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Somers Moves
Forward on Hamlet on Rte 6
11/21/09
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By Art
Cusano
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SOMERS –The town board has
approved the extension of the Amawalk-Shenorock water
district into a proposed planned hamlet at Baldwin
Place. The board
unanimously voted to approve the extension Tuesday, Nov.
17 at a special meeting. The developer will now go
before the planning board for their approval of the
subdivision of the property.
The development will
contain 72 units of affordable senior housing, as a well
as residential and commercial development. The senior
housing development is being overseen by the Housing
Action Council, a Westchester based non-profit
organization. The council is also in front of the
planning board seeking site plan approval.
The project’s developer,
Somers Realty, is due before the planning board again at
their Dec. 9 meeting, according to town planner Sabrina
Hull.
She said the process is
being moved along quickly because the Housing Action
Committee needs approval by the end of the year to meet
their deadlines for state and county funding for the
pair of two-story, L-shaped buildings that will contain
the senior housing.
“It looks like they’re
moving along. They’re on target for approval,” said
Hull.
Rose Noonan, executive
director of the Housing Action Council, said that they
needed to have a shovel in the ground by May 1 in order
to be eligible for state and county funding, but said
the town was working with them to make that happen.
“They’re working very
cooperatively to help us meet our deadline,” Noonan
said.
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Nov 16, 2009 6:23pm EST
* Council urges
Governor to exempt watershed from drilling
* Filtration system
could result in increased water rates
By
Edith Honan
NEW YORK, Nov 16
(Reuters) - The New York City Council called for a ban on gas
drilling in its watersheds on Monday, saying accidental leaks
could contaminate one of the world's largest unfiltered drinking
water systems.
New York State has
proposed new environmental rules that would allow drilling for
natural gas in the multi-state Marcellus Shale formation, which
is likely the nation's largest shale reservoir.
Geologists say it
could satisfy U.S. natural gas demand for a decade or more and
local business groups say it would provide much-needed revenue
to the cash-strapped state.
But city officials
said drilling should be off limits in watersheds that serve
almost 10 million people in and around New York City, about half
of the state population.
The council passed a
non-binding resolution urging New York Governor David Paterson
to declare the watersheds off limits to energy companies seeking
to extract natural gas from the massive shale gas formation
through a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
The watersheds
account for about eight percent of New York's share of the
Marcellus Shale.
"The (New York State
Department of Environmental Conservation), at Gov. Paterson's
direction, has put us on the hydro-frack fast-track," said the
resolution's sponsor, Councilman James Gennaro. "We can't sell
off our water supplies for some short-term financial gain."
A spokesman for the
governor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The largest
shareholder in the Marcellus Shale, Chesapeake Energy (CHK.N),
said it would not seek to drill in the watersheds, following
pressure from environmentalists.
"All of the
discussion about the New York City watershed and the acreage
there had become just a needless distraction, had taken away
from the focus on where it should be," Matt Sheppard, senior
director of corporate development at Chesapeake, told Reuters at
a public hearing on the issue.
But elected
officials said the company's assurances were not enough.
"They didn't just
wake up one morning and pull out. They were forced out," said
Council Speaker Christine Quinn. "And we want to make sure we
send a clear message: lest anyone think they can come back
around again, we ain't interested."
In hydraulic
fracturing, a mixture of water, chemicals and other materials
such as sand are pumped into the shale formation to split the
rock and free the trapped gas.
Critics say this
could result in contaminated ground water, but the industry
maintains that strict safeguards prevent any danger to water
supplies.
If drilling were
permitted, some argue New York City would need a $10 billion
water filtration system that would cost an additional $100
million a year to maintain and translate into a 30 percent hike
in residential water and sewer costs.
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg's office has said he would oppose any development that
would compromise the safety of the city drinking water. (Editing
by
Ellen Wulfhorst and
Todd Eastham)
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fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
The state's depiction of a clean, tightly regulated natural gas
industry just got a shot of muck in the eye.
As the debate over the merits of Marcellus Shale development
reaches a crescendo, an Ithaca researcher has culled a list of
270 files documenting wastewater spills, well contamination,
explosions, methane migration and ecological damage related to
gas production in the state since 1979.
Walter Hang, president of Toxic Targeting, compiled the files using
the Department of Environmental Conservation's own hazard
substances spills database.
Hang runs an environmental research firm that sells data to
interested parties, including engineers, consultants and
municipalities. He also has a background as an environmental
advocate, and he relishes the role as a public watchdog.
"We're students of how you clean this crap up," he said. "That's
what we really care about."
DEC officials responded that the proportion of files relating to
the oil and gas industry is small -- less than 0.1 percent -- of
the total number of spills recorded on the database.
Hang said his company publicly released the list Monday to show
regulation of the state's gas industry is "fundamentally
inadequate."
"All we wanted to do is test the fundamental assessment the DEC
often makes: Existing regulations are just fine," he said.
Fracking regulations
By Hang's assessment, they are a long way from fine. Only 60 of the
270 cases were actually caught by DEC regulators. Many were
called in by residents, public safety officials, affected
parties or "people who just stumbled over them," he said.
The complaints are related to traditional wells drilled through the
decades, most of them in the Southern Tier and western New York.
They come to light as the state creates regulations for a new type
of horizontal drilling that would be used to develop the
Marcellus, the largest natural gas reserve in the country,
running under the Southern Tier and throughout the Appalachian
Basin. In addition to drilling horizontally through bedrock,
Marcellus production requires a process called hydraulic
fracturing -- pumping millions of gallons of water and chemical
additives into wells under high pressure to fracture the bedrock
and release gas.
The process would produce volumes of waste hundreds or thousands of
times greater than what has been produced from traditional
wells.
"I don't have anything against drilling, but we have enough
pollution around here already, and this is going to be drilling
on an unprecedented level," Hang said.
Debate over the merits and drawbacks of drilling has been fierce
for the last 18 months, prompting DEC officials to suspend
Marcellus permitting until it develops regulations for it. A
public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday
at Chenango Valley High School in the Town of Fenton.
One of the most commonly documented problems is methane migration,
which means natural gas flows from production formations and
goes places where it shouldn't, such as water wells, basements
or barns.
In Dimock, Pa., state regulators have ordered Cabot Oil & Gas to
replace 13 water supplies ruined by methane migration near
drilling operations into the Marcellus. One well exploded.
DEC spills data show the problem has a history in New York, even
without the Marcellus.
In Freedom, for example, 12 families were evacuated in 1999 after
gas moved through a fault and surfaced in a neighborhood 1 1/2
miles away, bubbling up in ponds, ditches, barns, basements and
yards. The disaster was caused by equipment failure on a drill
rig, although no fines or penalties were recommended, according
to the file from the DEC's spills database.
It's one of the 270 cases Hang highlights. Some are more recent.
In 2003, about 100,000 gallons of brine spilled, contaminating
Shanada Creek in Independence after a valve broke, according to
the record.
In May of this year, a 300-gallon diesel fuel spilled after an
explosion and fire at a Nornew rig in Lebanon.
Accidents 'rare'
The DEC has determined regulations being crafted for horizontal
drilling and fracking used in Marcellus production would not
apply to traditional wells. Hang, holding the list of problems
as Exhibit A, argues the entire regulatory process needs to be
rebuilt from scratch.
"They say their existing regulations are completely adequate, and
their own data clearly shows this isn't true," he said.
In public meetings about drilling on state land in the summer of
2005, DEC regulators presented slide shows emphasizing how
effectively drill pads and pipelines are reclaimed as lush
wildflower-filled fields and meadows after drilling,
characterized as a short-term disturbance.
During public meetings crowded with residents concerned about the
effects of Marcellus Shale production last year, representatives
from the state's Division of Mineral Resources pointed to the
industry's successful history in New York as evidence it was
prepared for Marcellus development
Asked how local emergency responders could prepare for a spill,
fire or explosion without knowing what chemicals are used in the
hydraulic fracturing process, Linda Collart, regional supervisor
with the DEC's Division of Mineral Resources, responded: "We
don't anticipate any significant emergencies. ... These things
are rare."
Asked whether the state was ready for an influx of new drilling
activity beyond all historical comparisons, Collart responded:
"We have been doing fine so far. ... No problems."
DEC officials, confronted with Hang's list late last week, stood by
that assessment.
Dennis Farrar, chief of DEC's Emergency Response Spills Unit, said
less than 300 instances out of more than 300,000 shows oil and
gas issues are disproportionately small.
"In the scheme of things, this is not really a problem," Farrar
said.
The agency also tracks problems through its Oil and Gas Division,
said Jack Dahl, director for the Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation.
Late last week, he could not provide the number of complaints
that division has responded to or the outcome.
More than three-quarters of oil and gas problems on the spills
database were caught by somebody other than a DEC staff member,
according to Hang's assessment. That's further evidence the
Division of Mineral Resources -- with about 17 inspectors --
lacks the manpower to oversee traditional well development, let
alone the Marcellus, he said.
As many as 2,000 to 4,000 Marcellus wells could be developed in
Broome County in coming years, according to an economic
development report commissioned by the county.
State regulators say they don't foresee problems.
"The question is, how often do they actively look for problems?"
said Phil Sears of AKRF, a multidisciplinary environmental
consulting firm based in New York City. "Not a whole lot."
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
DEC EXTENDS PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD FOR MARCELLUS SHALE
DRAFT SGEIS
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
today announced it has extended the public comment period on the
draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS)
governing potential natural gas drilling activities in the
Marcellus Shale formation from Nov. 30 to Dec. 31.
