NSW EPA

Thirteen Local Aboriginal Land Councils have been awarded a total of $1,092,270 for community waste projects that clean up and prevent illegal dumping on their land, the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) announced today.

Cowra, Dubbo, Worimi, Illawarra, Mindaribba, Wanaruah, Ngambri, Tibooburra, Amaroo, Cobowra and Menindee Local Aboriginal Land Councils have been awarded a total of $692,270 from the Aboriginal Land Clean Up and Prevention (ALCUP) program.

Cleaning up a heritage property, developing a bush tucker garden, revegetating a historic campground, preventing damage from feral goats, building fences, removing asbestos waste and stopping illegal access to dumping hot spots are among the planned ALCUP projects and clean-up activities.

Moree, Amaroo and Walgett Local Aboriginal Land Councils have been granted a total of $400,000 under the Aboriginal Communities Waste Management Program (ACWMP).

The three ACWMP projects receiving funding will tackle bulky waste and litter in a variety of unique ways, including cleaning out a dam to restock with fish, removing damaged cars, clearing demolished house materials, removing dumped waste from riverbanks, unblocking drains, planting native grasses, growing bush tucker medicines and starting vegetable gardens and chicken-keeping.

Aboriginal community members will be employed by some land councils as rangers or to undertake the work.

EPA Executive Director Regulatory Operations Regional Carmen Dwyer said many Aboriginal communities faced barriers to disposing of waste and rubbish due to lack of services, resources and limited access to waste management facilities.

This funding will help Local Aboriginal Land Councils tackle issues in their areas, Ms Dwyer said. Illegal dumping of waste is a common problem and these grants will help make a big difference to local communities.

The projects have been awarded grants for the positive impact they will have on each individual community. All of the grant recipients look forward to restoring and protecting their land and creating a safer and cleaner environment for their community.

Already $726,181 has been awarded to 21 recipients of ALCUP, funded through Waste Less, Recycle More.

Ms Dwyer said the program encourages community education and partnerships and incorporates cultural activities to reduce and prevent the occurrence of illegal dumping.

Previously the program has funded clean-up work, surveillance cameras, deterrence signage, education and awareness programs, and bush regeneration. Since 2006 the program has seen 6,108 tonnes of waste cleaned up, 1,344 tonnes of waste safely disposed of at landfills and 1,706 tonnes of materials recycled.

The $4 million Aboriginal Communities Waste Management Program is funded for four years until 2021.

Ms Dwyer said the successful programs had already had a positive impact on protecting cultural and natural resources from illegal dumping.

The EPA recognises the difficult and diverse challenges faced in many remote Aboriginal communities and is committed to helping local land councils improve their environment and create long-term change.

/Public Release.

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More than $1 million to clean up and tackle illegal dumping on Aboriginal land - Mirage News

High court to hand down George Pell verdict, water flows into the Menindee Lakes and Victoria renews logging

As Australias coronavirus outbreak continues but with the cautious optimism of a slowing rate of infection a lot of important news has slipped under the radar.

Here are the stories you may have missed over the past week.

The high court will hand down its judgment in George Pells final appeal on Tuesday in Brisbane.

The final arguments from both sides finished up in March, and we will find out at 10am on Tuesday whether his conviction on five counts of child sexual abuse will be upheld or overturned.

The Sydney to Melbourne train that derailed in February, killing two people, was travelling at more than 100km/h in a section limited to 15km/h.

That section was part of a diversion, introduced that afternoon, from the normal route with a speed limit of 130km/h, according to the preliminary report on the crash, which came out on Friday.

Read the full story here.

Chris Dawson formally pleaded not guilty on Friday to murdering his then wife on Sydneys northern beaches nearly 40 years ago.

The former teacher and Newtown Jets rugby league player has repeatedly claimed that Lynette Dawson is still alive and several people have seen her since her disappearance in January 1982. The matter is scheduled to return to court on Wednesday.

Read the full story here.

The oldest known skull of Homo erectus was discovered by Australian researchers on Friday. The fossil has been dated at two million years old 200,000 years older than the previous record.

Read the full story here.

Late on Wednesday night, the federal and Victorian governments decided to extend five regional forest agreements that exempt the logging industry from conservation laws.

Environmental groups immediately criticised the move, given the summers devastating bushfires will already have deforested large swathes and impacted wildlife.

