Photo: Jewelry Repair station at Last year's TarryHollow Repair Cafe. We do it again on March 29th! See flyer below.
NEXT MEETING: Monday, March 9, 7:30 pm @ Tarrytown Village Hall
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We need you! The Tarrytown Environmental Advisory Council (TEAC) relies on volunteers to keep things moving. We're a fun and engaging group of like-minded folks working to make Tarrytown's air, land, and water healthier and cleaner. Joining is EASY: just come to a meeting or email Tarrytownenviro@gmail.com.

Monthly meetings. Our meetings are open to the public! Join us the second Monday of the month (unless otherwise noted) at 7:30 pm at Village Hall, 1 Depot Plaza, Tarrytown. Or join via Zoom.
  • Monday, April 13
  • Monday, May 11
  • Monday, June 8
DEDICATION IN ACTION 
TEAC Priorities and Initiatives for 2026
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Landscaping

  • “Adopt-A-Spot” Program Promotion and Oversight
  • Local Leaf Blower Ordinance Improvements
  • Redesign Patriots Park “Paulding Garden”
  • Monarch Pledge Outreach

Energy and Conservation

  • Solarize Library and Rec Center
  • Finish our Climate Adaptation Plan “CAPI-Adapt”
  • Work towards Silver-level Climate-Smart Community

Zero Waste

  • Repair Cafes
  • Waste Warriors Program
  • Plastics Reduction Campaign for Restaurants and Businesses 
  • Anti-Litter Outreach Initiative

Tarrytown Lakes

  • Cleanups with Hackley LakeKeepers
  • Vine Squad outings, including Wilson Park area – and Trail Improvements
  • Monitor Lakes for Invasive Growth 
  • Develop a Lakes Management Plan
  • Annual Kayak Cleanup Projects

Community Outreach

  • Host Earth Month activities with Sleepy Hollow
  • Promote “Leave Leaves Alone” in Fall
  • Educate about Gas Leaf Blowers
  • Host Fall Eco Fair in Patriots Park 
  • Monthly Newsletter and Social Media 
Dark Skies - Migration Season is Here!
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On certain peak nights, thousands of birds may pass over Westchester County in a single evening. Even small changes—like dimming decorative lighting or turning off empty office lights—can make a measurable difference. Things you can do during spring migration (March 15–May 31):
  • Turn off unnecessary outdoor lighting after 10 p.m.
  • Switch off interior lights in empty rooms and office spaces overnight.
  • Use motion sensors or timers instead of leaving lights on all night.
  • Install shielded, downward-facing fixtures to prevent light from spilling
  • upward.
  • Choose warm-colored bulbs (3000K or lower) rather than bright blue-white
  • LEDs.
  • Close blinds and curtains at night to reduce light escaping from windows.
Read full article by Suzy Allman HERE.
 
SPRING INTO SPRING!
EARTH MONTH preview
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Starting late March and through early May, TEAC and Sustainable Sleepy Hollow have planned many public-participation events within our villages.
The tentative schedule includes:
  • Repair Cafe, Sunday March 29
  • Vine Squad, Saturdays April 4 and 11
  • Seed Giveaway
  • Compost Giveback (for 10591 residents), Saturday April 11
  • Community Garden Prep and Vine-Cutting Demo, Sunday April 12
  • Barnhardt Park Sustainability Festival, Saturday April 18
  • Morning Bird Walk, Sunday April 19
  • Arbor-day plantings
  • Neperan Park Gardens Day, Saturday April 25
  • Energy Fair, Saturday April 25
  • Lakes Clean-Up, Sunday April 26
  • RiverKeeper Sweep, Saturday May 2
Click the poster for more details, or visit our website here: Earth Month 10591
 
HAVE A GREEN THUMB?
Now Accepting Applications for the Community Garden 
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Tarrytown's Community Vegetable Garden is between Cobb Lane next to the Paulding School annex. Each Fall we solicit applications for gardeners in anticipation of the spring planting season. For more info and to sign up, visit our website.