The SGEIS addresses the range of potential impacts of shale gas
development using horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic
fracturing and outlines safety measures, protection standards
and mitigation strategies that operators would have to follow to
obtain permits. The full draft SGEIS (www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58440.html)
is available on DEC's web site, along with highlights of the
document (www.dec.ny.gov/press/58472.html).
Printed copies are available for review at DEC regional offices
and most sub-offices and libraries that traditionally have
served as repositories. A list of repositories (www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58672.html)
can be found on DEC's web site.
DEC is offering four ways in which to submit comments. Comments
may be provided at one of the scheduled public hearings (www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58705.html).
There is an online submission system (www.dec.ny.gov/cfmx/extapps/SGEISComments/)
which will allow interested parties to write comments and tag
them to specific areas of concern. Attachments can also be
included. E-mail comments may be submitted to
dmnsgeis@gw.dec.state.ny.us; please include your name,
e-mail or return mail address to ensure notice of the Final
SGEIS when it is available. Finally, written comments should be
sent to: Attn: dSGEIS Comments, Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation,
NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources, 625 Broadway, Third Floor,
Albany, NY 12233-6500.
November 4, 2009
Keep
environmental review law intact
The City of New Rochelle should oppose the proposed
"streamlining" of the Environmental Quality Review Act. In her
Oct. 11 Community View, Marion Rose, president emeritus of the
Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, gave reasons why the
process should not reduce the time needed to evaluate proposed
developments.
Suggestions for improving the SEQRA process should be well
received in New Rochelle, which places a priority on
sustainability and conservation. Bringing neighborhoods into the
process from the beginning would be advantageous. At present the
developers answer citizens' concerns in the Final Environmental
Impact Statement. To quote Ms. Rose, the "answers can be
completely besides the point, but the ordinary citizen has no
further opportunity to reply unless the lead agency happens to
decide otherwise."
As a resident who has attended many environmental hearings I can
attest that I have never been given an opportunity to "rebut the
applicant's comments that are manifestly erroneous." Some
examples that still need rebuttals are the overloaded sewage
plant, overcrowded schools, traffic jams, tax abatements granted
by the IDA "after the environmental hearings," the need for more
police, fire and sanitation workers, and the general
preservation of the suburban character of New Rochelle.
All residents interested in protecting the environmental review
process should protest to state officials on the weakening of
this environmental review process. Future generations will
inevitably live with the consequences of decisions made today.
Protect New Rochelle as Queen City of the Sound.
Peggy Godfrey
New Rochelle
Published on Monday, November 2,
2009 by Earth Island Journal
Trading the
Watershed to Trash the Catskills
by Adam
Federman
Aerial photographs of land
surrounding the millennium pipeline north of Sullivan County, NY
show sweeping tracts of largely unspoiled forest. They are
ecologically important for several species including
neo-tropical migrant birds that travel from South America to
breeding habitats in the northern latitudes, bald eagles, and
the endangered timber rattlesnake. Some of the best soils in the
state are also nearby and dairy farms have dotted the landscape
since the mid 1800s, perhaps even longer. To the north and east
of Sullivan County, the Catskill Park, established in the late
19th century, contains large parcels of undisturbed forest. “It
is an incredibly pristine landscape,” Wes Gillingham, Program
Director of
Catskill Mountainkeeper
told me recently.
But that landscape is about
to change, its future in the hands of oil and gas companies that
have leased thousands of acres of land to drill in the Marcellus
Shale. They will soon own the mineral rights beneath the
farmland and forests and drilling will probably begin before
next summer. In the town of
Hancock
, NY, which is
strategically located on the Delaware River and near the
millennium pipeline, close to 25,000 acres of land have been
leased. One well, and there will likely be hundreds drilled in
Hancock, requires between 1,500,000 to 9,000,000 gallons of
water. Heavy truck traffic, noise, air and light pollution will
become part of everyday life.
As one observer recently
noted, drilling in the Marcellus Shale is “perhaps the largest
rural land issue that we’ve ever been faced with in upstate New
York.” And much of the concern centers on the question of water;
where it will come from, how it will be stored and treated, and
what will happen if spills or accidents contaminate the ground
water or nearby rivers and streams. The Delaware River provides
water to many upstate towns in the Catskills as well as the
metropolitan areas of Philadelphia and Trenton. Roughly 16
million people depend on the river basin—its streams, rivers,
reservoirs, and aquifers—for their drinking water.
I visited Gillingham last
Wednesday before the first public hearing on the DEC’s
809 page environmental review
that sets out regulatory
guidelines for drilling in New York State. That same morning
Chesapeake Energy Corporation, the largest leaseholder in the
Marcellus Shale,
announced
that it would forgo
drilling within New York City’s watershed. The company’s chief
executive said in a press release that the issue had become a
“needless distraction” and that since Chesapeake is the only
leaseholder in the watershed area they are “uniquely positioned
to take this issue off the table.”
And of course it is in their
interest to take the issue off the table. Unlike rural areas
throughout the country that have already been deeply impacted by
natural gas drilling, from Wyoming to Pennsylvania, the
possibility that New York City’s unfiltered water might be at
risk hasn’t been good for the industry’s image. “Why go through
the brain damage” of drilling in the watershed, Chesapeake’s CEO
told the New York Times.
But residents of Sullivan
County, who turned out in large numbers for the only public
hearing in the critical Delaware River Watershed weren’t exactly
charmed by the company’s move and are afraid that brain damage,
in the form of toxic chemicals used to fracture the shale might
await them. When Scott Rotruck, the Vice President for Corporate
Development at Chesapeake made his five minute presentation and
emphatically declared that the company won’t be drilling in the
NYC watershed residents cried, “what about us.”
“I wish I was in the New York
City watershed,” Cindy Gieger, a candidate for Town Council in
Callicoon told me. “At least they have some kind of protection.
We don’t have any.”
For residents upstate there
are questions about how the state will deal with accidents or
spills, whether flood prone areas will be exempt from drilling,
if roads and bridges are up to the task of accommodating heavy
truck traffic, and whether local economies will really benefit.
“The issue is bigger than the NYC watershed. It’s as big as the
Marcellus Shale fairway,” Deputy Director of
Delaware Riverkeeper
Tracy Carluccio said
before the hearing. There are a couple of ways to read the
Chesapeake decision: as a PR move announced on the day of the
first public hearing or as an admission that the drilling
process is far too risky to tamper with the politically
sensitive New York City watershed. Imagine having to provide the
city’s 9 million residents with bottled water if something went
wrong. Though the company’s decision has been praised by most
environmental organizations, Gillingham says it doesn’t really
change the overall picture and that Chesapeake is “acting like
it’s trading the watershed to trash the Catskills.” Rotruck of
course sees it differently. Before the hearing got underway he
told me it was purely a business decision and that drilling in
the watershed was “immaterial.”
Upstate communities are
hardly greeting the prospect of gas drilling with open arms.
Gieger, in her bid for Town Council, has visited hundreds of
local residents most of whom are opposed to drilling. And it
makes sense. Very few people in the rural townships own large
tracts of land and hundreds of acres are required for
exploratory drilling. So they’ll reap all of the negative side
effects—truck traffic, air, light and noise pollution and
possible groundwater contamination—with few if any benefits.
The idea that farmers will be
saved and dying towns revived is often viewed as nothing more
than salesmanship. Farmers who lease their land are more likely
to retire (most are in their late fifties already) than continue
to work 14-hour days in a depressed market. That may be their
wish and they will do with their land as they please, but it is
folly to imagine that gas drilling will somehow save small
farmers. Farms, already in decline, will disappear. In fifteen
years, when the gas has been sucked out of the ground (it is a
non-renewable resource) there may be few farms left and who
knows what the land will look like. Some of the best soils are
found in Beechwoods. A farmer there recently leased 2,500 acres
to pay off his mortgage. According to an acquaintance he had a
few bucks left over.
Last year
was one of the worst in recent memory for dairy farmers. The
price of milk was close to what it was in the 1970s and yet the
cost of fuel and feed continues to rise. If farmers could make a
living on their land maybe they’d hold onto it. But for now it’s
the money that talks and land that was being leased for $25 an
acre in some parts of the state and in Pennsylvania four years
ago is now fetching more than $6,000. “The money’s the one that
talks,” a longtime dairy farmer told me. “That’s what worries
me.
© 2009
Earth Island Journal
Adam Federman
, Contributing Writer,
Earth Island Journal
Adam Federman is a writer in New York and a regular contributor
to Earth Island Journal.
Article printed from
www.CommonDreams.org
URL to
article:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/02-9
GAS DRILLING BULLETIN
11/2/09
CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORPORATION ANNOUNCES ITS INTENTION NOT TO
DRILL IN THE NEW YORK CITY WATERSHED
On Wednesday October 28th, the morning before the first gas
drilling hearing in Loch Sheldrake (see below), Chesapeake
Energy strategically announced that they intend to not drill in
the New York City Watershed. While this is good news and no
doubt was influenced by pressure from community groups including
Catskill Mountainkeeper, there appears to be considerably more
to Chesapeake's strategy than being "good guys".
First, it appears as if the announcement was timed right before
the high profile DEC hearing to minimize the public outcry
against gas drilling and influence the tone of the public
comments. Second, it looks like this announcement was made to
try to neutralize 8,000,000 New Yorkers plus NYC Mayor Mike
Bloomberg and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.
Third, it appears that Chesapeake is shrewdly attempting to set
up an exchange of the New York City Watershed for the rest of
New York State.
The bottom line is that Chesapeake's announcement is not legally
binding and does not guarantee that Chesapeake or any other gas
company will not drill in the New York City Watershed. The only
way to assure that there will be no drilling in the New York
City Watershed is for the DEC to ban any gas drilling there.