Read the full story here.

You may remember Alek Sigley, the Australian student (and lover of Korean literature) who was arrested in North Korea over nine harrowing days in 2019. After days of diplomatic wrangling, he was released, but wouldnt share the details of what happened.

Now, writing for Guardian Australia, he has.

I saw the black Mercedes-Benz, which had a black plastic bag covering its licence plate. Fuck, youre in deep shit now, I thought to myself.

Read the whole article here.

One in five of Australias biggest polluting sites actually increased their greenhouse gas emissions last year, above the government limit.

Under the safeguard mechanism, companies that breach their limit have to buy carbon credits or pay a penalty. But the Australian Conservation Foundation found that 729,000 tonnes of emissions went unpunished.

Read the full story here.

A year-long inquiry has concluded that Queensland should legalise voluntary assisted dying. On Tuesday, the states health committee found a majority of Queenslanders are in favour of voluntary euthanasia for terminally-ill adults.

Read the full story here.

In good news, water has flowed into the drought-stricken Menindee Lakes, the site of infamous mass fish kills last year.

For the first time in years, significant flows and water releases are under way, meaning the lower Darling River will finally reconnect with the Murray.

Read the full story here.

The New South Wales government has approved the extension of coalmining under the Woronora reservoir.

Its the first approval in two decades for coalmining directly beneath one of greater Sydneys reservoirs, and environment groups say it could affect the quality of drinking water.

Read the full story here.

An Aboriginal man, aged 30, died in Victoria last week after he was arrested and taken to a regional police station.

Police said the man was arrested on Thursday last week in Horsham. When he was taken to the police station, his condition deteriorated, and he died in hospital on Sunday.

Read the full story here.

The annual Australias Environment report came out on Monday, finally confirming something we may have already seen coming.

Unprecedented bushfires, record heat, record low river inflows, dry soil, low vegetation growth and the 40 new species that were added to the threatened species list meant that 2019 was the worst year since 2000.

Read the full story here.

In other environmental news, land-clearing approvals in NSW increased 13-fold since the Coalition government changed laws in 2016, according to a secret report provided to the state cabinet.

In an exclusive obtained by reporter Luke Henriques-Gomes, we revealed the government will refund hundreds of millions of dollars under the botched robodebt scheme.

Confidential government advice obtained by Guardian Australia revealed that the government has already privately admitted that 400,000 welfare debts worth $550m were wrongly issued.

Read the full story here.

Last Thursday, the perpetrator of the Christchurch massacre suddenly changed his plea from not guilty to guilty, after being charged with the murder of 51 people.

The shock announcement meant that Australian Brenton Tarrant was immediately convicted of all charges. He had originally been set for trial on 2 June, but that has now been called off. He will be sentenced later this year.

Read the full story here.

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Australian news: stories you may have missed during the coronavirus crisis - Brinkwire

For about a month, Seattle residents have been isolating in their homes to combat the coronavirus. It can be hard during this time to feel connected or maintain a sense of normalcy.

One local immigrant family has been living a similar version of this reality for a year.

T

heres a few ways Jaime Rubio Sulficio deals with being alone.

First, he reads a lot of books.

His last read was The Book of Joy, by Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama. It discusses how to achieve happiness even in times of deep grief.

Sulficio also has two purring companions. Toto, the cat with white socks and her sister Keira, who keep him company.

And lastly, he cooks really cooks, as an art and as a mindful practice.

"I used to be so busy that I never really have a time to pause and really focus on one thing at a time," Sulficio says over FaceTime.

Recently, he made a vegan tortilla soup from scratch. His wife Keiko Maruyama said her favorite is his baked chicken, complete with fresh rosemary and a special sauce.

When we talk, Sulficio is a little nervous and fidgets with his hands.

He shares that he has been in sanctuary at Saint Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle for a little over a year.

Sulficio is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. He was ordered to leave the U.S. last spring. But that would mean leaving his wife and 7-year-old son behind. While his immigration case is pending, he took refuge at the church, living there with his family.

"I still have friends communicate and they asked me, 'So how do you do it?'" he says with a laugh. "Because I've been in quarantine for almost a year so I'm kind of a pro already!"

ICE officials avoid "sensitive locations" like churches or hospitals for the most part, so this is a way for the family to buy themselves time.

