Residents in the vicinity of Newark International Airport were complaining about the smell of gas Sunday afternoon after a Boeing 777 dumped 170,000 pounds of jet fuel into the air while preparing for an emergency landing. The plane, carrying 269 passengers bound for Tokyo, returned to the airport less than an hour after takeoff yesterday because of a "hydraulic problem." But before it could touch down, it needed to lighten up by emptying its fuel tanks over the Garden State. more ›

About 6,000 gallons of heating fuel leaked out of a tank in the basement of a New York University-owned housing complex yesterday. It's unclear exactly what caused the oil to spill out of the tank — which is a backup system for heating and hot water in NYU's Washington Square Village development at Bleecker and Mercer streets, according to the Daily News. "We are determined to figure out what caused the spill and resolve it," said university spokesman John Beckman. Residents were not evacuated from the buildings, but some complained of fumes from the fuel in hallways and stairways. "You breathe this stuff in for five minutes, you'll get headaches," said Irish studies professor John Waters, 45, who lives on the sixth floor with his wife and daughter. "This is a disaster." more ›

Environmentalists say they've come up with an unlikely way to keep the city's tap water from becoming polluted: cow manure. Amidst mounting concerns about the impact of upstate natural gas drilling on New York City's water supply, the blog CleanTechnica reports on the burgeoning cow-power movement. more ›

Yikes: Up at 119th Street and Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, a fuel truck apparently hit some scaffolding—and the scaffolding collapsed. We're hearing that the only person injured was the truck driver and that there's a hazmat crew on scene to remove the fuel. more ›

Flush with socialist bailout money, General Motors is now trying to destroy the oil industry with a car that will get 230 miles per gallon in city driving! GM calls it the Chevy Volt and classifies it as an "extended-range vehicle" powered by an electric motor and a battery pack with a 40-mile range. (After that, a small internal combustion engine takes over to generate electricity for a total range of 300 miles.) Toyota’s Prius, the most fuel-efficient hybrid sold in the U.S., gets 48 miles per gallon and looks like a Hummer 3 by comparison. GM CEO Fritz Henderson promises that at the U.S. average cost of electricity (approximately 11 cents per kWh), a typical Volt driver would pay about $2.75 for electricity to travel 100 miles, or less than 3 cents per mile. Of course, big oil still has some time to assassinate Henderson and burn down GM's R&D labs—the first-generation Volt is expected to cost about $40,000, which most consumers might not swallow even if gasoline returns to $4 per gallon. And the E.P.A. still has run its own tests to confirm GM's assertions, but the company says Volt is on schedule to reach showrooms late next year. But whatever happened to the P.U.M.A.!? more ›

No surprise here, but skyrocketing fuel costs have not spared farmers who sell produce at Greenmarkets, the AP finds. Upstate strawberry grower Franca Tantillo estimates that roughly half the money she earns at a Manhattan Greenmarket is spent on transportation costs. And it’s not just getting back and forth from the city that’s more expensive; fuel costs have driven up the price of fertilizers and animal feed, and plastic supplies for greenhouses cost more. As the costs are passed on to their urban customers, farmers like Elly Hushour, who sells goat cheese that she drives in from her farm in Pennsylvania, predict that "local soon will not be that important.” And maybe Union Square soon will not be that mobbed? more ›

Gas prices have doubled since Mohammed Kalair started driving a cab in New York three years ago, and now it’s looking like he may return to his native Pakistan to enjoy a better standard of living. Though the Taxi and Limousine Commission says drivers still can average a living wage of $12 an hour, other experts say they now net closer to the state minimum-wage of $7.15 per hour. Some are calling for a fuel surcharge of $1 per trip, which has been implemented in other cities. As for Kalair, he tells the Post he’s had to make real tough decisions: "I choose eating, not smoking." more ›

Mayor Bloomberg’s ambitious congestion pricing plan may be toast (or Governor Paterson may bring it back from the dead) but it seems that skyrocketing gas prices are succeeded where Hizzoner failed. The Times is reporting that traffic on the city’s bridges and tunnels dropped 4.7 percent in June, compared to the same time last year. Meanwhile, subway, bus, bicycle and commuter rail ridership has surged. A transportaion consultant predicts that “if we start eclipsing $5 a gallon, which we might over the summer, I think we might get very close,” to reducing traffic in Manhattan by 6.3 percent, which was the goal for Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan. Go peak oil! more ›

New Yorkers still trying to swallow the fare hike that's been approved by the MTA board can at least take heart that entire swaths of services aren't being eliminated. New York Water Taxi commuters are facing the elimination of large parts of that company's East River service from the beginning of 2008 at least until May of next year.

New York Water Taxi regretfully announces the suspension of commuter service on the East River from 1/1/08 to 5/1/08. As you may know, NYWT took over the service in 2003, on short notice, when it was abandoned by another operator. We have added new stops and worked tirelessly to make the run economically viable.