NYC NOW - July 15, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Advocates say the Environmental Protection Agency needs to do more to remove forever chemicals, known as PCBs, from a stretch of the Hudson River upstate. A new report found the river north of Troy is still too contaminated. In sports news, both the Yankees and Mets lost on Sunday heading into the All-Star break. Plus, WNYC’s David Furst gets a preview of the upcoming Olympics with sports reporter Priya Desai, who has been following local participants.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, July 15th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Deli. Advocates say the Environmental Protection Agency needs to do more to remove forever chemicals, known as PCBs, from a stretch of the Hudson River upstate. The federal agency has released a new report stating it needs more time to determine whether cleanup efforts were successful. But local environmental group Riverkeeper says the data is clear. The river north of Troy is still too contaminated.

The group says on average the amount of forever chemicals in fish is nearly 80% higher than target set for 2020. Drew Gamble's is Riverkeeper's senior lawyer. One more year of data is not going to tell a different story. the story is already laid out there that PCB concentrations and fish have plateaued and are not declining. The chemicals were dumped into the river by general electric plants in the mid-20th century. Last year, the EPA began studying contamination levels in the lower Hudson between Troy and Battery Park in Manhattan. It's the Major League Baseball All-Star break, but Yankees fans are fuming after the team let a series win and a chance for first place slip through their fingers yesterday. Two ninth inning fielding mistakes by the Bronx bombers cost them their game against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Yankees are now one game behind the Orioles in the standings. In Queens, the Mets lost yesterday against the Colorado Rockies, but still ended up taking the series. Metz slugger Pete Alonzo will be in tonight's home run derby. He'll go on to play for the National League in tomorrow's R-Star game. Stay close. There's more after the break. For WNYC, I'm Jene Pierre. The Summer Olympics get underway later this month, and while sports fans all around the world are looking forward to the competition,

we at WNYC are most excited about the athletes from our area heading to Paris. My colleague David First spoke with Priya Desai, a sports reporter tracking some of the Olympians from New York and New Jersey. So let's start in New Jersey. I hear there is a young Garden State athlete. that is really making waves this Olympics? Yes, that would be 16-year-old. He's Lee Rivera.

She's a gymnast from Bergen County. She's the youngest member of Team USA, and she actually wasn't even expected to make the team, but she dominated at the Olympic trials, and she snagged that fifth spot. She says she was planning on learning how to drive this summer, so that's been postponed.

So that's just really, you know, driving home the point that we are talking about a lot of young people here today. If anybody has a chance, go and Google when she was named to the team. There's a video of her father. Oh, the tears on his face. Every time I watch it, I cry. Okay, search Hesley, Rivera, and check that out.

That sounds like a great early Olympics moment. What about some athletes from the five boroughs? There are actually a surprising number of athletes from New York. For me, a few that stand out are a triple jumper, Salif Maine from the Bronx, and he's poised. to bring home a medal in track and field. There's not one, but two fencers. I love watching fencing. It's one of my favorite, favorite to watch.

Really? Yes. It's just, once you, just do a quick Wikipedia to learn the rules. It's so quick. It's so exciting. And we have two women representing USA. It's Lauren Scruggs from Queens and Anne Sebelah from Brooklyn, who, when she told her parents initially, this is that she wanted to be offensive.

They're like, no, absolutely not. But it all worked out. It all worked out. Here she is. She's in the Olympics. Now, David, I assume back in the day, you were big into breakdancing. Second only to fencing. Well, it's back.

It's debuting this year. As an Olympic sport, they call it breaking. And Sonny Choi, who comes out of Queens, will be representing the United States. And for those not familiar with break dancing, it was born in the 80s out here in New York City, specifically out of the Bronx. I mean, that is so cool. But how does it translate into a sport? Anything's a sport. You can make anything a sport.

It's my favorite thing to tell people. And it's a competition. Like, there are worldwide competitions for break dancing that even get you to the Olympics. And there's a whole list of rules that you have to follow to earn points. And then the highest points win the gold. I think that's going to be a really cool sport to watch. It's my favorite thing about the Olympics is that you can watch so many different things that maybe you're not really, like, used to watch.

watching or get a chance to even watch. Is there any particular personal story that sticks out to you? Yeah, that triple jumper, I mentioned, Salif Maine. His parents immigrated from Senegal before he was born. And unfortunately, his father passed in 2020 of COVID. And Salif has been talking about listening to his father's old voicemails before he competes as a first generation American myself. His story really touches me, although much to my parents' dismay, I did not make it to the

Olympics. I've attended a few. Just never participated. And as I said before, I think he might not only come home with the medal, I think he'll come home with the gold. I think attending a few Olympics is cool on its own, quite frankly. Can you tell my parents that? I would be happy to. That's my colleague David First in conversation with sports reporter Priya Desai. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. We'll be back this evening.