Story 2.0: News Updates

(03/07/11) As we've been hearing in John Dillon's report, there is a debate raging over the future of Hydro Quebec's power projects and their impact on the environment.

Brian Mann has traveled repeatedly to Cree Crounty in northern Quebec, talking with local leaders about the way industrial power projects are changing their villages and the landscape.

This morning as part of our series Story 2.0, we'll revisit his report from 2007.

(12/02/10) Lake Champlain is back in the news this week, as politicians from New York, Vermont, and Quebec signed a new compact aimed at cleaning up the lake. Phosphorous pollution has been a growing problem for decades, triggering noxious and potentially toxic algae blooms. A new film about the problem, called Bloom, airs tonight on Mountain Lake PBS.

Brian Mann first reported in-depth on this debate in 2007. In today's Story 2.0, we revisit Brian's trip to talk to the major players in the valley.

(07/21/10) Millions of Americans whose unemployment benefits have run out are breathing a sigh of relief. The Senate is poised to pass legislation today restoring the benefits. The measure would then go to the House for a final vote. It is expected to pass then go on to President Barack Obama later this week.

A continuing fear of social services folks is what happens when unemployment benefits do run out. The jobless rate still hovers around 10%, and that doesn't include people who have stopped looking for a job out of frustration. Last December, the staff at One Stop Career Center in Canton predicted "a tsunami of job seekers" this year. It turns out they were right. In our ongoing series Story 2.0, we'll revisit the One Stop Career Center. But first, here's an excerpt from David Sommerstein's story from last winter. more

(06/17/10) The purple boxes are up on ash trees again this summer. They're traps for the emerald ash borer, an invasive bug that has devastated ash stands in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. In this state, the insect's been confined to western New York. Today we revisit the fight against the emerald ash borer. David Sommerstien has more. more

(05/17/10) A Story 2.0 today, where we follow-up with people we've reported on in the past. Last year as a part of our Year of Hard Choices series, we met Sarah Minor, a photojournalism graduate from Syracuse University. She was living with her parents in St. Lawrence County while looking for a job. It was 2008 and 2009, the depth of the Recession, and newspapers were laying off reporters and photographers in droves. She moved to Chicago and got a part-time job with Suburban Life. The company owns 14 weekly papers in the area. She adapts print stories for the website, researching sidebar topics and adding links to stories. And she gets to do the occasional photo shoot. Last week, Sarah was hired full-time. She spoke with David Sommerstein during one of her first morning commutes as a full-time worker.

(05/04/10) North Country Public Radio kicked off its "Year of Hard Choices" look at the impact of the Great Recession last year with a conversation with economist Greg Gardener.

Gardner has been a student of the North Country economy since coming to the region over 15 years ago. He teaches at SUNY Potsdam. He and his wife live outside Watertown.

He says the year looked about like he had thought it would...unemployment is up, there's been pressure on the private sector, but the region had an OK tourism year..."we got leaned on hard," he said, but it wasn't catastrophic.

But Gardner told Martha Foley there was a troubling erosion of what's traditionally been the region's buffer against hard times. Public sector jobs: from prisons to schools to local government. They're threatened, and hurts the North Country.

(01/08/10) Iraq has never sent an athlete to the Winter Olympics. Back in 2005, before the games in Torino, Italy, Brian Mann profiled skeleton sled racer Faisal Gazi Faisal, from Baghdad. Once again this year, Faisal is fighting to win a berth at next month's Winter Games in Vancouver. Brian caught up with him in Lake Placid and found that his struggles and setbacks have mirrored the turmoil back home in Iraq.

(12/10/09) As the unemployment rate in much of the North Country remains just under 10%, more families are struggling to put food on the table. Thousands of people live with food insecurity - that means at some point, they don't know where their next meal will come from. Demand at the region's food pantries and kitchens is up. But the Food Bank of Central NY says it's been planning for this kind of crisis for years, and it's still ready and able to fill the demand. Todd Moe and David Sommerstein revisit a story from 2008.

(09/08/09) This morning, in our Story 2.0 series, we'll update the cost of home heating oil. In the North Country, the price per gallon is hovering around 2.50, a little lower than 2005 through 2007.
That's a relief to homeowners, and their suppliers. Martha Foley has more.

(08/18/09) State Conservation biologist Al Hicks says the old Graphite Mine in the town of Hague near Lake George has seen its population of Little Brown Bats nearly wiped out. Hicks spoke over the weekend at a gathering of the Adirondack Nature Conservancy in Newcomb. He said the hibernaculum, which sits in a Nature Conservancy Preserve, has been infected by a deadly bat disease called "white nose syndrome."

"The Graphite Mine was the largest Little Brown colony counted in the world, with about 200,000 animals," Hicks said. "Our guess walking through was that there was about 3,000 animals left."

Hicks first raised the alarm about white nose syndrome in 2007. He said the latest research indicates that the disease continues to spread in all directions. "We have not seen any clear evidence yet of any kind of resistance," he added. "The animals that are surviving from one year to the next appear to be animals that simply got lucky and didn't get infected." White nose is now killing bats in at least nine states. Hicks predicted that under the worst case scenario "an entire order of mammals" would be wiped out from the United States.

As part of our Story 2.0 series, we revisit Hicks' trip to Aeolus Cave in Vermont last winter.