Chesapeake Spokesman Scott Rotruck testifying at the Loch
Sheldrake meeting on Wednesday night said that while the company
made this move for "business reasons", the company is against a
ban on drilling in the watershed. That clearly means they are
leaving open the possibility of drilling there in the future.
Catskill Mountainkeeper wants to make sure that no one who cares
about this issue becomes any less concerned or motivated based
on this statement. While we respect Chesapeake's public
relations acumen, the announcement has "no teeth" and the New
York City Watershed is still vulnerable.
This story was first reported in the New York Times on Wednesday
October 28, 2009. For full text of the article,
click here and a follow up story in the Times on October 30,
2009
click here.
AUDUDON GROUP
OPPOSES HYDROFRACTURING
CALLS PROCESS AN UNACCEPTABLE DANGER
The Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society has announced its opposition
to hydrofracturing gas exploration and production in our region.
In a recent statement released by the group, DOAS also calls on
NY State to permanently ban the practice.
Dangers to humans, wildlife, and water resources were cited as
primary reasons the group finds hydrofracking unacceptable. The
statement details multiple areas of concern created by injecting
hundreds of millions of gallons of water treated with toxic
chemicals under ground at extremely high pressures.
"After a careful review, our board of directors found it
unacceptable to expose present and future generations to the
contamination produced by this drilling technique," said DOAS
president Tom Salo. The group's statement calls hydrofracking "
. . an assault on the very resources that sustain life," and
says, this damage will remain for millennia, and will threaten
unseen future generations, as well as present-day humans and
wildlife."
Other reasons cited for the group's opposition include wildlife
and \social impacts from noise and air pollution, large water
\withdrawals, and damage to habitats and roads from pipelines
and wells.
The DOAS statement reads "Hundreds of wells are anticipated for
our area, and this may change the region to a permanent
industrial landscape. Potential contamination and depletion of
water, and pollution of air, soil, and of farm and forest
ecosystems could destroy the many resources available today.
Water withdrawal and contamination are of special concern. The
fragmentation and loss of habitats, and the disturbances of
noise and traffic will have an adverse affect on birds and other
wildlife, some already in precipitous decline."A recently
released impact statement from the NY State Department of
Environmental Conservation is insufficient to overcome the
fundamental threats from hydrofracking, according to DOAS
Director Jean T. Miller. "How can we engineer away permanent
physical changes and poisoning of the earth?" she said. "We are
trading a few more years of fossil fuels for tens of thousands
of years of damaged and tainted ground below us."
Regarding the DEC proposal, DOAS' statement reads, "Even with
the most stringent controls and oversight, this activity is an
unacceptable danger to our planet, with no environmental
benefits."
The Audubon group is calling upon the state of New York to
permanently ban hydrofracking. "In our view, there is no way
this can be done without serious and long-term negative
impacts," said Salo. DOAS is urging the public and their members
to contact DEC on the Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental
Impact Statement before November 30. Comments should be sent to
dSGEIS Comments, Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation, NYSDEC Division
of Mineral Resources, 625 Broadway, Third Floor, Albany, NY
12233-6500, or submitted on-line at DEC's website.
The DOAS position on gas drilling and hydrofracking wells can be
found on their website
<http://www.doas.us/>www.doas.us.
October 29, 2009
Congress Gives Final Approval to Hinchey Provision
Urging EPA to Conduct New Study on
Risks Hydraulic Fracturing Poses to Drinking Water Supplies
Washington,
DC --
The U.S. House of Representatives today approved a provision
authored by Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that formally
urges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to conduct
a new study on the risks that hydraulic fracturing poses to
drinking water supplies. The Senate is due to pass the
identical bill in the coming days and President Obama is
expected to sign the measure into law soon after that. Earlier
this week, members of the Interior Appropriations Conference
Committee, including Hinchey, signed off on the Interior and
Environment Appropriations bill and report for fiscal year 2010,
which contains the study provision.
"While natural gas certainly has an important role in our
national energy policy, it's imperative that we take every step
possible to ensure that our drinking water supplies are not
contaminated or adversely impacted in any way," Hinchey said.
"This legislation puts Congress on record in support of a new,
comprehensive study that will examine the impact that hydraulic
fracking really has on our water supplies. The study results
will put us in a position to take any further steps that are
necessary to protect our drinking water supplies from the
chemical concoctions being pumped into the ground by energy
companies."
In
May, the congressman asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at a
House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee hearing about the
need for such a study. Jackson told Hinchey that she believed
her agency should review the risk that fracturing poses to
drinking water in light of various cases across the country that
raise questions about the safety of the natural gas drilling
practice. Hinchey's measure would formalize that congressional
request for an EPA study on the risks that toxic chemicals used
in hydraulic fracturing pose to drinking water supplies in New
York and across the nation. The EPA did conduct a study on the
matter in 2004 under the Bush administration, but that study is
widely considered to be flawed for a variety of reasons,
including the way data was selectively collected from sources
that had a vested interest in the oil and gas industry while
other relevant information was ignored.
The language that Hinchey had inserted into the report reads,
"The conferees urge the EPA to carry out a study on the
relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water,
using a credible approach that relies on the best available
science, as well as independent sources of information. The
conferees expect the study to be conducted through a
transparent, peer-reviewed process that will ensure the validity
and accuracy of the data. EPA shall consult with other federal
agencies as well as appropriate state and interstate regulatory
agencies in carrying out the study, and it should be prepared in
accordance with EPA quality assurance principles."
In
the now infamous 2005 Energy Policy Act, which Hinchey strongly
opposed and voted against, the then Republican-controlled
Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking
Water Act (SDWA), which was designed to protect people's water
supply from contamination from toxic materials. This loophole,
which some have called the Halliburton Loophole, created an
extremely dangerous set of circumstances.
In
June, Hinchey, Congresswoman Diana DeGette (D-CO), and several
of his colleagues introduced the FRAC ACT -- Fracturing
Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, which would close
the loophole that exempted hydraulic fracturing from the SDWA
and require the oil and gas industry to disclose the chemicals
they use in their hydraulic fracturing processes. Currently,
the oil and gas industry is the only industry granted an
exemption from complying with the SDWA.
"It is critical that our communities are assured that the
process of hydraulic fracturing is safe and will not contaminate
drinking water supplies," said DeGette (D-CO), Vice Chair of the
Committee on Energy and Commerce. "I will continue to work with
EPA to encourage a robust study of hydraulic fracturing and its
potential impact on drinking water."
Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” is used in
almost all natural gas wells. It is a process whereby fluids are
injected at high pressure into underground rock formations to
blast them open and increase the flow of fossil fuels. This
injection of unknown and potentially toxic chemicals often
occurs near drinking water sources. Troubling incidents have
occurred around the country where people became ill after
fracking operations began in their communities. Some chemicals
that are known to have been used in fracking include diesel
fuel, benzene, industrial solvents, and other carcinogens and
endocrine disrupters.
Gas
Company Won’t Drill in New York Watershed
By JAD MOUAWAD and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: October 27, 2009
Bowing to intense public pressure, the
Chesapeake Energy Corporation
says it will not drill for
natural gas
within the upstate New York watershed, an environmentally
sensitive region that supplies unfiltered water to nine million
people.
Skip to next paragraph
Marcellus Shale is believed to hold substantial gas reserves.
The reversal seems to signal a more conciliatory tone from the
gas industry, which is facing mounting opposition in New York to
its drilling practices. The decision also increases the pressure
on state regulators to reverse their decision to allow drilling
within the watershed.
“We are not going to develop those leases, and we are not taking
any more leases, and I don’t think anybody else in the industry
would dare to acquire leases in the New York City watershed,”
Aubrey K. McClendon,
the chief executive officer at Chesapeake Energy, said in an
interview on Monday in Fort Worth. “Why go through the brain
damage of that, when we have so many other opportunities?”
He spoke on the eve of the first scheduled hearing on proposed
state rules governing the drilling, on Wednesday in Loch
Sheldrake in Sullivan County.
Chesapeake, one of the nation’s biggest gas producers, is the
largest leaseholder in the Marcellus Shale, a subterranean layer
of shale rock that runs from New York to Tennessee. The shale is
believed to hold substantial natural gas reserves.
But extracting gas from shale relies on a method called
hydraulic fracturing that has stirred broad concerns. Water,
laced with chemicals, is blasted down gas wells at high pressure
to break the rock and allow gas to flow out more easily. The
technology has vigorously expanded in recent years, allowing for
enormous growth in the nation’s natural gas reserves.
But the concerns include the use of chemicals, the disposal of
wastewater and the danger of leaks and spills into groundwater
and deep aquifers. There also has been a string of explosions
from Wyoming to Pennsylvania.
Under energy legislation passed in 2005, the industry won an
exemption from the federal
Safe Drinking Water Act.
Chesapeake
acquired 5,000 acres in the watershed when it bought Columbia
Natural Resources a few years ago, and it is currently the only
leaseholder in the area.
Over all, Mr. McClendon said, the company’s holdings in the
watershed are “a drop in the bucket” compared with the Marcellus
field’s potential. He suggested that Chesapeake had more to lose
by drilling there than by forgoing it, even though he contended
such drilling would do no harm.
“How could any one well be so profitable that it would be worth
damaging the New York City water system?” he said.
But Chesapeake and other companies are still expected to drill
for gas in areas of the state outside the watershed.
State officials have been eager to embrace the drilling because
of its potential economic benefits, especially in the current
downturn. This month, the
state’s environmental agency
said it would allow companies to drill throughout the state,
imposing few specific limits on operations.
The proposed regulations, which were requested last year by Gov.