 
The Hudson River Ice Year
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by Kevin Lustyik, Tarrytown Harbormaster

Over the past few months the Hudson River came to resemble a moonscape, as sustained frigid temperatures and high winds caused more ice to build up than the river has seen in recent memory. To keep the river’s shipping channel open so that heating oil and gasoline barges could reach the north country, the US Coast Guard assigned five heavy duty icebreakers to work between New York harbor and the port of Albany. The fleet included 140-foot “Bay class” boats such as the Thunder Bay from Rockland, Maine, and larger “Tree class” boats such as the Sycamore, from Rhode Island. At night these vessels could be seen anchored near Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Saugerties, Rensselaer, and within NY Harbor. 
 
Icebreakers are specially designed with a strengthened hull, an ice-clearing shape, and the power to push through ice. They break very thick ice by sliding their bows over the surface and crushing the ice from above rather than pushing it sideways, as many people imagine (since the point of least resistance is downward).
 
Over one three-day frigid spell, sustained high-velocity wind from the north held the incoming tide from moving upriver, creating low water levels and preventing a 600 ft + freighter from navigating north of Newburgh. When conditions like this occur, the river refills, allowing boats to pass, when the wind subsides and favorable full or new moon tides raise water levels. 
           
Most harbors along the Hudson’s shorelines were frozen over, making this a banner year for bald eagle sightings, as they use the ice next to open waters as a perch for fishing. A few eagles could be seen every day in Tarrytown, while birdwatchers north of Croton could see more than 12 in a group.
 
As of early March there still is ice upriver, and a Bay class boat is still working to keep open the “choke points”—narrow sharp turns in the river, where the down-bound, tide driven slush or brash ice accumulates and refreezes. 
 
Ship Photo: Michael Lavin - Eagle photos: Jonathan Bernz, photographer “extraordinaire.”
Energy Notes
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By Dean Gallea, TEAC Co-Chair

There’s Snow Time Like The Present: My home’s solar panels’ energy output dropped to zero after 5pm on January 24th. What happened? Weather happened! The snow started falling on my panels on the afternoon of January 24th, and quickly covered them, cutting off energy-laden sunlight from reaching them for WEEKS. My rooftop has too shallow an angle for the hardened snow to have slid off, unlike my neighbors’ steep rooftop, whose panels shed their snow a few days after the big snow (onto my home’s side porch, I’ll note.) 

My panels finally went back to full power on Wednesday morning, Feb 11, when the snow slid off with a house-shaking rumble, onto my porch roof. You can see the sudden onset of solar production in the orange area on this image from my energy-monitoring system. (The red spike is when my heat pump cycled on.)

What are some solutions to prevent solar production loss after snowstorms? Large ground-mount installations sometimes use mechanical shakers to encourage snow to slide off the panels. And pole-mounted tracking arrays, like the one here next to a friend’s home in Massachusetts, have automatic tilting that moves the array to a vertical position while snow is falling (or to horizontal when the wind is too high.) Another advantage of a ground-mount tracking array is that it automatically points directly at the sun as it moves across the sky, maximizing efficiency.

Residential rooftop solar has a smooth path toward approval in Tarrytown, making it an easy option for most homeowners. Ground-mounts would have a steeper climb toward approval, requiring ARB approval, setback compliance, and buried cables. But they allow someone with a large property to choose a location with no shading.

Sunny Outlook for Renewables: Despite the current antagonism toward renewable energy in our national energy policy, the build-out of new wind and solar generation continues unabatedand is accelerating, in fact. This is because energy producers realize that renewables are by far the most cost-effective way to add new generation to our country’s ever-increasing appetite for electricity.

According to the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a new report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects a record-shattering 86 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation will be added to the grid in 2026. That’s a lot of growth, but here’s the most exciting part: Half of that is expected to be solar, and nearly 80% solar and storage. In fact, solar and storage alone will add 28% more capacity than all U.S. grid additions in 2025. 
“I suspect a lot of this [additional solar power] is from solar projects rushing to qualify for the tax credits before they're eliminated,” said CCL Research Manager Dana Nuccitelli. “That should carry over through the next couple of years since they have to ‘begin construction’ by the Fourth of July 2026 to qualify, but then it can take a couple of years to complete construction.”

Additionally, despite wind energy project cancellations over the past year, wind is expected to rebound a bit in 2026 as a handful of major offshore wind projects are scheduled to come online this year. 
“Overall, a record amount of new power generation, 93% of which will be clean,” concluded Dana.

