NYC NOW - October 30, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

New York City Councilmember Julie Menin is declaring victory in the war on rats on one Upper East Side street. Meanwhile, the city Board of Elections says over 15,000 New Yorkers turned out for early voting on the first weekend despite there being 4.5 million people registered in the city. Plus, as tree leaves begin to fall, some environmentalists are calling for us to “leave them be”. Naturalist and Director of Education at the City Parks Foundation, Chrissy Word joins Michael Hill to share the pros and cons of not removing them. Finally, as Breast Cancer Awareness Month nears an end, WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk is profiling people from our area who've been affected by the disease, like Sam Lazar Riviello.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, October 30th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. A New York City council members declaring victory in the war on rats, on one Upper East Side Street at least. Councilmember Julie Menon helped fund an exterminator to pump carbon monoxide into rat burrows along East 86th Street.

The technique kills the rats where they live in sidewalk street pits. If a rat tries to make a run for, the exterminate finishes them off with a spiked stick. Menon says the treatment has produced results and is not harmful to humans or pets. Rats are now regularly seen on the street. If you walk down on New York City Street and you see a tree pit, you oftentimes see these boroughs and you can really see how they are populating in there. So it's a very effective technique and it really has worked. The City Board of Elections has more than 15,000 New Yorkers turn out for the first weekend of early voting.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to the city's 4.5 million active registered voters. New York City voters will elect all 51 council members and decide yes or no on two statewide ballot questions, along with a handful of local elections, including for district attorney in three of the boroughs. There are only 140 early voting sites across the city. You can find yours at vote.n.YC. Election Day is Tuesday, November 7th. 59 with clouds, slim chance of showers and patchy fog, cloudy and 61 today. Tonight, cold down to 42. It's fall, and with fall comes all the autumn splendor, which our part of the country is known for.

But with those beautiful changing leaves comes a little. less welcome indicator of the season, the sound of leaf blowers. But instead of blowing those leaves away or even raking them, some environmentalists have a pitch for you, leave the leaves. Chrissy Word is a naturalist and the director of education at the City Parks Foundation. She joins us now to talk about the pros and cons of just letting those leaves lie. Chrissy, welcome to morning edition. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Let's start at the ground level, literally.

Why do naturally say leave the leaves alone? Well, leaves provide a myriad of environmental resources. They're the main sources of nutrient cycling in soil. You know, no action in nature is without purpose. And in an uninterrupted natural system, everything is recycled. Leaves fall to relieve the deciduous trees that are going dormant from weight, that water that would freeze. But also, the tree is giving back to the soil,

the nutrients that are stored in those leaves, and importantly, storing carbon in the soil. Through decomposition, the leaves will be incorporated back into the soil, plus they'll provide texture that keeps the soil from becoming compacted. On another front, leaves provide habitat in the winter. Lots of insects take advantage of the leaf duff all year round, really. Insect larvae, such as the caterpillars of many essential and beautiful pollinators, take refuge in the leaves over the enter and then reemerge in the spring to live out their life cycles. Many insects are found in the leaves all year round, spiders, ants, arthropods that are not known to many of us, but hopefully they're going to be bird food.

As I listen to you, I'm thinking of the neighbors and perhaps the neighborhood association might not like us leaving the leaves on the lawn. Yeah, that's true. We Americans do have an infatuation with our lawns. Unfortunately, this is not great for our natural environment. You know, the decline in insects has been clearly shown by science to run neck and neck with the decline of birds. And our infatuation with the lawn and very tidy outdoor spaces is a big reason for this. As lawns expand, insects and birds decrease.

You know, fall especially in the suburbs, is synonymous with leaf lowers as well. But those are going to have some significant environment. criminal consequences. Tell us a little bit about their potential harms and do they apply to gas blowers as well? Absolutely. I think the issue with blowing leaves is pretty simple. We should just do a lot less of it. Leaf blowers are noisy and they use a lot of energy in the amalgam. By leaving leaves where we can, we can reduce the use of leaf blowers and also all those plastic bags that we put the leaves in. You know, when we talk about composting, and it does sound great, but it also means that leaves are rotting right there on the grass where pets and children play. Is that risky at all? What about the mold? I know a few years ago, it made our daughter really, really sick.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yes, I think that leaves can be composted if we do it in a very informed way. Also, they have to be maintained. Compost really has to be maintained. It has to be turned and aerated through that turning so that air can flow through and that will lessen the molds that can grow there. But the benefits of composting leaves are great. For one, that leaf compost becomes a really healthy mulch that can be used around our trees, under shrubs, around perennials, and we'll just make our gardens and outdoor spaces much healthier overall. Now, you represent the City Parks Foundation. I'm curious about something. Is this practice being used anywhere in New York City's parks?

Oh, certainly. I work alongside my colleagues in New York City Parks maintenance and operations, and there are many proponents within that division for wildlife and for keeping leaves on the ground, you know, they definitely have to be careful and make sure that spaces are safe. But they also know that things like compaction of the soil is really a death now for the soil because water and nutrients can't penetrate it. That was Chrissy Word and naturalist, an educator at the City Parks Foundation with her pitch and why you should skip the rake and leafblower this weekend.

Christy, thanks so much for joining us. It was a pleasure. Thank you. As breast cancer awareness month nears and end, WNYC's Community Partnerships Desk continues to tap into the wisdom and experience of people from our area who've been affected by the disease. My name is Sam Lazar Riviello, and I live in Rutherford, New Jersey, but I'm a Brooklyn, New York native. I was diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer at my first mammogram.

I went when I turned 40 years old. In February, one year to the date of my diagnosis, I received the All-clear, so I have no evidence of disease at this point. It's important to go get your screenings as often as you are allowed to because you never know. If I had waited, I might have not been able to have gotten the All-clear that I had. I did. Before cancer, I was not really accustomed to allowing people to help me, and I was not accustomed to sharing how I was feeling with that many people, and I think that the diagnosis really showed me that I have to let people help me. I have to let people help my family. I have to let the love in, because if I didn't, it just wouldn't work. We were new in town,

and people just really stepped up, and just seeing all those people come around. around me just transformed me in so many different ways. I just feel like a lot of things have been healed within me that I probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to heal if I didn't have to go through this cancer diagnosis. As much as I did not want to go through it, I'm grateful for the experience and the perspective that I have to live, let's call it, the second half of my life.

I had a few mantras. The first one was, the only way out is through. And then towards the end of it, I actually had an Uber driver and she was a survivor. And she told me the newer one, which I still carry with me, the comeback is greater than the setback. And that really helped me look forward instead of just like through. And I could say it's true. The comeback has been significantly greater than the setback. Sam Lazare Riviello is a Brooklyn native.

She's now cancer-free. and living in Rutherford, New Jersey. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives,

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