THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR | 2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)

Governor Designates Part of Route 119, Detective Michael Perry Memorial Highway

Posted on August 4, 2011 by John Bailey

WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From the Office of Assemblyman Robert Castelli. August4, 2011:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed a law that designates a portion of State Route 119 in White Plains as the Detective Michael Perry Memorial Highway.

Assemblyman Robert J. Castelli, author of the measure, is a 22-year veteran of the New York State Police and served as one of the first Crime Prevention Specialists in the State. The measure takes effect immediately as Chapter 266 of 2011. “I thank both Governor Cuomo and Senator Ball, my Senate cosponsor of this legislation, for honoring Detective Michael Perry in this meaningful way,” he said.

Detective Michael Perry

“Each day, brave men and women like Michael Perry go to work not knowing if they’ll return home,” said Senator Greg Ball, who is the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs. “Dedicating this highway to Michael is the least we can do to honor his memory and thank his family for their sacrifice,” added Chairman Ball.

“I am gratified that our Governor has seen fit to honor Detective Perry along with myself and all of those who respect both his service, and sacrifice,” Castelli said. “It is a small testament to a brave man’s actions, and is indicative of the kind of courage displayed by police officers every day in our society. Sadly, his courageous efforts on that day had a tragic ending, but do not diminish the legacy he left us, of a lifetime of dedication to public service.”

A resident of Yorktown, Officer Perry had served with the White Plains Police Department for seven years and previously with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Police. He is survived by his wife, twin sons, parents, sister, and brother. On June 14, 2010, Officer Perry was posthumously promoted to the rank of Police Detective.

Perry suffered a fatal heart attack shortly after chasing and arresting a man at a local mall near State Route 119. He had called for assistance and chased the larceny suspect a short distance before placing him into custody. The suspect, who was a career criminal with over 300 arrests, was charged with resisting arrest and larceny.

The route, from the intersection of Route 119 and Route 100 by the Westchester County Center, continuing to the intersection of Route 119 and Main Street, will be dedicated during a ceremony some time later this year.

French School Maintenance of Deserted Ridgeway Club Meets City Standards

Posted on August 4, 2011 by John Bailey

WPCNR SOUTH END TIMES.By John F. Bailey. August 4, 2011:

The rains this week may improve the browned-out former fairways and overgrown shrubs of the tennis courts and the general abandoned derelict of the defunct Ridgeway Country Club, now owned by the French American School of New York.

Ridgeway green last Friday. The sweltering summer of 2011 has turned fairways ugly and brown.

The Browning of Ridgeway.

Mother Nature’s nurturing rains this week and to come will be the only improvement Gedney Farms neighbors of the 120-acre property can expect in the appearance of the abandoned property.

The City of White Plains, after meeting with the French American School owners two weeks ago to discuss the property’s maintenance, determined the school present level of property maintenance: grass-cutting and no watering of the property as acceptable to the city.

The French American School of New York reported in a statement to WPCNR yesterday said that:

“We met with city officials and described our maintenance program. They were perfectly satisfied with the maintenance program involving the periodic mowing of the grass, enhanced security, and landscaping maintenance along Ridgeway road.

At no point during our discussion was the property referred to as being “in poor condition,” nor was FASNY asked to continue watering the property since it was understood by all that the site would no longer be operating as a traditional golf course.

In fact, some neighbors have actually noticed an improvement in flooding conditions since watering has stopped.”

The city had called the meeting because of complaints from neighbors of the club about the appearance.”

The consideration of the French American School of New York proposed transformation of the failed golf course into a new central campus for the school, has been delayed for four months during a moratorium imposed by the city to consider restrictive zoning for the club that as first presented by the city would sharply reduce the imprint of renovated and new structures proposed by the club.

The city in proposing the new recreation ordinance maintains that golf courses are environmental assets to the community.

However the sudden decrease in flooding in the neighborhood surrounding the club this year, coinciding with the suspension of irrigation of the club grounds, could indicate that this golf course over the years precisely due to its irrigation practices may have caused preconditions of adding to the water table that resulted in flooding of residences adjacent to the course.

They Came from Outer Space!