With numbers like these, the importance of permitting reform becomes even clearer. To reap the benefits of clean energy and get emissions down, we need to get clean power online faster. Bipartisan permitting reform legislation can speed up the process for clean energy projects already waiting to be built and connected to the grid.

Technologies and Economies of Scale: With materials recovery facilities (MRFs), bigger really is better. A 2024 study found that large MRFs (at least 11,000 U.S. Tons per year) were 100 times more energy efficient than small facilities (less than 1,100 U.S. Tons per year.) [Our MRF in Yonkers processes over 75,000 T/yr.] The study also found that large MRFs, which are far more likely to use advanced sorting technology, were able to process plastics more effectively, with that fraction making up 33 percent of revenue as compared to only 5 percent for small MRFs. —Waste Advantage Magazine
WHAT'S NEXT
UPCOMING EVENTS
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TarryHollow Repair Cafe



 

BE A LAZY GARDENER
Let Your Yard Sleep In! 
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By Mai Mai Margules, TEAC Member, Landscaping Committee Chair

After a too long winter, we are beginning to see the glimmers of Spring, as green    shoots valiantly push through residual snow and temps are forecasted to rise in the week ahead. There’s a strong temptation to rush into our gardens and yards to start “cleaning up.”  Resist this urge and protect the pollinators that are still sheltering in your garden under fallen leaves and in plant stalks!

Please wait until temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees (day and night ) for a least a week before removing fallen leaves.  But why remove leaves at all?  A 2" to 3” layer of leaves provides free, organic mulch that suppresses weeds, retains soil moisture, improves soil structure and protects beneficial insects. 

Hollow plant stems provide year round homes for native bees. In spring you can trim the hollow stems of last year’s perennials such as  coneflowers, sunflowers, joe pye weed, milkweed, bee balm, pokeweed etc. to a height of 8" to 24” which allows easy access for queen bees looking for a nesting area.

Leave these trimmed stalks standing and they will serve as nurseries for native bees to lay their eggs and raise their young. New plants will grow around the stalks, camouflaging the old stalks, which will decompose over time. Native bees are slow to leave their nests. In 2026 hibernating bees emerge from 2024 stems. They will build their nest this year in 2025 stems. All the more reason for us to be lazy gardeners this season!

Here’s a great poster from the XERCES Society telling the story of stem nesting bees.
VOLUNTEER WITH TEAC
GET INVOLVED
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TEAC offers lots of ways for you to join our projects and events, for fun, for a sense of accomplishment being an environmental steward, or for community service credit. Click HERE to learn more! And read about our Committees below.

Community Outreach 
Year-round event planning to engage the community and help our neighbors reduce their carbon footprint. Head: Jenny O'Connor.

Tarrytown Lakes Committee
Trails, water quality, recreation, and plant and animal life of the Tarrytown Lakes Park area, including Wilson Park, plus "Vine Squad" initiative to control invasive vines to preserve native trees in the area. Head: Catherine Ruhland.

TEAC Landscaping Committee 
Planting and maintaining public pollinator gardens through the Village to create pollinator habitats, educate the community, and beautify our public spaces. Head: Mai Mai Margules. 

Zero Waste Committee 
Advises and assists the Village on waste reduction and recycling, including "Waste Warriors" initiative at the TaSH farmer's market, food scraps recycling, swaps, and repair cafes. Heads: Catherine Ruhland, Rachel Tieger. 

Energy and Conservation Committee
Advises on best practices to reduce energy use and losses in municipal and residential buildings, including renewable energy and electrification initiatives. Head: Dean Gallea.

Council Members
Rachel Tieger, Co-Chair
Dean Gallea, Co-Chair
Suzy Allman
Kerstin Erdbrink
David Gutschmit
Mason Lee (Associate Member)
Mai Mai Margules
Jenny O'Connor
Catherine Ruhland
Rohit Sareen
Effie Phillips-Staley, Trustee Liaison

 
NEWS OF THE MONTH FROM THE TARRYTOWN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVISORY COUNCIL
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“Climate change is the greatest threat to our existence in our short history on this planet. Nobody’s going to buy their way out of its effects.”

Mark Ruffalo, Actor & Environmentalist
Copyright © 2024

Contact us at Tarrytownenviro@gmail.com

Our mailing address is:
1 Depot Plaza, Tarrytown, NY 10591

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