Buffalo Area Senator Calls For Borrowing $5 Billion For Bond To Invest In Green Jobs, Cleaner Environment

By Larry Beahan

Buffalo’s own Senator Antoine Thompson, Chair of the New York State Senate Environmental Conservation Committee, proposes that the State borrow $5 billion to pay for clean water, clean air and, in the process, create green jobs. Sometimes you need to borrow money.

Waters both Buffalo area and Niagara, Ontario residents share could benefit from a 'Green Bond' being proposed by Western New York Senator Antoine Thompson. Photo by Doug Draper

My friend Chuck’s grandfather arrived in New York City from Russia with no money at all. He borrowed $5 from relatives, rented a push cart, peddled bananas and wound up a successful real-estate developer. New York State’s finances now resemble those of my friend’s forbearer on his arrival here. And since that time we have badly polluted the air and water of our State.

The $1.76-billion-dollar 1996 Clean Water Clean Air Bond Act paid for a lot of wastewater treatment, separate storm sewer systems and aquatic habitat restoration but it is now exhausted. The Environmental Protection Fund, supplied by the real-estate transfer tax, has protected open space, bought parks, revitalized waterfronts and closed dumps all over the State.

But in these difficult times the Governor has used his power to sweep it clean of cash. He has used the money to plug holes in the leaking dike that is the New York State budget. Problem Number One is that our economy is stalled. There are not enough jobs to go around. People who are out of work don’t pay taxes and without tax revenues we cannot attack Problem Number Two, our polluted environment.

This $5 billion will buy us an enormous push cart, a push cart of green jobs, a push cart full of clean water, clean air, and reclaimed land. To bring it right home, Woodlawn Beach State Park has a magnificent wide sandy beach and it is close to where a lot of Western New Yorker’s live.

But it is closed sometimes 45 days out of the summer. Western New York’s water treatment plants are inadequate to handle the outflow from our ancient, out-moded combined storm and “hygienic” sewers. When it rains, they overflow and Woodlawn Beach is flooded with E. coli. Let’s put people to work rebuilding this system. They will have money to support themselves, pay taxes and we can all go swimming again.

Senator Antoine Thompson speaking at an environmental rally in Buffalo this winter.

Childhood asthma is on the rise. It’s a problem on Buffalo’s West Side around the Peace Bridge.

A billion dollars of this Bond is targeted at jobs that would build a fuel-efficient, green transit system and clean up industrial smokestack air pollution. Senator Thompson’s bill (Senate 5886), the Clean Water/Clean Air /Green Jobs Bond Act of 2009, when passed by the Legislature, will require a vote by the people of New York before the $5 billion can be borrowed. Vote for it.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt borrowed to pay the workers of New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to build roads, plant forests and develop Parks like Letchworth and Allegany. Borrowing worked for us in the 1930’s. It worked for Chuck’s Grandfather before that.

Write your Legislators and make it work for us now.

(Larry Beahan is a resident of the Buffalo, New York area and a board member with the Niagara Frontier, N.Y. chapter of the citizens’ environmenta organization, the Sierra Club.)

(click on www.niagaraatlarge.com for Niagara At Large and more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to residents across our greater binational Niagtara region.)