Sulficio admits it was difficult choice. He had to walk away from his construction business. His family left behind their home in Shoreline and they had to figure out child care and finances.

"Being in sanctuary was pretty challenging mentally because I had to adjust that I can no longer be part of the exterior world. The first three months that was really like a battle," he says.

Sulficio used to step outside. But not anymore.

Maruyama is on the video call with us and mostly keeps her eyes on her husband as we talk.

This time has been tough on her, too. She became the main breadwinner, and luckily still has a job with a local jewelry store, despite the coronavirus outbreak. But she knows that could change.

While Maruyama and Sulficio are in a more unique situation than many who are quarantining across the U.S., they also have a special insight into adapting to major, heartbreaking sacrifice.

Talking to Sulficio, hes the first to point out the positives.

"I learned to be a better partner you know, a better parent better Dad," he says.

He talks about learning to connect with friends online, staying busy with reading, and cooking. He also does his best to volunteer inside the church with construction projects. But he acknowledges that despite his bright attitude, its not always easy to be hopeful.

"I think this is part of human feeling," Sulficio says. "You have to experience that sadness, the desperation. I have it too, you know. I get depressed, and I feel that I cannot handle it anymore. So its okay to not be okay. Its gonna pass. This will not last forever."

O

n a Palm Sunday, its partially sunny. Inside, Saint Mark's, the choir fills the cathedral with song.

Somewhere in the church, Sulficio, Maruyama, their son, and their two cats are hearing this music too.

For this family, the pandemic is not what first changed their lives. But it is something that's forced them to think about how to live a fulfilling life when its limited in other ways.

For his part, Sulficio explains, "Freedom doesn't come from ... just being able to go places. It's about a state of mind. For me, I'd be able to see my wife and I'd be able to see my kid. From time to time, I connect with friends. That's what gives me freedom."

Weeks or months from now, when most of us are finally able to leave our homes after this outbreak, Sulficio will likely remain indoors. He'll be waiting hopefully for a day when his immigration case wraps up, his sanctuary ends, and he is able to join the world outside.

And until then, we wait together.

Go here to read the rest:
Lessons on surviving a pandemic from an immigrant in sanctuary - KUOW News and Information

People still have to eat. The soup kitchen at the Church of the Holy Apostles, the largest in the city, still feeds lunch to many of the hungriest among us, as it has done every weekday, including holidays, for thirty-eight years. A major fire in the church in 1990 didnt stop it, nor did September 11th or Superstorm Sandy. It has never missed a day. Lately, the serving station has been moved outdoors, to the churchs front gate, on Ninth Avenue, near West Twenty-eighth Street. The menu still offers a hot meal but packaged in a to-go sack with recyclable dishes, which are the biggest expense at the moment.

In non-pandemic times, the servers and other helpers include fifty or sixty volunteers. Many of these are retirees, and to keep them safe the soup kitchen has told most not to come in. Now all the preparation, serving, cleanup, and security is done by a core group of about fourteen soup-kitchen staff and select volunteers, who wear gloves, wash their hands a lot, and practice physical distancing. The Reverend Dr. Anna Pearson, the churchs rector and head of the soup kitchen, told a visitor, We dont call it social distancing, because what we offer here is not only food, its a human connection, even when we must stay physically farther apart.

Early on a recent morning, the sun came down the citys canyons, hitting the white blooms of the pear trees behind the church. Construction workers walked west from the subway stops and kept going, to the under-construction buildings bordering the Hudson River, and soon the cranes started swinging against the blue sky and the elevators on tracks outside the buildings steel frameworks were going up and down. By eight oclock, most of the staff had shown up, and some were preparing that days entrebaked ham with sweet potato. Seagulls shrieked as they swirled overhead toward the river. First in line, by the church gate, a man in two hooded coats sat with his back against the fence, knees up, reading the News. White vans and box trucks pulled to the curb on Ninth Avenue and unloaded crates of broccoli and olive oil. Christopher Molinari, the head chef and culinary manager, said, When all the restaurants started closing, some sent us their leftover supplies, and were still improvising menus from what we got. The food-service situation in the city changed so fast, some of the potatoes they sent us were already peeled.