David A. Paterson,
do not ban drilling in the watershed, as many New York City
officials and environmental advocates had urged, but would
require buffer zones around reservoirs and aqueducts.
Gas industry representatives say the rules, if enacted, will be
among the most restrictive in the country. Opponents say they
would be inadequate to prevent contamination.
The New York watershed is an area of about one million acres,
representing 4 percent of the state’s total surface. Thanks to
gravity, water from the region’s rivers and streams flows to six
reservoirs in the Catskills, and then, through a series of
aqueducts and tunnels, to the taps of New Yorkers. This system
provides unfiltered drinking water for half the state’s
population, including 8.2 million people in New York City and
about one million people in Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess
Counties.
Some New York City politicians welcomed Chesapeake’s decision
and said they hoped it would have a broader impact. “To proceed
with drilling doesn’t make any business sense and doesn’t make
environmental sense, and I think Chesapeake understands this,
and I am happy they have come to that decision,” said James F.
Gennaro, chairman of the City Council’s Committee on
Environmental Protection. “If only we could get the state
government to come to the same realization. It is strangely
ironic.”
Chesapeake’s announcement was also praised by environmental
advocates. They said the company’s position should encourage the
state to reverse its decision and impose an outright drilling
ban throughout the watershed.
“When the industry says it will not drill in the watershed, it
sends a strong message to state regulators that drilling there
is inappropriate,” said James L. Simpson, an attorney at
Riverkeeper,
an environmental group.
Hydraulic fracturing pumps huge volumes of water laced with
chemicals like benzene into the shale to break it and release
the natural gas. The process has been linked to contamination of
water wells and the death of livestock exposed to potassium
chloride, one of the chemicals used.
State environmental regulators have said they saw no “realistic
threat” to water quality that would warrant a drilling ban in
the two watersheds in the Catskills region. Their review noted
that the city controlled a large amount of the land surrounding
the reservoirs and could deny permission to drill in those
areas.
In addition to the forum on Wednesday,
hearings
on the state’s proposed regulations are scheduled Nov. 10 in New
York City, Nov. 12 in Broome County and Nov. 18 in Steuben
County.
Chesapeake said it had started to publicize the chemical
components of the fluids it uses during drilling, down to the
percentages for each chemical used since last year,
acknowledging criticism that companies had not been transparent
enough. “The industry is moving quickly to complete disclosure,"
Mr. McClendon said.
Mireya Navarro contributed reporting.
Opposition Opinion from NY Times on gas drilling
Published: October 16, 2009
New York State’s
environmental regulators have proposed rules to govern drilling
in the Marcellus Shale — a subterranean layer of rock curving
northward from West Virginia through Ohio and Pennsylvania to
New York’s southern tier. The shale contains enormous deposits
of natural gas that could add to the region’s energy supplies
and lift New York’s upstate economy. If done carefully — and in
carefully selected places — drilling should cause minimal
environmental harm.
But regulators must amend the rules
to bar drilling in the New York City watershed: a million acres
of forests and farmlands whose streams supply the reservoirs
that send drinking water to eight million people. Accidental
leaks could threaten public health and require a filtration
system the city can ill afford.
Natural gas is vital to the nation’s
energy needs and can be an important bridge between dirty coal
and renewable alternatives. The process of extracting it,
however, is not risk-free. Known as hydraulic fracturing, it
involves shooting a mix of water, sand and chemicals — many of
them highly toxic — into the ground at very high pressure to
break down the rock formations and free the gas.
The technique is used in 90 percent of
the oil and gas operations in the United States. And while most
drilling occurs without incident, “fracking” has been implicated
in hundreds of cases of impaired or polluted drinking water
supplies in states from Alabama to Wyoming.
The dangers are particularly acute in
the Marcellus Shale, which, unlike the relatively shallow
formations found elsewhere, lies miles underground. Getting the
gas out will require far more water and heavy doses of
chemicals. While the rules would require drillers to take
special precautions in the watershed, there are too many points
— from the delivery of the fluid to the drilling site to the
removal of spent fluid after it surfaces — where poisoned water
could escape into the water supplies.
Quarantining the watershed also makes
economic sense. The shale contains only one-tenth of the gas in
the southern tier. One big accident could undo everything the
city and state have done — buying up property, creating buffer
zones around the reservoirs — to protect the watershed from
development and pollution.
State officials worry that if they
deny landowners the right to lease the mineral resources under
their property — 70 percent of the watershed is privately owned
— they will face expensive “takings” claims. But the state has a
right and responsibility to prevent drilling that poses a clear
danger to public health.
The state insists it has made a
good-faith effort to assess the hazards, and its 800-page report
is replete with scientific analysis. But it is the state’s
analysis. What the state has not done, and what it must do, is
give those who have serious doubts about drilling in the
watershed a fair chance to state their case.
New York City’s acting environmental
commissioner, Steven Lawitts, has warned of “chronic and acute
impacts to water quality.” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and the
Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, have asked the
state for extensive public hearings. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has
commissioned an independent scientific study of the risks to the
watershed.
A fair review will not be possible unless the
state’s absurdly quick Nov. 30 deadline for public comment is
extended. The mayor’s study will not even be completed until
mid-December. It is dangerously irresponsible to rush this
decision
October 11, 2009
View SEQRA
‘streamlining' with caution
The State Environmental Quality Review Act, adopted in 1976, was
reviewed in 1996. No doubt, it's time for an overhaul but not
along the lines suggested in your recent Opinion page article,
"DEC reviewing environmental review process."
The article by Debra West of the Editorial Board discusses
claims made by Pete Grannis, commissioner of the state
Department of Environmental Conservation, that speeding up the
SEQRA process will result in economic benefits. Another
motivation expressed in the article is that DEC's work force is
being cut by 25 percent - on top of previous severe cuts - and
it simply cannot handle the workload involved in the careful
scrutiny of often extremely complex development plans under
SEQRA.
The difficult economic situation that New York, like many other
states, is confronting, has convinced our leaders that the road
to recovery lies, in large part at least, with more development.
And development will face fewer roadblocks and proceed faster if
we streamline SEQRA.
Development is a broad word and encompasses many different
aspects. We must ask - what kind of development do we need and
want in our part of New York, meaning Westchester, Putnam and
Rockland counties? SEQRA was written at a time when there were
still wide-open spaces available that were physically suitable
for development. That has changed. Those areas have now been
developed and those that are left are mostly heavily forested,
or have wetlands, steep slopes and erodible soils.
A developer's capacity to blast off the top of a mountain and to
cut down many thousands of trees has led to shopping malls and
multi-housing developments being built where they never should
have been built. And this is continuing. Weak regulations for
controlling pollution carried by storm water, compounded by
inappropriate developments, have resulted in our reservoirs
being degraded. Nine out of the 10 Croton reservoirs are now
phosphorus-impaired.
Give people a voice
With only difficult terrain left to develop, this is certainly
not the time to weaken SEQRA or euphemistically to "streamline"
it. Yes, we agree, after more than 10 years, SEQRA does need
improvements - those that would improve our quality of life by
enhancing the health, environmental quality and economic
viability of this area - not those that would destroy our
natural environment by bringing more traffic, more air and water
pollution to our towns and villages.
SEQRA should be rewritten so that the people who are affected
most, those in the neighboring areas of a development, are
brought into the process from the start, not at some later time,
as they are now, when it is almost too late to have an effect -
when commenting on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement is
often too late in the process to be effective. The applicant
answers citizens' comments in the Final Environmental Impact
Statement. Those answers can be completely beside the point -
i.e., non-answers or incorrect answers, but the ordinary citizen
commenter has no further opportunity to reply unless the lead
agency happens to decide otherwise. SEQRA should contain a
clause whereby a citizen is given the opportunity to rebut an
applicant's comments that are manifestly erroneous before the
lead agency proceeds to its findings.
Another point: Prior to the lead agency issuing its findings,
all involved agencies should have submitted their findings,
preferably when comments on the DEIS are being called for. This
would benefit and help the citizenry at the time when their
comments on the DEIS are being solicited. Furthermore, the lead
agency should definitely have all the pertinent information at
its disposal when it issues its findings, not sometime after, as
is now so often the case.
Be wary of change
This proposal to "streamline" SEQRA should be looked upon with
wary eyes. It appears to be part of a larger trend in our state
government, not only to facilitate development but also to
facilitate the exploitation of some of our natural resources;
specifically, natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, part of which
lies in the NYC watershed. A few months ago, Gov. David Paterson
issued Executive Order No. 25, which would "evaluate, reform, or
repeal, where necessary, rules and paperwork requirements ...''
This would merely streamline the processes through which
developers and others could obtain permits, and make it more
difficult, if not impossible, for the average citizen to have a
voice in preventing environmental degradation.
In addition, the draft state energy plan says plainly that it
would "encourage development of the Marcellus Shale natural gas
formation with environmental safeguards that are protective of
water supplies and natural resources." It is hard to imagine
what realistic environmental safeguards exist that could
permanently prevent any of the millions of gallons of
hydrofracturing fluids with their unknown chemical mixtures from
contaminating New York City's source water, not to mention local
wells. (This was discussed in our Oct. 4 editorial, "NYC
watershed must be spared from gas drilling." - Editor.)
The governor is looking to the $1 billion that, apparently,
would come from such "fracking." But what good is $1 billion if
you can't drink the water, and be charged with a $20 billion
filtration plant to render it potable?
