Environment

One of the country's most effective environmental laws-- the Clean Water Act--turns 40 today.

The act has been setting water quality standards and regulating pollution for the nation's streams, lakes and wetlands since being signed by a bipartisan Congress in 1972.

“Before 1972, this nation approached water quality as ‘the dilution is the solution to pollution,” said Hank Graddy of Kentucky Watershed Watch, in a breakout session at the Healthy Farms, Local Foods Conference last weekend.

Two Louisville neighborhoods have been selected to participate in a pilot program designed to encourage recycling.

Residents of Louisville’s Cloverleaf and Portland neighborhoods are getting bigger recycling bins. The two neighborhoods are part of a pilot program made possible through a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Metro Public Works spokeswoman Lindsay English says the goal is to see if 95-gallon wheeled bins that are similar to the city’s trash cans will make people more likely to recycle.

Events like last weekend's CycLOUvia are great for cyclists, but what about people who commute on their bicycles every day?

I got an email from Craig Lee yesterday morning. He commutes (or used to commute) from Deer Park in the Highlands to Jeffersontown several times a week. Lee says:

Louisville’s Downtown Development Corporation has been awarded a grant to pursue formal LEED designation for the city’s East Market—or NuLu—neighborhood.

LEED stands for “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” and the certification is usually given to buildings that incorporate various energy efficient and sustainable features. But there’s also a LEED neighborhood designation, and now the LDDC has been awarded $25,000 to pursue that certification.

The organizers of Louisville’s first-ever CycLOUvia say the event in the Highlands was a success, and they’d definitely like to do it again.

A two-mile stretch of Bardstown Road and Baxter Avenue was closed to vehicles Sunday to encourage walking and biking. Hundreds of people turned out.