Earlier this year, the city's new noise code went into effect, and the city has definitely been enforcing it on Staten Island's Kinborn Street. The Department of Environmental Protection has fined Lucie Liebman $1,000 for a noisy ice truck jingle. The thing is, Liebman doesn't have an ice cream truck! A Lickety Split truck had parked outside Liebman's house and sounded its jingle. The DEP sent two summonses to Liebman, before dropping off the hefty... more ›

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a suspicious package at Broadway and Wall St. in Manhattan, a shooting at 158th St. and Linden Blvd. in Queens, and a homicide on Popham Ave. in the Bronx. Local One, New York's stagehands union, doesn't want Mayor Bloomberg to mediate in their negotiations with Broadway producers and theater owners. A 40-year-old Staten Island bus driver is accused of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old frequent passenger on his route. The... more ›

While this morning's commute seems better, most mass transit riders are still confused, frustrated and even betrayed by the subway system and other rail service coming to a stand still during the Wednesday morning rush hour. The MTA admitted that the service was not acceptable on many accounts, from the flooding to the fact that the MTA's website was overwhelmed. Then there's also the fact that the MTA was urging people not to take the subways and opt for a bus instead, only for buses to be (A) few and far between and (B) crowded as anything. more ›

The marshlands in Jamaica Bay that make up a portion of the Gateway National Recreation area and includes the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge are disappearing so quickly that some estimate all of the marshes could disappear in as few as five years. The New York Times reports that recent satellite images indicate that about 33 acres of tidal wetlands in the bay are disappearing annually, almost double the prior estimate of 18 acres per year based on a 2001 study. The cause of disappearing marshes is disputed and recommendations for their preservation involve a lot of money. more ›

Here's some feel-good news, courtesy of the MTA. It's a set of peregrine falcon chicks at the Throgs Neck Bridge! A wildlife expert from the DEP, Chris Nadareski, examined and tagged the chicks, all of which are female. And while the baby falcons are super cute, they are getting ready to grow up:

The Throgs Neck chicks have been growing steadily, and eat about four or five times a day. Their diet consists of pigeons, starlings, blackbirds, blue jays and other small birds caught by their mother. Their talons are already nearly as big as a man’s hand. In another three weeks they will begin to practice flying atop the tower but will remain dependent on their parents for protection and food for another eight weeks. more ›

Thank goodness for routine drinking water testing? The NYC's Department of Environmental Protection found higher-than-usual (and higher than what's safe) amounts of tetrachloroethylene, commonly known as PERC, in the drinking water of southeastern Queens. DEP investigators believe that the chemical might have seeped in from an auto-body repair shop or dry cleaners, because it's commonly used as a degreaser and cleaning agent. The agency is looking for the source. more ›

Ack! Some crazy, noxious smell seeped into Staten Island yesterday and made people so sick that the city's Hazmat team was brought in! People were made nauseous, anxious (where is that gas leak? I can't find it!), and nervous. Then the smell headed to the Rockaways, but it was less disgusting there and no one needed hospital attention as the Staten Island smell victims did (air conditioners sucked in the smell and concentrated it in homes and offices). The DEP isn't sure what caused the smell - Con Ed and the NJ city of Bayonne has denied that they had anything to do with the smell while KeySpan was working to see what had causing it. Samples are being tested though (how do you collect air samples, exactly?). more ›

amNew York follows up their G line sewage-stinky-smell story with this news: The DEP thinks it's close to solving the problem of the mysteriously putrid smell between the Broadway and Flushing stations. Yay! But this is a little scary:

Inspectors found a two-inch pipe protruding in a portion of tracks near the Broadway stop that may have been the culprit. But the pipe, which is now capped, is a mystery itself. more ›

Well, this is totally reassuring: The Department of Environmental Protection confirmed there is a sewage leak somewhere on the G line that is causing the disgusting smell. A track inspector told am New York, "It's like raw sewage coming from a pipe, disgusting. It smells real bad and makes me want to throw up." Jeez, we want to throw up, too, just thinking about it. The DEP says since the Marcy and Flushing sewer main is "very, very large," it's taking some time to locate the leak. Oh, and the DEP says sewage is not a health hazard to subway riders, which might be technically true, but if someone threw up in the train, you'd call them sick. more ›

Yesterday morning there were reports of mercury leaking from a Greenwich Village apartment, which made us wonder if a really huge thermometer broke. The city isn't sure, as they are investigating the matter at 55 West 8th Street, but the Post reports that one theory is "many, many years ago, someone dumped the mercury into a building pipe." To turn the whole building into a thermometer? And mercury is really heavy! The DEP said there was only 15-20 (fluid) ounces of mercury found, but each ounce weighs a pound! While the building was found to be safe, Gothamist cannot imagine how freaky it would have been to see mercury dripping from a ceiling - that's something like a nightmare involving Terminator 2. more ›

Hmm. Ornamental uses of non-city water are permitted in a stage one emergency? So we can trek over to Jersey and grab some of their water to waste and use to decorate our city. And even in a stage 2 emergency, we can still do that as long as we're using it to decorate an animal habitat? We assume hope this would be directed at protecting a habitat of one of our local zoo residents. But still, some of these rules seem a little strange to us. The DEP has a summary of "Water Use Restrictions" in the various stages of drought including, normal conditions. There are stiff penalties for violating any of the rules but many of them we'd imagine are quite hard to enforce. For example, we were unaware it was illegal to sell or install a showerhead using more than 2.5 gallons per minute -- even in non-drought conditions. So much for that new rainforest showerhead we bought online. more ›