Additional Facts
Learn more
Read two recent opinion pieces on the environment - "DEC
reviewing environmental review process" and "NYC watershed must
be spared from gas drilling" - at lohud.com/opinion
October 13, 2009
Prehistoric
artifacts found at Peach Lake
Elizabeth Ganga
eganga@lohud.com
PEACH LAKE - As these lakeshore communities prepare to correct
pollution problems going back to the late 1800s, they have been
required to stop and look back at what the land can tell them
about the prehistoric peoples who lived there.
An archaeologist was brought in to dig for artifacts near areas
that will be disturbed by the construction of a modern sewage
system and treatment plant for the former summer havens in North
Salem and Southeast.
The dig is mandated by the state and federal historic
preservation acts, which require that the impacts on valuable
historic sites be considered in development decisions.
During initial tests, archaeologists found two prehistoric stone
tools.
"That was enough for us to say there was a likelihood there was
a prehistoric site here," said Michael Pappalardo, an
archaeologist with AKRF, the planning firm on the sewer project.
Though most of the areas to be dug up for the pipes and the
treatment plant have already been extensively altered, a dig
near the north end of the lake has found pottery shards, a 2.5
inch chert blade, several stone projectile points (the tips for
arrows or darts), tool fragments and stone flakes that show
tools were made there.
Peach Lake was formed when the glaciers receded from the area
more than 10,000 years ago, but the artifacts date to about a
thousand years ago, when the forested land around the natural
lake provided food for collecting and sheltered animals to hunt.
"Most of what we're finding are little flecks of stone they left
behind as they made tools," Pappalardo said as he took a break
from sifting through the dirt from a meter-square test pit one
recent morning. Though the flakes would likely be passed over by
people without the training to recognize their significance, for
Pappalardo they draw a picture of the past on that spot.
"Somebody sat here making a tool or sharpening a tool or
adapting a tool for some specific purpose," Pappalardo said.
He had the artifacts he had already found in baggies. One flat
brown item that looked like a dirty stone was a piece of
prehistoric pottery.
"You can just see the walls are parallel," he said, holding it
up to eye level. The pottery at the time the piece was made, the
Woodland period of prehistory, was tempered with crushed quartz
to make it stronger and then fired. Some of the shards were
decorated, including one piece of rim with a beveled edge and
small decorative incisions. Other pieces of pottery had
impressions from cords pressed into the clay, helping date them
to the early to middle Woodland period, 2,700 to 1,200 years
ago. The vessels were used for food storage or cooking.
About two dozen points that were prehistoric knives, tools or
arrowheads were found.
"Hunting and cutting animals was an important activity that took
place here," Pappalardo said.
The artifacts will be donated to the Southeast Museum in
Brewster and will be the first pieces in their collection from
the era before European settlement. The museum is already
planning an exhibition, said Amy Campanaro, the executive
director.
"The museum is excited about these new additions to our artifact
collection," she said. "Currently we preserve and house over
6,000 artifacts concerning the history of the Town of Southeast
as well as Putnam County. These particular artifacts will be the
oldest in our collection."
Though the pottery fragments and flakes of stone from tool
manufacturing indicate the people of the time weren't just
passing through, the artifacts don't give clues about how long
they stayed. The site appears to have been occupied sporadically
or temporarily by a small number of people during the Woodland
period, a preliminary archaeological report said.
Later, after the Europeans arrived, the land was settled by farming
families bearing names still attached to the area, including
Field, Bloomer and Vail. Some of those families eventually
created resorts on land by the lake, growing the area's summer
colonies.
The resorts later evolved into cooperatives with more than 400
homes housing year-round residents.
The inadequate septic systems in the densely packed
neighborhoods spurred plans for the sewer system to protect the
water quality of the lake and the New York City reservoirs to
which it's connected.
Additional Facts
The details
The bids for the three major components of the Peach Lake sewer
project have come in and a groundbreaking is planned for
November. The bids still have to be awarded and the final
details worked out before construction can begin. The apparent
low bidder for the treatment plant was Arben Group of
Pleasantville, which came in at $11,648,000, close to what was
expected. The apparent low bid for the sewer pipes on the west
side of the lake came in at $2,569,695 and for the east side at
$3.75 million, both below what was expected.
10/9/2009 Sullivan
County Democrat.
DEC gas rules get
scrutinized
By Dan Hust
SULLIVAN COUNTY — The Democrat requested comment from a
variety of interested and involved parties regarding the NYS
Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s (DEC’s) draft Supplemental
Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) – new rules
proposed to regulate gas drilling statewide.
Formal written comments from these groups are likely to be made
to the DEC by the current November 30 deadline, and submission
guidelines (and the draft SGEIS itself) can be found at
www.dec.ny.gov/energy/58440.html.
Since Tuesday’s initial article, Damascus Citizens for
Sustainability has provided a response, which is included in
this followup.
As a reminder, Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther has scheduled a
public hearing on the matter before the NYS Assembly, set for
Thursday, October 15 at 9 a.m. in Room 306 of the State Capitol
in Albany.
Following is a roundup of the remarks made by other groups and
individuals:
Catskill Mountainkeeper
“Unless Pressure is Brought to Bear, The Just Released DEC
Environmental Statement Clears the Way for Gas Drilling Without
Adequate Protection and Controls,” says the headline from
Catskill Mountainkeeper’s latest press release.
In particular, Sullivan County’s most visible environmental
advocacy group worries that the draft SGEIS inadequately
protects local and NYC watersheds, makes no provision for
studying the cumulative impacts of multiple wells on multiple
properties, doesn’t stipula te how wastewater treatment – or any
other areas requiring DEC oversight – will be handled with
current staff and deteriorating infrastructure, and falls short
of offering enough public participation.
“While we are appreciative of the few new controls and
protections the DEC report offers, overall it is dramatically
inadequate in offering reasonable solutions that the public
deserves,” stated Ramsay Adams, executive director of Catskill
Mountainkeeper. “Unless elected officials, the media and
especially the public speak out powerfully and quickly, the
entire State of New York and our region, in particular, is going
to be put at extreme and unnecessary levels of risk.”
Adams sees this as the area’s final opportunity to mitigate
impacts.
“When the trucks are rolling, it will be too late to begin to
understand the reality of what we’ve allowed ourselves to get
into,” he said. “We have to act now. This is our last chance to
do something to mitigate or stop gas drilling.”
Senator John Bonacic
The region’s representative on the NYS Senate, John Bonacic,
offered the following take:
“Energy independence is key to both our national security and to
reducing the high cost of energy. Exploring for new energy and
efficiently using existing energy sources will help meet those
goals.
“My initial reaction, however, is that the DEC is trying to
strike an appropriate balance between the environment and our
energy needs with these regulations. I would rather see the safe
use of natural gas, extracted under the always watchful eye of
the DEC, than give another excuse to companies like NYRI to
claim there is a shortage of energy.”
Maurice Hinchey
Congressman Maurice Hinchey, whose 22nd District includes
Sullivan County , has been advocating for a federal study on
hydraulic fracturing and increased oversight of fracking as it
pertains to drinking water supplies. In fact, he has proposed
legislation to address that, called the FRAC Act.
“New York may soon see an extensive level of natural gas
drilling, and it’s imperative that we take every step possible
to ensure the protection of the environment from the potentially
harmful practice of hydraulic fracturing,” Hinchey commented.
“We cannot afford to make a mistake that could result in
irreparable damage being done to our drinking water supplies and
the overall environment.
“As I begin to carefully read through the draft report, I’m
hopeful it will be abundantly clear that the DEC is doing
everything within its power to protect our state’s residents,
their drinking water supplies, and the environment as a whole,”
he added
Fortuna Energy
Fortuna Energy, based in upstate Horseheads, just struck a
$5,500-an-acre deal with landowners in Binghamton. And in the
past few weeks, the company has evidenced an intent to lease
property in the Sullivan County area for future gas drilling
(although it holds no land currently in the county and will not
talk about its plans).
“Fortuna Energy is pleased that the DEC has completed this
important step of the SGEIS review process,” noted Fortuna
President James O’Driscoll. “We hope this will bring us closer
to the day when an expeditious review and turnaround of
Marcellus Shale horizontal drilling permits can occur in New
York.
“We expect to fully participate in the upcoming public comment
period by supplying detailed written comments on the draft once
we have completed our analysis of the document.”
damascus c itizens for sustainability
“Gas drilling is an industrial activity that will turn our
beautiful upstate landscape into a toxic industrial zone,” said
Joe Levine, co-founder of Damascus Citizens for Sustainability,
a nearby Pennsylvania group that is also active in opposing gas
drilling in New York State.
“No one should consider this acceptable, but what is of primary
importance is the threat to public health from contamination of
our water supply. Hydraulic fracturing gas drilling is
intrinsically contaminating because the process requires the
injection of millions of gallons of fresh water mixed with
dangerously toxic chemicals into the ground, which are able to
infiltrate groundwater and aquifers.
“In the concentrated area of the NYC watershed alone, more than
9 million people depend on this single source of water.
“Add to this the yet unresolved drilling production wastewater
disposal dilemma,” he remarked. “Where will all the water go?
There are few treatment facilities capable of handling this
toxic stuff.”
Trout Unlimited
Trout Unlimited (TU), which focuses on fishing in the
region, joined with others in pushing for the written comment
period to be extended from 60 to 90 days.
Other than that, its leaders’ comments were cautiously
complimentary.
“To date, New York State’s approach has been both cautionary and
proactive,” said Elizabeth Maclin, TU’s Vice President for
Eastern Conservation. “Unlike other states in the Marcellus
Shale region, New York has not jumped the gun on gas drilling
and has required a thorough regulatory analysis prior to
allowing any gas company to drill in the state. Trout Unlimited
and its New York Council commend the state for this.”
“Drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale is one of the most – if
not the most – signific ant issues to impact New York’s native
and wild trout fisheries in decades as well as local drinking
water supplies. It is critical that it be done in a way that
protects these resources for future generations of sportsmen,”
said Ron Urban, TU’s New York Council Chair.
“As with any regulations, careful analysis is required to
determine exactly how strong the protections will be for New
York’s expansive resources,” said Maclin. “Trout Unlimited and
its 7,500 New York members look forward to carefully reviewing
and commenting on the state’s draft report.”
Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York
Those in favor of gas drilling tended to have little to say
about the DEC’s regulations, good or bad.
“Oil and gas producers have an outstanding record of
environmental and operational safety in New York. A regulatory
structure that is tough but fair will allow this state to
realize this tremendous economic opportunity,” said Brad Gill,
executive director of the Independent Oil and Gas Association of
New York, a trade group.
“Natural gas is a clean, abundant and affordable fuel,” he
added. “Increasing production here in New York will help improve
our economy, increase tax revenues and jobs, and bring our
nation closer to energy independence.”
October 2, 2009
Recession may lead state to relax development rules
The recession may bring a side effect that the business
community will like - environmental regulations loosened to spur
the economy.
At least that's how some environmental activists saw recent
comments from Pete Grannis, the state's top environmental
enforcer.
Grannis spoke in Ulster County to "Pattern for Prog[0xad]ress,"
a business-heavy regional organization, and mentioned that the
Department of Environmental Conservation is looking at
streamlining regulations on development.
Those restrictions comprise the 1975 New York State
Environmental Quality Review Act - known to anyone who's ever
dealt with it as "SEQRA."
Opponents of development have used the law to stop a host of
high- and low-profile projects, not the least of which was the
multibillion-dollar Westway in Manhattan.
The business community's knock on SEQRA has been that it
shackled developers so badly, they were taking their cash to
friendlier places.
Now the recession has brought staffing cutbacks at agencies like
the DEC, slowing the permitting process.
So Grannis and others have hatched the idea of a working group
to look at how to streamline the law and make it work for the
economy as well as the environment.
Grannis has a strong environmental pedigree, earned over 30
years as a state lawmaker, so his credibility goes a long way as
he seeks to figure out a way to keep his agency effective even
when it's shrinking.
He's given the task of streamlining, where possible, to Willie
Janeway, the DEC's regional director for the Hudson Valley.
Janeway is partnering with Jonathan Drapkin, Pattern's
president, to pull together as many diverse people as possible
to see where the areas of common ground are.
Doreen Tignanelli, a retired IBM employee and self-proclaimed
full-time environmentalist, heard Grannis' speech and came away
concerned that the group working on revamping regulations would
be dominated by business people.
"My concern with this ‘streamlining' of SEQRA is that the
business community is using the downturn in the economy as an
excuse to weaken environmental regulations," Tignanelli
said yesterday from her Poughkeepsie home. "Hard economic times
are not likely to last forever but impacts from reduced
environmental review will."
Tignanelli, a member of Poughkeepsie's Conservation Advisory
Commission who worked on that town's wetlands protection, said
she doesn't oppose updating regulations as needed, but only if
they retain the power to keep development in proper balance.
Janeway was adamant that the state statute itself is not up for
discussion and the DEC was not handing the reins over to
capitalists just to keep the job-creation machine humming.
"With input from a diverse number of stakeholders, we hope to
develop consensus on changes that can made in the region - with
how we implement the regulations," Janeway said. "We're only
interested in maintaining or improving environmental protection
and the transparency of the process."
Janeway says good municipal planning goes a long way toward
cutting red tape.
"If a community has a good comprehensive plan, a handle on its
infrastructure, natural resources, traffic and its character,
when a project comes in that fits, it goes faster."
The DEC is compiling a checklist of 80 to 90 criteria, like
distance from wetlands and impact on endangered species, that
communities can use to more quickly qualify good building
projects.
With some 100,000 housing units still on the drawing board for
the Hudson Valley, all of us will benefit from a system that
really works.
Greg Clary
The Journal News
New York State Plans to Allow Industrial Gas
Drilling in NYC Watershed
Yesterday the New York State DEC released its
long anticipated draft environmental impact statement (DSGEIS)
on natural gas drilling across New York State. The DSGEIS
currently allows for gas drilling to take place within the NYC
Watershed. While the DEC made efforts to more strictly regulate
drilling in this sensitive area, Riverkeeper stands
by its position that gas drilling should be banned within
the NYC Watershed and all other sensitive water supply areas.
Gas drilling accidents and drinking water
contamination in other states, including Texas, Wyoming,
Colorado, and Pennsylvania, show that this is a risky technology
that does not belong in a surface drinking water supply.
The NYC Watershed provides unfiltered
drinking water to more than 9 million New Yorkers - it is a
resource we cannot afford to put at risk!
Please forward this email to your friends and
neighbors. We will be sending out more updates to keep you
informed and encourage your involvement in the public comments.
To learn more about hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the
Marcellus Shale, and to review of reports of drinking water
contamination in states where this type of drilling already
occurs, see Riverkeeper’s Industrial Gas Drilling Reporter,
Volumes 1-4, at
http://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/safeguard/gas-drilling/.
Please make a donation to Riverkeeper today - your support will
help us to continue the important work of safeguarding the NYC
Watershed.
http://www.riverkeeper.org/take-action/donate/
Earlier this week, natural
gas industry representatives sought to
reassure nervous residents about the
methodology they plan to use to extract
natural gas in New York State. In addition,
the industry sought to communicate that
natural gas drilling presents a "great
opportunity" for the region. Although
drilling has not yet commenced (next summer
is the anticipated start date), the crowd
that gathered at the meeting expressed
legitimate concerns about
groundwater contamination,
which has posed major problems for drillers
in Wyoming and Pennsylvania.
 Sullivan
County sits above a geological formation
known as the
Marcellus Shale, which is rich
in natural gas. The trick is to devise a
method to extract the fuel safely, without
causing damage to the environment or posing
a threat to human health. According to the
Times Herald-Record, Brad Gill, the
executive director of the Independent Oil
and Gas Association of New York, stated that
there are no known incidents of
contamination in other regions of New York
State, and troubles in other states are
primarily related to differences in
geology. In addition, stricter state
regulations are expected from the
Department of Environmental Conservation
this fall, which should provide New York
with a considerable safety margin.
Residents also expressed
concerns about wastewater disposal, the
transport of equipment through rural
communities and noise, which industry
officials attempted to assuage, citing
strict regulations for handling waste and
the temporary nature of any disruption to
the community.
PHILADELPHIA — Residents living along the Delaware River
from upstate New York to Philadelphia have said they fear
that the recent start of natural gas drilling along the
banks of the river threatens their drinking water supply, a
September 7 KYW Newsradio report.
The residents are pushing for an environmental impact study
on the drilling process. During a drilling practice known as
hydrofracturing, or “fracking,” water mixed with chemicals
is pumped into deep wells under pressure to crack rock
formation and release trapped natural gas, a process that is
thought by some to contaminate the groundwater. There is
concern about the chemicals used in the hydrofracking water
solution, as WaterTech Online® has previously reported.
“The major problem that comes from all this drilling is the
fact that we will not have drinking water because you cannot
filter this stuff out. That means that 72 million people in
the northeastern United States are close to not having any
drinking water,” Mark Barbash from Center City, PA, is
quoted saying.
The Delaware River Basin Commission is scheduled to hold
hearings on the process on September 23 and October 22, the
report said.
To read the full report, click here.
Phosphates
plan would help Lake Oscawana, study says
Barbara Livingston
Nackman
bnackman@lohud.com
PUTNAM VALLEY - Residents who hope to remove and keep phosphate
out of Lake Oscawana are a bit closer to improving the water quality
of the town's largest lake.
The phosphate comes from stormwater runoff and septic systems,
and the problem is complicated by rainy weather and lack of oxygen
at the lake's bottom.
This creates a mucky tangle of vegetation for swimmers and
boaters.
"We need to reverse the cycle of this nutrient pollution," said
Stephen Axinn, the Lake Oscawana Civic Association president, who
led a detailed study of the water body's condition. "We need to take
steps to remove the phosphate and enact laws and regulations to
prevent further sediment."
The study calls for construction of catch basins with special
cartridges to attract phosphate, and application of an aluminum
compound to remove it.
Further, the plan urges the town to enact laws requiring that
septic systems be pumped out every three years and prohibiting the
use of phosphate chemicals on lawns.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has declared
the 386-acre natural lake an "impaired water body," which means it
is safe for recreational use but has "water quality problems," DEC
spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach said.
Lake Oscawana is well-known for its tree-lined landscape.
Producers of the HBO series "The Sopranos" thought it looked like
the Adirondacks and filmed episodes from its final season there.
Past residents include baseball great Babe Ruth and "Jaws" actor Roy
Scheider.
Roughly 800 property owners have homes on the lake's shoreline or
live in park districts with lake rights - Abele Park, Hilltop,
Lookout Manor, Northview Estates and Wildwood Knolls.
Lauren Carner of Abele Park said she hoped work on the lake began
soon.
"It seemed so daunting when we started," she said of the study.
"I hate to think of such a treasure impaired or damaged."
Town Supervisor Robert Tendy said the lake pollution is not only
an environmental issue, but could become a property-value issue. If
the lake deteriorates, property values might fall, thereby reducing
needed town revenue.
County Legislator Vincent Tamagna, R-Philipstown, chairman of the
Physical Services Committee, said legislators are discussing a
countywide ban on the use of phosphates to protect the future of the
waterways in Putnam's six towns.