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Bailey

WPCNR PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE DAY. By the WPCNR ROVING REPORTER. AUGUST 2, 2011:

From 5 to 7 PM Monday evening, White Plains was pelted by a hail storm accompanied by roiling black clouds, downpours and dangerous lightning strikes and authorative growls of thunder as 80 degree, moist humid air collided with a cold front producing a shooting gallery of hail stones that hit houses cars and streets and could cause serious injury if you were hit by them.

Whiskers The Weather Cat taking his observations at 6:30 P.M. As a hail/rain mix turned White Plains rush hour into a bizarre event: a hailstorm.

A 1 inch by 1 inch hailstone sample collected by the WPCNR Weather Boys.

The hail lasted at least 30 minutes, collecting on rooftops and skylights. The hail bombardment sounded like your building was in a crossfire in a Grade B cowboy movie. The hail hurled from outer space sounded like gunshots complete with richocets when they hit skylights, car roofs and windshields. WPCNR’s Weather Lab discovered some hail stones the size of a .45 calibre cartridge (32mm). While collecting samples, the WPCNR weather team experienced painful discomfort as we were literally hit with a “hail” of hailstones. It was unusual having a hailstorm of this duration and this size hail.

Hailstones, sounding like gunshots impacting collected on one of the many WPCNR Headquarters Observation Decks.

According to The Weather Tracker by Leslie Alan Horvitz (Barron’s), hail is formed by intense thunderstorms (last night’s was intense), when snow and rain are thrown together in the central updraft of the storm. As the snow falls from above, snowflakes merge with frozen water, resulting in ice pellets. As more supercooled droplets in the upper atmosphere stick to the ice pellets, the larger the pellets become as they fall through the towering thunderheads (up to 40,000 feet or more). Because these hailstones are not exposed to warmer temperatures in the atmosphere for long enough to melt as they descend, they read ground as hail.

Did you get nicked by hail? Suffer damage? Let WPCNR know.

No Cause Yet in SewageTreatment Plant Fire Releasing Est. 250M Gal of Sewage

Posted on August 2, 2011 by John Bailey

WPCNR WATER WATCH. From the New York City Department of Environment Protection (Edited) August 2, 2011:

Investigation of the cause of the July 20 fire resulting in the discharge of an estimated 250 Million gallons of raw sewage into the Hudson River July 20-23 is currently under way by FDNY.

The Upper West Side Sewage Treatment Offender at 135th Street and 12 Avenue. On July 20, a fire broke out forcing shutdown of its pumps. Cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The DEP has commissioned an independent review of the incident to learn what went wrong, steps the agency can take to prevent similar incidents in the future, and to generate any other recommendations for operational or safety improvements at North River, or any one of the city’s 13 wastewater treatment plants.

As a backup in the event of further operational disruptions, and to increase treatment capacity during wet weather, DEP last week installed additional pumping system in case any further issues with the existing system arise. That installation is now fully online, providing an additional 24 million gallons a day of pumping capacity. With three engines online and the supplemental pumping capacity that has been installed, DEP has operated with nearly full wet-weather pumping capacity at North River since the end of last week.

DEP is still working around the clock to stabilize the operations that have been restored and put affected systems back in working order. Of the plant’s five engines used to pump wastewater into the facility, only two engines need to be operating during dry weather to handle the wastewater flow into the plant. On Wednesday, July 27, DEP successfully restarted a third engine at the plant, providing critical redundancy during dry weather and adding additional capacity during storms.

Full secondary treatment is also now online. Early last week, two of the three critical systems necessary to achieve secondary treatment, aeration tanks and final settling tanks, come online and were in operation. The third system—aeration achieved by blowers that supply oxygen to the process—was partially operating, with two of the three blowers needed to achieve secondary treatment currently online. On Sunday, July 31, a third blower was restored to service—the final step to achieving full secondary treatment at North River. Though only two blowers were in operation until Sunday, DEP has been averaging federal wastewater treatment standards for Total Suspended Solid Removal and Carbonaceous Biochemical Oxygen Demand—a measure of how much dissolved oxygen in a waterway gets depleted by sewage—since Monday, July 25.

Because the plant has enough pumping redundancy with the addition of the third engine and back-up pumping systems that were installed, DEP deactivated small “pump arounds” that were temporarily pumping wastewater flow out of an 84-inch sewer at West 117^th St. in Manhattan to a 42-inch sewer at Frederick Douglass Boulevard and 117^th, which flows to the Wards Island Wastewater Treatment Plant.