By ten-fifteen, the line stretched to Twenty-eighth Street, around the corner, and down the long block between Ninth Avenue and Eighth. A soup-kitchen employee in a jacket of high-visibility green was walking along the line and urging those waiting to maintain spaces of six feet between one another. They complied, reluctantly, but somehow the line kept re-compressing itself. A strange, almost taxicab-less version of traffic went by on Ninthdelivery trucks, police tow trucks, police cars, home-health-care-worker vans, almost empty buses. Now and then a dog-walker, masked or swathed in a scarf, passed. The dogs, unconcerned, were enjoying the sunny day. At ten-thirty, lunch service started. The guests (as the soup kitchen refers to them) were admitted to the serving station one at a time, like travellers in airport security. Opening their lunch sacks, they began to eat standing on the sidewalk or leaning against the Citi Bike stands, or they crossed to the courtyard of a public building across the street and sat on benches by a statue of a soldier in the First World War.

Michael Ottley, the soup kitchens C.O.O., stood watching. Were doing about eight hundred meals a day right now, he said. We may have to increase that as more people lose their jobs. At any time, were ready to go to a thousand a day, or higher. Christopher Molinari stepped outside to join him, along with Ginger Pierce, a volunteer, who was the executive chef at Jams, a farm-to-table restaurant on Fifty-eighth Street, until it recently shut down. Reverend Pearson is concerned that in a bad economy donors might get nervous and the soup kitchens funding might go dry. But we, the staff, are in it to stay, Molinari said. This is a great place. As other soup kitchens have closed, Holy Apostles is the last light still on. Without us, a lot of our guests would probably fall by the wayside. Were not going to let that happen. On the avenue, masked and gloved delivery people from upscale grocery stores went pedalling by, towing trailers piled with green-and-yellow plastic bins.

Read the original:
The Soup Kitchen That the Coronavirus Couldnt Stop - The New Yorker

St. George Orthodox Christian Churchs iconography is in good hands.

Those hands belong to George Kordis, who has been an iconographer for 45 years.

Most of my life is dedicated to this,Kordis said.

The Fishers Greek Orthodox church received a visit from Kordis and his team of iconographers from Greece March 11 to finish the final phase of painting icons, paintings of Jesus and other holy figures, at the church. Unfortunately, before the final phase could be completed, the team was forced to return to Greece March 25 to avoid becoming stranded in the U.S. due to the coronavirus pandemic. They will return when the travel situation returns to normal.

A Greek team of iconographers visited St. George Orthodox Christian Church to complete the fourth phase of the churchs iconography.

The iconography is a very important part of our worship; its not just decoration, St. George Pastor Nabil Hanna said. Iconography has been an essential part of the Christian faith from the very, very beginning, so I always point to the evidence we have in the catacombs in Rome when Christians were worshipping underground when it was illegal to be Christian back in the first century. Those catacombs, they painted with iconography all the walls and ceilings.

Its the sense we have when we come into worship, we are joining in what is happening in heaven and as a witness of that fact, its surrounding us. Its a theology in color.

Hanna, known as Father Nabil by his congregation, said some of the first icons were painted by St. Luke, who was an artist and author of the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles.

From the very beginning, the iconography has been a staple throughout the Orthodox world.

Whenever its feasible to the greatest extent possible, we have icons, because its a witness we are in the midst of the angels, the saints with Christ in the heavenly worship, Hanna said. We Christians understand thats where we belong.

Hanna said icons are referred to as windows into heaven.

When I look out this window, I dont think about the glass Im looking beyond the surface, Hanna said. Im not looking at the wall and the paint. My focus is on the subject behind it.

Construction of St. George, previously located in Indianapolis, started at 10748 E. 116th St. in 2012 and moved in late 2013.

Most churches in America use local iconographers, Hanna said. This group we became acquainted with and we became the first handful of churches that they did in America.

Kordis painted the icons at Holy Trinity in Carmel before St. George.

The reason we picked them is we saw their work. As we were deciding on which iconographers, we took field trips to see the work of the finalists, Hanna said. When we saw their work in Valley Forge,we were convinced. What makes them different from the vast number of iconographers, not only in America but around the world, is they paint directly on the wall the old-fashioned way. I would say 99 percent want to paint in their studio on canvas and then come affix to the wall and just do background. Its easier for them and they dont have to stretch their arm or stand on scaffolding. It might even be easier to do more detailed work, but it ends up looking more disjoined as separate scenes rather the flow of being surrounded by heaven.