The remediation detailed in the Lake Oscawana Management Plan is
estimated to cost $2 million and is designed to be enacted in four
phases as funds become available.
"It is essential we get outside funding. Otherwise many changes
won't be possible," Tendy said.
Axinn said he expected to apply for multiple grants to reduce the
burden on lakeshore residents. The House of Representatives approved
$400,000 this month as part of a fiscal 2010 Agriculture
Appropriations Bill. The Senate and President Barack Obama must also
approve the funding. In May, Rep. John Hall, D-Dover Plains, saw the
lake's condition for himself.
"The lake is in serious trouble and needs the cleanup help as
soon as possible," he said. |
06/218/09
NORTH CASTLE - Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has
approved a nonprofit group's plans to sell 30 acres of wooded land
to Mount Kisco - a move that halts plans to put a housing
development there .
The Rene Dubos Center for Human Environments - which owns the land
at 1 Baldwin Road in North Castle - is selling it to the village for
$475,000.
The Westchester Land Trust is
contributing $15,000 toward the purchase.
Mount Kisco and North Castle are
splitting the remaining cost.
Mount Kisco Mayor J. Michael
Cindrich said the village would work closely with the land trust "to
formulate some type of agreement where the property is preserved in
perpetuity."
The Dubos center for years sought
to sell the property for $1.2 million to Valhalla-based developer
Michael Cappelli. But Cappelli's plans to put several luxury homes
on the site upset conservationists, as well as local, county and
state officials.
Mount Kisco officials were
particularly concerned because the land rests next to Byram Lake,
the village's main drinking water supply.
In 2007, the Dubos Center filed
litigation in state
Supreme
Court
in White Plains seeking permission to sell to Cappelli. The center
purchased the property in 1979 using $275,000 it got from two
charities - the DeWitt Wallace Fund and the Eugene and Agnes E.
Meyer Foundation.
The center promised to keep the
land in its natural state.
But the center's president, Ruth
Eblen, said in court papers that Dubos received the grant money to
use the land for programs that ultimately never panned out. The
nonprofit wanted to sell the land to pay off debts and continue
environmental education work.
But Cuomo's office, which regulates
charities, opposed the move. The attorney general argued that
selling the land for development ran afoul of the reason the center
got its original purchase money in the first place. State Supreme
Court Justice W. Denis Donovan agreed in a 2007 ruling. That opened
the door for a sale to Mount Kisco, which had offered to buy the
land.
"We must protect the spaces that
are intended to be kept in their natural state and honor the wishes
of those who generously donate to worthy causes," Cuomo said in a
news release.
Dear Ann,
As we
catch our breath following last week's historic action by the House Energy and
Commerce Committee on global warming, I want to take this moment to thank you
for all you have done and to sketch out the road ahead.
There is
no doubt that the Environmental Defense Fund Action Network team played an
instrumental roll in last week's victory.
From
making phone calls to sending emails to recruiting new activists and spreading
the word to making generous donations, you kept the pressure on and made
committee passage of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act
possible.
And, make
no mistake, this is a landmark bill. It would establish an aggressive,
declining, economy-wide cap on America's global warming pollution starting at
17% reductions by 2020 and reaching 83% reductions by 2050. It also calls for
20% of America's
energy to come from clean, renewable energy sources by 2020.
In short,
it would set us on a course that unleashes our clean energy future and avoids
the catastrophic threat of runaway global warming.
Here is a summary of the bill you helped pass out of committee.
As
significant as last week's vote was, the battle to enact landmark climate
legislation in 2009 is far from over.
Here is an outline of what the winding road to final legislative victory looks
like.
Congress
is on recess this week, but we are already redeploying our resources and
preparing for the fight in the full House and Senate. We have dozens of new
congressional targets, and our legislative team is already scheduling meetings
and working the phones.
This is
the first time many members have had to focus on this issue, so our job is to
educate them about the urgency and the opportunity of climate action this year.
As our
National Climate Campaign ramps up for the fight ahead, here are ways you can
stay in touch with our team:
 Connect with us on
Facebook.
Follow our national
EDF Twitter feed.
Follow EDF
President Fred Krupp's Twitter feed.
Bookmark our Operation:
Climate Vote hub page.
 Go to our global warming
blog, Climate 411.
 Add
takeaction@edf.org to your contacts list and email us with any questions.
This can
be our year. We have already beaten the odds by overcoming a truly gargantuan
effort by old line oil and gas, and far right conservatives to derail climate
action in committee.
But our
victory last week will lead the opposition to redouble their efforts. And it is
always easier by far to stop a bill in Washington than to enact one.
We are
counting on your help as activists, as supporters, and as evangelists for action
in the weeks ahead.
Again my
deepest thanks for all you have done.
Sincerely,
David Yarnold
President, Environmental Defense Action Fund
May 20, 2009
Dear Ann,
This month, the Open
Space Institute teamed up with the town of Rochester, New York to protect the
55-year-old Domino dairy farm, situated in the heart of the scenic Rondout
Valley. This agricultural preservation project, our 18th overall in the
Rondout and the neighboring Walkill
Valley, is part of our ongoing effort to protect the legacy of
New York
State. Farming has been a vital part of our culture and economy for
generations, and OSI is committed to
seeking out the sound fiscal partnerships that allow us to preserve our open
spaces and keep our farmers farming.
We celebrated an
anniversary with the Black Rock Forest Consortium, donating a gift of land to
honor the Consortium’s 20 years of protecting prime forest just a few short
miles from New York City. And, as summer gets going and Quadricentennial events
take center stage, we spoke with U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey about the
storied history of the Hudson River and the people who treasure it.
Published: January 31, 2009
Not to be
outdone, this wealthy enclave 45 minutes north of the city rolled out
its own stars on Saturday as it part of its ambitious plan for a
sustainable future.
Bob Woodruff,
a reporter for ABC News, who lives in nearby Rye, gave the keynote
address. Chevy Chase, who owns a home here, introduced the closing
panel. And though the setting was a high school, not a fancy museum or
hotel, nearly 1,000 people gathered to listen to experts talk about
global threats to the environment and problems as close as their
backyards.
Bedford, which
has a population of 18,000, consists of three hamlets in the Croton
watershed, an ecotopia of lakes, ponds and wetlands that provides New
York City with part of its drinking water.
The town is
among a number of smaller communities across the country that have
joined cities in trying to reduce their carbon footprints, motivated by
concerns over
global warming.
Bedford hopes to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent over the
next 11 years.
The conference,
billed as the Bedford Environmental Summit, drew more than 85 speakers —
all volunteering their time — ranging from local politicians to national
environmental figures like
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Thomas Lovejoy, creator of the
public television program “Nature.”
Pulling off
such an ambitious event was a testament to the town’s environmental
consciousness, but also, to some degree, to the wealth and influence of
its residents.
But putting the
rich on an energy diet has its challenges. Many of the people who came
to see Mr. Kennedy give a lecture on oil depletion drove in alone in
Range Rovers, Chevy Suburbans or other S.U.V.’s, making the few Toyota
Priuses in the parking lot look like lonely high school nerds at
lunchtime.
“This is a
well-heeled community, and one of the important benefits of the enormous
turnout and interest today is it starts people talking and thinking,”
said Ellen Conrad, president of the Bedford Garden Club, one of the
event’s sponsors. “Today is about convincing each and every person who
attended that they need to make a difference, and I’m hoping the choice
of cars will be an important step.”
Alas, though,
when asked what kind of car she drove, Ms. Conrad sheepishly admitted,
“It’s a Lexus S.U.V. — the worst.”
By way of
apology, she added that her daughters drive Priuses; her husband, whose
vehicle just died, is getting one; and she will get something
environmentally friendly as well, when her Lexus is finally retired.
“Unfortunately
that’s the balance between the economics and the cause,” she said.
“Hopefully we can shift that needle a little more to the cause and away
from the economics.”
Other
environmental problems lurk in the town’s hills, among all those
spacious, energy-hungry homes. Many of the roads leading to them are
kept as dirt, to make it easy for horseback riding, but contributing to
runoff. And because of regulations intended to protect New York City’s
water supply, the town cannot build a sewage treatment plant. About
7,000 homes here rely on septic tanks, which can lead to higher
concentrations of nitrogen in the groundwater, especially in more
crowded areas, said Kevin Winn, Bedford’s commissioner of public works.
The town, led
by an environmental advisory board, hopes to have a detailed plan for
reducing emissions within the next few months, said Mary Beth Kass, the
board’s chairwoman.
At Saturday’s
conference, which was held at Fox Lane High School, a band room was
turned into a lecture hall where visitors could learn about the issues
facing Bedford’s water supply. In the small gymnasium was information
about biodiversity and the evils of fast food, and in a classroom about
oceans and fish in peril.
Down a main
hallway, there was an expo where an array of companies and nonprofit
groups promoted everything from low-tech organic farming to high-concept
plans for green commerce. Squeezed in among them, Samantha Ruff and
Eleanor Stein, both 17, displayed a project from their Advanced
Placement environmental sciences course. The centerpiece was an energy
pyramid, much like the familiar food pyramid, except with crop residue
at the bottom leading right up to wind, solar and hydrogen at the top.
“The higher you
go, the cleaner the energy,” Samantha said.
They were among
50 students from the course helping at the conference, listening to
lectures and showing off their projects. For their 29-year-old teacher,
Paul Frisch, the class and the conference were a sign of how much has
changed in just a generation.
“I certainly
didn’t have anything like this when I was in school,” he said.
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Throughout 2008 we at Westchester Land Trust
have tried to find ways to make it easier
for our friends to visit our eight public
preserves.
