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A ‘Charlie Brown’ musical for Clarke
Jewish war vets mark 128 years
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Vol. 24 No. 19
$1.00 $1.00
MAY 2 - 8, 2024
Garden comes to life at Barnum Woods elementary By JoSEPH D’AlESSANDRo jdalessandro@liherald.com
Courtesy Lisette Pelligrino
Garden club students at Barnum Woods Elementary School in East Meadow recently received new planting beds from Reworld, an environmental company that focuses on sustainability, waste management and recycling.
Barnum Woods Elementary School in East Meadow is showcasing a brand new vegetable garden, allowing students in its garden club to raise crops and take them home to eat. “We’re very excited about this,” Melody Schiller, a teacher at Barnum Woods and head of the garden’s planning and management team, said. “It’s been a long time coming.” The new garden was created in partnership with Reworld, formerly known as Covanta Energy, an environmental company that focuses on sustainability, waste management and recycling. The company is based in Westbury. The school’s staff members wanted to create a garden for the students for many years, according to Schiller, but they ran into several obstacles, like finding the right soil, crop irrigation and selection of plants. The garden that ContinuEd on paGE 13
L.I. drinking water concerns on the table at meeting By RACHEl BAMGBoSE Intern
A packed house attended a meeting on April 17 with the League of Women Voters of East Nassau to learn about the pressing issues of water quality and consumption on Long Island, igniting a call to action among concerned community members. The LWV held the meeting at the Levittown Public Library, and invited Sarah Meyland to lead a presentation on the topic of water contamination and conservation. For more than 20 years, Meyland was a professor of sustainabili-
ty at New York University, with a background in water quality. She also holds a degree in environmental law from St. John’s University and a master’s in water resource management from Texas A&M. According to Meyland, toxic chemicals in drinking water are the key issue regarding water quality in Nassau County. She explained that chemicals, such as nitrates, herbicides, pesticides and pathogens, are frequently found in the water supply. On Long Island, groundwater is the sole source of drinking water. Separated by sand and dirt, groundwater is stored
in geological formations called aquifers, which could store, transmit and yield usable quantities of water. As a result, chemicals that are used for farming often end up in the drinking water supply. Additionally, Nassau County has lateral saltwater intrusion due to excessive pumping and the relative distance between fresh and saltwater. This allows leaks of salt into freshwater aquifers responsible for 100 percent of the drinking water for Long Island. Meyland added that quantity and overconsumption of water are the other issues facing Nassau County. Throughout Long
Island, water consumption fluctuates with the seasons and rainfall. Those who attended the April 17 meeting voiced concerns about both the toxicity and why there is a lack of water. One member in the audience asked about putting too much fertilizer on their lawns, to which Meyland responded by
providing options for organic or slow release fertilizers that limits pesticides and herbicides but maintains healthy lawns. “ To o m a n y sw i m m i n g pools,” one audience member called out, jokingly. Meyland agreed that a chief reason for overconsumption is the many swimming pools in use during ContinuEd on paGE 17