This was St. Georges fourth phase of iconography. The first phase was completed while the church was under construction, starting in the altar area and continuing to the top of the dome.

Kordis has a master of divinity degree from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and earned his Ph.D. in theology and Byzantine Aesthetics from the University of Athens.

We keep the tradition and preserve as much as possible, Kordis said. Everything depends on the architecture of the church. There are standard themes but each church is different.

George Kordis stands on scaffolding to reach parts of the wall. (Photos by Anna Skinner)

Deacon Joseph Olas, a St. George pastoral assistant, has a special connection to St. George.

Its the parish he grew up in as his father, Rev. Joseph Olas, was the pastor.

His father was pastor for 13 years before retiring due to ill health in 1995. He died two years later. Hanna has been pastor since 1995.

I can tell you right now my dad would be very happy with what is being done here, Olas said.

Read more:
Key to worship: St. George nears final phase of iconography - Current in Carmel

More than a year has passed since Parisians watched in horror and sadness as Notre Dame Cathedral, a symbol of national pride since its construction in the 12th Century, was partially destroyed by fire.

First, melted scaffolding needs to be removed from the charred and broken Notre Dame before any architectural restoration begins in earnest. The scaffolding was in place for a $6.8 million restoration that was nearly completed when the fire struck. A team leading the post-fire reconstruction effort intends to remove the scaffolding in March before beginning the painstakingly careful repair work out of fear the buildings vaults could collapse. The French government, which leads the team, wants to ensure every restored artifact aligns with tradition and the expectations of future generations.

Notre Dame Cathedral isnt the first and wont be the last historic building to be restored after falling into disrepair or being destroyed by natural disaster or war. French restorationists will undoubtedly make decisions that are informed by the spirit of the structure, but they also can seek guidance from the rebuilding of other acclaimed historic buildings and new technologies.

Contemporary U.S. presidents dont actually stay in the same White House that George Washington lived in when he was in office. For one, it was then called the Presidents House, and until John Adams presidency it was in Philadelphia. But more exactly, the building that became the White House was lost to a fire set by British troops that stormed Washington, D.C., in 1814, two years into the War of 1812. Although it took 10 years to construct the first White House, its architect, James Hoban, returned to the wreckage to reconstruct a new one in less than three years.

Hoban was able to reuse stone walls, significantly hastening the rebuild, but he also saved time by altering the structural scheme of the building by using timber instead of brick, according to the White House Historical Association. Although resourceful and successfully working off memory, Hobans expediency led to a weaker structure that ultimately led to a demolition and rebuilding of the White House 130 years later.

White House reconstruction efforts pale in comparison with the many rebuilds of St. Pauls Cathedral in London. The cathedral dates to 604 A.D., but it has had several incarnations after burning in several fires over the centuries. Viking raiders also destroyed it.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 claimed St. Pauls yet again, leading a scientist, Christopher Wren, to lead an architectural restoration effort that illustrates the many demands on a project of public significance. After having designs rejected as too modest or too radical, Wren struck the perfect note with a plan to have the larger rebuilt church surrounded by dozens of smaller new churches. The beloved cathedral stood strong during the London Blitz, a German bombardment of the city in World War II, sustaining only minor damage and acting as a symbol of Britains resilience.

Modern technology now helps architects rebuild and preserve historic structures and determine how to create a restored artifact with the care and precision that restorationists and the public often expect.

Infrared thermography measures the radiation emitted by different materials to create a multi-layered look inside the walls of a building. This view can show preservationists where things are buried, whether a support beam has cracked and if anything lies beneath the surface. Ground-penetrating radar also helps detect structural defects in masonry and stone, and if any archeological remains are buried in the surrounding grounds.

Laser scanning could someday help bring Notre Dame Cathedral back to life. This process has emerged as a nearly fail-safe way to record the dimensions of structures should those many details be needed later. The digital photos can be used as point clouds, essentially detailed 3D models that can serve as blueprints for reconstructing buildings hurt by time, fire and natural disaster.

