part of the ecosystem in the waters off the coast of New York State. Unfortunately, their population has been drastically depleted by commercial fishermen who catch these crabs for use as bait. In fact, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recently graded New York’s horseshoe crab stock assessment as “poor.” In its assessment, the ASMFC said “continued declines in abundance were evident in the New York and New England regions,” adding “current harvest within the New England and New York Regions may not be sustainable.”
If these crabs are not protected, the effects could be disastrous to migratory birds and sea life that rely on them as a keystone species providing an essential food source. In particular, the red knot, a migratory bird that nests in the Arctic, relies on the eggs of the horseshoe crab as fuel for their journey. These birds feed almost exclusively on horseshoe crab eggs during this leg of their migration.
Horseshoe crabs are harvested for only two purposes as bait for the whelk fishery and for biomedical purposes. Biomedical harvesting of crabs for their blood includes the return of live crabs to their point of capture, but there are not currently any biomedical permits in New York. Because of bans in adjoining states, horseshoe crabs in New York are under heavy pressure, being harvested and sold in other states as bait. You might know whelk as scungilli, but the majority of the harvest goes to Asian and European markets. Whelks are also being overharvested and underregulated. The Department of Environmental Conservation recently proposed rules for size and take limits as there is some concern that the species is also under threat of extermination.
Wildlife Corridors S.4198-B (Comrie) / A.4243-B (Carroll): This bill will direct the Department of Transportation and the New York State Thruway Authority to identify state-owned roadways where wildlife crossings are most needed to provide safe passage for wildlife and reduce vehicle collisions that can pose a threat to public safety. This is an issue for both humans and wildlife as in the United States alone, there are more than a million automobile accidents per year involving wildlife, racking up more than $8 billion in medical costs and vehicle repairs annually.
The bill states, “According to some estimates, automobile collisions kill more than a million animals every year, making them the leading cause of death for many vertebrate species. Still worse is the way major roads and other forms of development can subdivide animal populations and fragment their habitats. Losing access to large areas of their living space makes it much harder for many woodland creatures to forage for food, find mates and carry on their genetic legacies.” Wildlife safe crossings have a successful history in Europe and there is federal highway funding to carry out these projects.
The FLACO Act S.7098-A (Hoylman-Sigal) / A.7808-A (Kelles): The former bird-friendly building act, renamed for the Eagle Owl that escaped from the Central Park Zoo and spent a year living free before dying in a building collision, passed the NYS Senate. This bill requires state-owned or leased buildings to implement bird-friendly strategies designed to reduce collisions. While the Assembly bill wasn’t moved before the end of the legislative session, this is an important step in getting it enacted in coming years.
The Audubon letter of support states: “Bird collisions with buildings are the second largest source of bird mortalities – killing an estimated 300 million to 1 billion birds each year in the United States. Incorporating bird-friendly designs can reduce collision deaths by up to 90 percent, and in New York State we have seen how successful bird-friendly design can be. The Javits Center, which features a 760,000-square-foot exhibition hall covered with glass, used to be one of the deadliest buildings for birds in New York City. The problems at the Javits Center were solved during a major renovation, when architects redesigned the building to include a low-reflective, fritted glass curtain wall that birds are able to see. NYC Audubon monitored the building pre- and post-renovation through their Project Safe Flight program and documented a 95 percent reduction in bird collisions.”
The Packaging Reduction and Recycling Infrastructure Act (A.5322 (Glick) S.4246 (Harchham): Despite a big push from many groups, the bill passed the Senate but did not make it to a vote in the Assembly. This bill would “require companies to cut their single-use packaging IN HALF in 12 years and redesign what’s left to make it truly recyclable. It would also ban 15 of the most toxic chemicals currently used in packaging, including PFOA, vinyl chloride, benzene, toluene, phthalates, bisphenols, lead and other heavy metals. The bill would also save NYS taxpayers money by putting the burden of paying to deal with packaging waste where it belongs – on the companies responsible for creating it.” Again, getting it past one house is a step in the right direction.
Both these bills will need help from the public next session. Legislators do respond to their constituents’ voices, so it’s important to let them know what you support. All of the bills passed still need to be signed by the governor, who has veto power, and her office needs to hear support for these measures. Expect a year-end update on what bills made it past the governor’s desk.
