aflynn@lakeplacidnews.com
Food scraps from Petrova Elementary School in Saranac Lake are turned in a compost bin.
(Enterprise photo â Chris Knight) The state Department of Environmental Conservation will hold virtual public hearings on the Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Act, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2022. Yet it is unclear how many businesses and institutions in the Tri-Lakes region may be affected. Organic material is the largest component of the municipal solid waste stream in the United States, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology’s New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. About 40% of all food produced for U.S. consumption, about 63 million tons, ends up in the waste stream, occupying a lot of space and generating a lot of methane gas into the atmosphere.
aflynn@lakeplacidnews.com
SARANAC LAKE The state Department of Environmental Conservation will hold virtual public hearings on the Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling Act, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2022. Yet it is unclear how many businesses and institutions in the Tri-Lakes region may be affected. Organic material is the largest component of the municipal solid waste stream in the United States, according to the Rochester Institute of Technology’s New York State Pollution Prevention Institute. About 40% of all food produced for U.S. consumption, about 63 million tons, ends up in the waste stream, occupying a lot of space and generating a lot of methane gas into the atmosphere.
acerbone@adirondackdailyenterprise.com
The Federal Correctional Institute at Ray Brook is seen in April 2016. The buildings were originally built to house athletes for the 1980 Winter Olympics in nearby Lake Placid. Converting it to a prison afterward was part of the original plan.
(Enterprise photo â Antonio Olivero) RAY BROOK The federal prison here is showing its largest numbers of staff and inmates testing positive for COVID-19 ever. Data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons Wednesday evening shows 85 inmates and 17 staff testing positive at the Federal Correctional Institute in Ray Brook. The BOP has not been available to explain the situation.
NEWSLETTER
eizzo@adirondackdailyenterprise.com The workload facing local hospitals and county health departments is on track to becoming unsustainable. Health care officials are imploring residents to take precautions to curb the spread before that happens. In a virtual press conference on Friday, multiple doctors from University of Vermont Health Network hospitals and public health directors from around Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties warned that the local COVID-19 caseload was beginning to stress the operations of both hospitals and county health departments. This comes at a time when rural hospitals have already faced significant financial challenges. Before the pandemic, some North Country hospitals were merging and downsizing. Last spring, those financial challenges were compounded when hospitals were directed to cancel elective surgeries for several weeks, cutting off a vital revenue-generator for rural health care facilities that care for a relatively large number of patients
eizzo@adirondackdailyenterprise.com The North Country is seeing more confirmed COVID-19 cases than ever before, and the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 across the seven-county region rose to 102 on Thursday, with 17 new hospitalizations overnight. Just one month ago on Dec. 7, 2020, the number of people hospitalized in this region was 38. Of the people currently hospitalized, 45 are in intensive care units, with approximately 18 ICU beds left available region-wide, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office. With the capacity of all of the hospitals in the North Country combined, about 33% of hospital beds were available as of Thursday. The number of hospitalizations region-wide doesn’t yet appear to meet the threshold outlined by Cuomo last month that would trigger a partial economic shutdown, though according to the Associated Press, places such as Albany and Oneida counties haven’t yet seen more restrictions imposed despite having some of the highest hosp