Friday was not a terrible day for New York's greener organizations. Why not? Well, because the New York City Environmental Fund awarded 69 grants worth $763,200 to community-based environmental projects in New York City and Westchester.

One group that received a grant is the Urban Divers Estuary Conservancy which does some really nifty sounding work dealing with studying and preserving the waters around New York and New Jersey, especially the harbor. They also used to do a sweet program called Live from Beneath the Estuary (that's where that picture to the right was lifted from...).

The NYC Environmental Fund, which has given out nearly $8 million since the fund was started in 1994 as part of a settlement between New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation and Con Edison. Some of the other programs given money this year include the Eastern Queens Allianc, which is developing a "network of trails through the 225-acre Idlewild salt marsh," a group that makes "green" maps of the city, and Canarsie Aware which is working on refurbishing neglected Canarsie piers.