Because of the widespread affection for Notre Dame Cathedral, many recorded its internal workings before the 2019 fire. Vassar College professor Andrew Tallon led a 3D laser scan of the entire cathedral before his death in 2018. His continuous mapping of the church created a 3D image that Tallon said was accurate to within five millimeters and is considered a near-realistic image of the space that can guide the eventual reconstruction.

Of course, the materials used to build and repair Notre Dame over the centuries including the timber that made the roof and the stone that shaped the vaults isnt readily available today. Still, Tallons scanned images will give the eventual saviors of Notre Dame a meticulous view of how the cathedral used to stand and how it can again stretch into the Paris sky.

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Technology and History Can Guide Architectural Restoration Now. Powered by - Now. Powered by Northrop Grumman.

Slovakian archeologists have uncovered a trove of 500 silver coins dating as far back as 1702 hidden underneath a church floor. The significant historical find was made after construction workers discovered the ruins of a Renaissance-era church underneath the 19th-century church they were renovating.

The archeological company Triglav came in to investigate after the construction workers stumbled upon the old foundationsat the church of St. Martina in Obiovce, near the eastern Slovakian city of Koice.The experts made the unprecedented discovery of the valuable hoard in February. The coins were hidden in a nondescript ceramic jug that had been concealed underneath a small flagstone in the original church floor. The jug was also sealed with a stone.

Most of the coins were minted by local mining companies, and the earliest one is stamped 1702, when Slovakia was ruled by Hungary as part of the Habsburg Empire. Some had come from Poland.The silver coins were individually wrapped in linen, and were likely collected as donations from pilgrims.

The archeologist Peter imk, who worked on the team, was unable to estimate the value of the hoard to local press, but said that its historical value was immense. The mining stamps were a low-value local currency traded for basic goods, but imk explained that miners also often used them as charity. When they dropped them into the bag, they clinked like normal coins, and no one could tell what they put in it,imk said.

The group of archeologists explain on their Facebook page that they decided to name the treasure the Mono-ocular Treasure after a partially blind priest they believe hid the coins.Historical sources from the time relate that a new Catholic priest,who was Polish and blind in one eye, came to the church in around 1687.It is believed that this priest stashed the treasure to keep it safe amid a slew of uprisings against the Habsburgs during that period.

Reports indicate that the church was indeed raided and left to ruin in 1705 but the hidden trove went unnoticed. It was reconstructed in the mid-19th century and the hoard still wasnt discovered until this year.

The treasure has been handed over to the state as required by Slovakian law when professional archeologists make a find.

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Archeologists Have Discovered a Trove of 300-Year-Old Silver Coins Hidden Beneath the Floor of a Renaissance Church in Slovakia - artnet News

Dominium, one of the nations largest affordable housing development and management companies,recently closed on the property they have named Heritage at Church Ranch. The property is located at thecorner of Church Ranch Road and Wadsworth Boulevard in Westminster. The $62 milliondevelopment will provide 205 units of high quality affordable senior housing and will expand Dominiumsportfolio in Colorado in excess of 1,000 homes.

In addition to the affordable homes created, this developmentwill preserve the historically significant barn, which is over 150 years old and will serve as a community spaceand the gateway to the Dry Creek trail system for their future residents.

Bryan Construction, Inc. (BCI)has been selected as the general contractor and other development partners include theCity of Westminster and PWN Architects. The entire Heritage at Church Ranch construction team is committedto providing affordable housing and a long-lasting partnership with Dominium.

Bryan Construction has a large portfolio of multifamily projects including affordable and tax-credit housing.

We have been in partnership with Dominium overthe past year helping to bring this project to fruition. We are proud to be a part of this project team and thegrowing needs this project will fill in the affordable housing market, said Doug Woody, vice president of Bryan Construction.

Construction is scheduled to begin inMay 2020.

The rest is here:
Affordable Housing Project to Break Ground in Westminster - milehighcre.com

What started as a quick call to action to mass-produce surgical and N95 respirator masks has turned into a long-term plan that will bring more jobs to the area and bring business back to America.

Over the last couple of weeks, WPT Nonwovens in Beaver Dam has spent half a million dollars on new machines and transformed 6,000 square feet of their facility, and the company is now ready to hire 30 employees to staff the new mask production.

Travis Robbins, vice president and general manager of WPT, said his family-owned company was already aware of the coronavirus pandemic before it truly hit the U.S. because theyve got business relationships all over the world.

