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TRACY TULLIS

I cover the climate crisis, biodiversity, and environmental justice for Newsday.

Recent stories

New York State law could protect Long Island wetlands from federal restrictions

Just a short hike into a 200-acre woodland in Manhasset lie a series of shallow basins in the forest floor left behind by retreating glaciers. After a dry August, the basins are empty, but in spring they will fill with snowmelt and rain and teem with wildlife: spotted salamanders and wood frogs, waterthrushes and rusty blackbirds, woodland bats and a resident pair of coyotes. Small freshwater wetlands like this provide habitat for dozens of species, offer protection against flooding and help cle

‘Ghosts of capitalism’: the push to dismantle America’s decrepit dams

On a muggy day in late August, George Jackman, an aquatic ecologist who works on habitat restoration, stood at the edge of Quassaick Creek in upstate New York.

The Quassaick, which flows through the small city of Newburgh, New York, and spills into the Hudson River, was unusually shallow after a summer with little rain. “It looks bucolic now,” Jackman said. “But it can be a raging torrent.”

For 300 years, that torrent had been contained by a small dam that once powered a nearby mill, where the