NYC NOW - September 12, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban has resigned his post. Plus, a new report calls a strategy to reduce carbon emissions favored by New York energy utilities "a road to nowhere." Also, Black New Yorkers are a step closer to receiving reparations from the city. And finally, WNYC’s Rosemary Misdary reports on the environmental toll of releasing goldfish into the wild.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, September 12th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. The head of the NYPD, Police Commissioner Edward Cabon has resigned his post. In a letter to the department, Caban says he is stepping down today. The news comes one week after federal authorities seized his phone in connection with a probe investigating his twin brother's business as a nightlife consultant. Caban served just over one year on the job.

He's the second commissioner to resign during Mayor Eric Adams' administration and the first Latino commissioner of the country's largest police force. A new report calls a strategy to reduce carbon emissions favored by New York energy utilities, quote, a road to nowhere. The climate policy think tank switchbox looked at so-called green hydrogen, a proposal to heat buildings with clean-burning hydrogen using existing local glass pipes. They found the process to create the hydrogen itself demands high levels of electricity,

resulting in a paltry return on climate goals. In addition, utilities would eventually need to upgrade existing pup lines currently used for natural gas. Max Schroen is Switchbox's research director and an author of the report. Hitting our green energy goals for New York State, is already going to be hard enough as it is, without diverting all of that production capacity into keeping the gas system going. The report recommends the state focus on electrifying buildings

instead using renewable energy. Sunny in 75 right now, it'll stay bright out with a high near 80. Tonight, mostly clear with a low of 63. Stay close. There's more after the break. Black New Yorkers' are closer than they've ever been to receiving reparations from the city. Lawmakers are expected to pass a bill this week that will result in recommendations for restitution. WNYC's Julia Hayward has more.

David Thomas's Staten Island Home is located on Van Pelt Avenue. It's a street named after the White family that once enslaved his own. For him, reparations are merely a dream. It's not one he expects to see happen in his lifetime, even with local lawmakers gearing up to pass a bill that could result in restitution for black city residents. I don't think slavery and the impact of slavery has been discussed enough for people to really get a grip on it. If the measure passes, it will task force and city officials with studying the legacy of slavery in New York City and deliver a report with recommendations for reparations in three years.

For Linessa Owens Chaplin, who heads the Racial Justice Center at, at the New York Civil Liberties Union. The effort marks progress that's been decades in the making. We've been talking about reparations ever since the original promise when slavery ended. And so I think it's been people's life's work to try to see this into fruition. For Thomas, it'll lead to some difficult questions for those affected. How do you put a dollar amount on something so sinful, so degrading? How do you put a price on that?

The bill is being sponsored by nearly half of the 51 member chamber. If passed, it'll head to the desk of Mayor Eric Adams. His administration did not say whether he would sign the bill, but he's voiced support for reparations in the past. An open-air aquarium of goldfish swimming at the base of a leaky fire hydrant has been the talk of bedstide Brooklyn all summer. But with winter approaching, a debate over what to do with the little orange fish is taking on new urgency.

WNMIC's Rosemary and Midsdairy reports on the environmental toll of releasing goldfish into the wild. A hundred bright orange goldfish are swimming around a fire hydrant. A resident dropped the fish there to beautify the pit earlier this summer, and it's since become the talk of the block. Devingshaw helps maintain the bed-sty aquarium.

The pit has been decorated with toys you'd find in an indoor fish tank. There's a skull, seashells, and miniature castles. We are creating a public living room for the entire neighborhood. So the actual conversations and dynamic between the neighbors in this block has completely changed. Those conversations include one big debate, what to do with the goldfish, which probably won't survive the winter without some big upgrades.

There's a lot of different options. We have offers to just put the fish in a large aquarium for the winter while we do the proper construction to make it deeper, to put in a pond liner. Experts say one option residents should not consider is dumping, the fish into the Hudson River. Queen's College Biology Professor John Waldman says that's a common fate for unwanted pet goldfish. The big problem is when some kid gets a little tired of little Freddy and little Mary in the fish tank, they don't want to kill them, a flush him down the toilet, so they take them to the nearest water body and dump them in. From there, goldfish can rapidly

reproduce and grow in size, losing their vibrant color. George Jackman is the Habitat Restoration Manager Riverkeeper, a local environmental group. They're very destructive to native fishes and they act like bullies and they out-compete, they change the habitat and they take over. Goldfish are voracious and will eat anything. Other fish and their eggs, insects, snails, marine plants. Professor Waldman says the invasive fish has been found throughout New York State in the Hudson River and many lakes.

They'll be with us forever. One of the great tragedies of introducing non-native species of fish that so often you can't get rid of them once the mistake is made. If no one takes the bedstike goldfish indoors, experts say the best option could be just to euthanize the fish quickly so they don't freeze to death. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day for the latest news headlines and occasional deep times and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

We'll be back this evening.