As cases ramped up here, though, they soon began getting calls from healthcare workers and state officials asking how they could help.

At that point, we just said we ought to try to help, Robbins said. It went from an idea of can we do this to getting on the phone to we were just going to go gangbusters on this and try to get as much of this product made in the United States as we could to support the local community, the state of Kentucky and more broadly the U.S. market.

By the end of this month, theyll be able to make 100,000 surgical masks per day. Those will initially go to local hospitals including Owensboro Health and may be distributed nationwide if necessary. Within two months theyll be able to make 35,000 N95 masks every day.

Robbins said while there are price gougers out there, his company is doing what they can to keep the costs almost the same as normal.

Were not taking this product to market as an opportunistic play to make money, he said. We did this as a way to bring business back to the United States and keep people working and help solve the problem of a shortage in the market.

Robbins said WTP was concerned about the customer base when they first decided to invest, but those worries quickly dissipated.

In the last five days, weve been completely overwhelmed, he said. Were actually looking at two or three key strategic partners that see this as a long-term position that theyre going to take inside of their companies, where theyre going to bring this stuff back to the United States and want it branded by an American company.

Because demand is so high, WTP is already looking at purchasing two more machines by August or September to manufacture even more surgical masks.

We see this is a long-term play for our company and a long-term opportunity to supply American-made goods to the healthcare market.

WPT Nonwovens is now accepting applications for the following positions for day and night shifts:Medical Converting Operator Forklift Material HandlerLab TechnicianMulticraft Maintenance/Electrician

Some of the benefits WPT Nonwovens offers include:Competitive salaryTeam members can earn up to 2 weeks of vacation Paid life insurance Paid telemedicine benefit Eligible for health insurance coverage in the first 30 days of employment to include spouses and children Eligible for 401k with a company match within the first 30 days of employment 12 months perfect attendance vacation bonus Weekly and monthly safety bonuses WPT has contributed over $65,000 to team member 401k plans since 2016

Click here for all of our coronavirus coverage.

The Owensboro Health coronavirus hotline is available 24/7 by calling 877-888-6647. Call the hotline before seeking in-person care. More information from OH can be found here.

For the latest information and data on COVID-19 in Kentucky visit kycovid19.ky.gov or dial the Kentucky state hotline at 800-722-5725.

For the latest health guidelines and resources from the CDC, visit their website here.

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Area company adding jobs as mask production ramps up - The Owensboro Times

When Gov. Andrew Cuomo finally decided to suspend all nonessential construction last week amid the coronavirus outbreak in New York, it sent contractors and the workers they employ into a financial tailspin, putting thousands out of work and putting a multibillion-dollar dent in the development industry.

The shutdown has highlighted the divide between the union and non-union workforces, the latter of whom typically earn less money and have fewer benefits than their unionized counterparts. Non-union construction firms also employ an untold number of undocumented immigrant workers, who may struggle to access unemployment benefits, federal stimulus checks and medical care during the coronavirus pandemic.

As of February, 263,821 people were employed in the construction industry in New York City, according to a report from the New York Building Congress. Fifty-seven percent of those workers earn less than $50,000 a year, and another 28 percent earn between $50,000 and $100,000 a year. And 44 percent of construction workers primarily those doing blue-collar labor on sites do not have health insurance, NYBC found.

A lot of times non-union workers are paid cash, said Lou Coletti, the head of the Building Trades Employers Association, a contractor trade group whose members often employ union workers.

If workers are paid off the books, unemployment insurance, Social Security and other public benefits are not being withheld from their paychecks. Workers in these situations are usually not receiving health insurance, according to Coletti and other industry observers. Undocumented workers are significantly more likely to be in this position, and thus unable to access unemployment benefits when they find their sites shut down. Construction workers who lack work authorization or U.S. citizenship cannot be admitted into the union construction apprenticeship programs, which keeps them mired in lower-skill and lower-paying positions on the non-union side of the industry.

I think in most cases, most of the non-union workers dont have the benefits that union workers do, said Richard Lambeck, a professor of construction at New York Universitys Schack Institute of Real Estate. If a union electrician is being paid $130 an hour, more than half of that amount probably goes toward benefits. A non-union electrician might be making $30 an hour, and theres no benefits added onto that.

And even workers who have paid into unemployment insurance may struggle to file claims and actually receive checks. The state Department of Labor has been so overwhelmed that its website repeatedly crashes and its phone lines are jammed. New Yorkers who want to file unemployment claims are told to call on specific days according to the first letter of their last name, in an effort to manage the unprecedented volume of laid-off people trying to get benefits.

The site is so deluged that it keeps crashing, because you literally have hundreds of thousands of people at any time trying to get on the site, Cuomo said last Tuesday. The state has even hired an additional 700 people to answer unemployment calls and plans to hire hundreds more, according to Eater New York.

Carlo Scissura, the president of the Building Congress, said he wanted to work with other industry groups to provide better services to undocumented construction workers. You look at construction sites in the boroughs and you see a lot of undocumented workers doing the work, he said during a Commercial Observer webinar this week. Its going to be our opportunity to connect these undocumented workers with benefits, because they have kids, they have rent payments. One thing we all agree on is ensuring that workers are safe and that they have a place to go after this. If someone is laid off we want to make sure they can get rehired again, that they have medical benefits.

However, infrastructure and affordable housing construction work has been allowed to continue, meaning that laborers on those sites must choose between putting their health at risk to work or not getting paid.

Our number one concern is the health of trade union workers and ensuring our sites have the appropriate safety protocols, said Coletti. Empire State Development Corporation has mandated that any open construction sites must maintain at least six feet between workers, and sites that do not comply will face $10,000 fines for each violation and potential closure by the city Department of Buildings.

Essential construction includes utilities, hospitals, homeless shelters, public housing, any residential project where at least 30 percent of the units are affordable, and emergency work necessary to keep a site safe or to restore essential utility service. Contractors can file an appeal with the DOB to get their site re-classed as essential.

Brian Sampson, the head of the New York chapter of open-shop contractor group Associated Builders and Contractors, pointed out that all of the essential construction work thats allowed to continue roads, bridges, sewers, airports, public housing is traditionally union-dominated.

The non-union construction industry is going to take a harder hit, he said. A disproportionate number of minority workers are going to be out while we wait for the work to continue.

He also claimed that few people were being paid off the books in non-union construction. Nothing could be further from the truth, he said. Everybody is on the payroll; everyone is paid above board.

Sampson claimed that undocumented workers could still be able to claim benefits if they had the New York City ID card, known as IDNYC.

If you apply for unemployment benefits, as long as the Department of Labor can demonstrate you were employed and paying into unemployment, you can get benefits, he said.

In addition, both the pandemic and the subsequent shutdowns are going to have widespread financial impacts on general contractors, subcontractors and workers themselves.

I think on the contracting side, its going to have a devastating economic impact for construction companies, said Coletti. I think theres going to be a tremendous increase in lawsuits from this lawsuits between owners and contractors, between contractors and labor, between contractors and subcontractors. A cacophony of lawsuits.

He argued that claims filed under New York State labor law Section 240, known as the Scaffolding Law, are going to skyrocket amid uncertainty over the safety of construction sites. Workers who are injured doing specific kinds of work can file claims under the law arguing that the site wasnt properly secured, and the law mandates that contractors and owners are 100 percent liable.

[Section] 240 claims are going to cause contractors to go out of business, said Coletti. [Workers] are going to claim they were injured working on a site that should have been closed, that the right safety protocols werent put in place.

Lambeck felt that subcontractors, who are typically very small businesses, are going to suffer significantly during the construction shutdown.

I think a lot of the smaller subcontractors are not going to survive this, said the professor. We were faced in New York with an escalation of costs because of tariffs. That situation is going to get even worse because of the supply chain issues. It may be a while until the whole supply chain opens up and starts bringing in material again.

He added that contracting firms may well be forced to shoulder the cost of the shutdown, including the cost of paying security guards to watch a closed site.

The insurance companies may take a very jaundiced view of how theyre going to repay any contractors that may have lost money because of this pandemic, said Lambeck. Risk insurance is supposed to take care of a catastrophic event, and usually in the insurance it defines what a catastrophic event is. Im sure that a pandemic is not included. And I think the insurance industry is going to increase their premiums as well.

He concluded, I dont think the construction industry is going to come back full strength right after this is over.

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Construction Shutdown Highlights Divide in Benefits, Pay Between Union and Non-Union - Commercial Observer