Now at year's end, with the days short and
people looking for an excuse to get out in
the sunshine, I thought I'd remind you that
we have beautiful places for you to visit.
Back in April we completely redesigned our
website, to put more of an emphasis on
connecting people with the land. In fact, on
our
home page you can find a
Visit a Preserve link that will help you
do just that.
In June we opened our newest preserve, the
Danner Family Preserve, which is partly in
Yorktown and partly in Putnam Valley.
Details are
here. It's a great place for a short
hike.
In November we created our first Nature
Quest, at the Frederick P. Rose Preserve, in
Lewisboro. The Quest is a great way for
families to turn a hike into a learning
experience. Details are
here.
Our other preserves are Westchester
Wilderness Walk, in Pound Ridge; the Guard
Hill Preserve, in Bedford Village; the Tom
Burke Memorial Preserve, in Bedford Hills;
the Hunter Brook Preserve, in Yorktown; Pine
Croft Meadow, in Waccabuc; and the Old
Church Lane Preserve, in South Salem/Vista.
There are also the Leon Levy Preserve, in
South Salem, and the Old Field Preserve, in
Waccabuc. We don't own them but we helped
create them, and they're both big and
beautiful.
In fact Westchester County is blessed with
an abundance of great nature preserves for
hiking. We recommend starting the New Year
by visiting one.
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Happy New
Year!
George Bianco
Chairman
P.S. At year's end, please consider
supporting Westchester Land Trust with a tax
deductible donation. You can make a secure
online donation
here.
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December 27, 2008
The Energy Challenge
By
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
DARMSTADT, Germany — From the outside, there is nothing
unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses
in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors
and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing
drizzle. But these houses are part of a design
revolution: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no
snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in.
There is, in fact, no furnace.
In Berthold Kaufmann’s home, there is, to be fair, one radiator for emergency
backup in the living room — but it is not in use. Even on the coldest nights in
central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann’s new “passive house” and others of this design
get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be
needed to run a hair dryer.
“You don’t think about temperature — the house just adjusts,” said Mr.
Kaufmann, watching his 2-year-old daughter, dressed in a T-shirt, tuck into her
sausage in the spacious living room, whose glass doors open to a patio. His new
home uses about one-twentieth the heating energy of his parents’ home of roughly
the same size, he said.
Architects in many countries, in attempts to meet new energy efficiency
standards like the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design standard in the
United States, are designing homes with better insulation and high-efficiency
appliances, as well as tapping into alternative sources of power, like solar
panels and wind turbines.
The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside
Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick
insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased
in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps
in.
That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the
heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.
Decades ago, attempts at creating sealed solar-heated homes failed, because
of stagnant air and mold. But new passive houses use an ingenious central
ventilation system. The warm air going out passes side-by-side with clean cold
air coming in, exchanging heat with 90 percent efficiency.
“The myth before was that to be warm you had to have heating. Our goal is to
create a warm house without energy demand,” said Wolfgang Hasper, an engineer at
the
Passivhaus Institut in Darmstadt. “This is not about wearing thick
pullovers, turning the thermostat down and putting up with drafts. It’s about
being comfortable with less energy input, and we do this by recycling heating.”
There are now an estimated 15,000 passive houses around the world, the vast
majority built in the past few years in German-speaking countries or
Scandinavia. The first passive home was built here in 1991 by Wolfgang Feist, a
local physicist, but diffusion of the idea was slowed by language. The courses
and literature were mostly in German, and even now the components are
mass-produced only in this part of the world.
The industry is thriving in Germany, however — for example, schools in
Frankfurt are built with the technique — and it is spreading. The
European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the
European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house
standards by 2011.
The United States Army, long a presence in this part of Germany, is
considering passive-house barracks. “Awareness is skyrocketing; it’s hard for us
to keep up with requests,” Mr. Hasper said.
Nabih Tahan, a California architect who worked in Austria for 11 years, is
completing one of the first passive houses in the United States for his family
in Berkeley. He heads a group of 70 Bay Area architects and engineers working to
encourage wider acceptance of the standards. “This is a recipe for energy that
makes sense to people,” Mr. Tahan said. “Why not reuse this heat you get for
free?”
Ironically, however, when California inspectors were examining the Berkeley
home to determine whether it met “green” building codes (it did), he could not
get credit for the heat exchanger, a device that is still uncommon in the United
States. “When you think about passive-house standards, you start looking at
buildings in a different way,” he said.
Buildings that are certified hermetically sealed may sound suffocating. (To
meet the standard, a building must pass a “blow test” showing that it loses
minimal air under pressure.) In fact, passive houses have plenty of windows —
though far more face south than north — and all can be opened.
Inside, a passive home does have a slightly different gestalt from
conventional houses, just as an electric car drives differently from its
gas-using cousin. There is a kind of spaceship-like uniformity of air and
temperature. The air from outside all goes through HEPA filters before entering
the rooms. The cement floor of the basement isn’t cold. The walls and the air
are basically the same temperature.
Look closer and there are technical differences: When the windows are swung
open, you see their layers of glass and gas, as well as the elaborate seals
around the edges. A small, grated duct near the ceiling in the living room
brings in clean air. In the basement there is no furnace, but instead what looks
like a giant Styrofoam cooler, containing the heat exchanger.
Passive houses need no human tinkering, but most architects put in a switch
with three settings, which can be turned down for vacations, or up to circulate
air for a party (though you can also just open the windows). “We’ve found it’s
very important to people that they feel they can influence the system,” Mr.
Hasper said.
The houses may be too radical for those who treasure an experience like
drinking hot chocolate in a cold kitchen. But not for others. “I grew up in a
great old house that was always 10 degrees too cold, so I knew I wanted to make
something different,” said Georg W. Zielke, who built his first passive house
here, for his family, in 2003 and now designs no other kinds of buildings.
In Germany, passive houses cost about 5 to 7 percent more than conventional
houses to build. With growing popularity and an ever-larger array of attractive
off-the-shelf components, the buildings have become cheaper.
But the sophisticated windows and heat-exchange ventilation systems needed to
make passive houses work properly are not readily available in the United
States. So the construction of passive houses in the United States, at least
initially, is likely to entail a higher price differential.
Moreover, the kinds of home construction popular in the United States are
more difficult to adapt to the standard: residential buildings tend not to have
built-in ventilation systems of any kind, and sliding windows are hard to seal.
Dr. Feist’s original passive house — a boxy white building with four
apartments — looks like the science project that it was intended to be. But new
passive houses come in many shapes and styles. The Passivhaus Institut, which he
founded a decade ago, continues to conduct research, teaches architects, and
tests homes to make sure they meet standards. It now has affiliates in Britain
and
the United States.
Still, there are challenges to broader adoption even in Europe.
Because a successful passive house requires the interplay of the building,
the sun and the climate, architects need to be careful about site selection.
Passive-house heating might not work in a shady valley in Switzerland, or on an
urban street with no south-facing wall. Researchers are looking into whether the
concept will work in warmer climates — where a heat exchanger could be used in
reverse, to keep cool air in and warm air out.
And those who want passive-house mansions may be disappointed. Compact shapes
are simpler to seal, while sprawling homes are difficult to insulate and heat.
Most passive houses allow about 500 square feet per person, a comfortable
though not expansive living space. Mr. Hasper said people who want thousands of
square feet per person should look for another design.
“Anyone who feels they need that much space to live,” he said, “well, that’s
a different discussion.”
Copyright 2008
The New York Times Company
EPA targets water
runoff
Strict rules ahead for 3 Mass. towns
By Bina Venkataraman
Globe Correspondent / November 17, 2008
The US Environmental Protection Agency is set to
announce today that it will, for the first time, require
some big-box stores, malls, and other businesses to
reduce the amount of rainwater that runs off their roofs
and parking lots. Federal officials will test the new
policy in the Massachusetts towns of Milford,
Bellingham, and Franklin.
The EPA, using its authority under the Clean Water Act,
will require large commercial and industrial landowners
in these towns to steeply reduce the storm-water runoff
that picks up pollutants and pours them into the Charles
River, officials said last week in interviews.
Storm-water runoff is rain and snowmelt that mixes with
leaf litter, toxic metals, oil, and exhaust fume
deposits as it washes over parking lots, rooftops, and
roadways.
"Cities and
towns are already investing a lot in storm water," said
Ken Moraff, deputy director for ecosystem protection of
the EPA's New England region.
"These commercial facilities are missing pieces of the
puzzle." The new regulations, he said, will help
complete the cleanup effort.
In a parallel development, the state Department of
Environmental Protection plans to release its own draft
rules today that will expand the effort to reduce
storm-water runoff throughout the 35 communities that
make up the Charles River Watershed area.
The state will require that any commercial development
with two or more acres of "impervious" surfaces, such as
concrete or asphalt, reduce their storm-water runoff by
65 percent - the same requirements to be made by EPA in
the three towns. Outside the watershed, facilities with
5 or more acres of these surfaces would need to make
more modest reductions.
The state will give facilities and landowners 10 years
to comply after the rules take effect. EPA officials
said they have not determined when landowners and
businesses must reduce their runoff, or when they will
expand the requirement beyond the three test towns to
other parts of New England and beyond.
"From a precedent perspective, it's very important,"
said Chris Kilian, director of the clean water program
for the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental
advocacy group. "Having EPA involved in interpreting the
Clean Water Act in this way is critical for getting
storm water cleaned up all over the country."
Limiting storm-water runoff is not entirely new; for the
past several years, Massachusetts has required that new
developments and redevelopments near wetlands build
features on parking lots and rooftops to help storm
water filter through the ground instead of draining
across concrete and blacktop into pipes that empty into
waterways. The new federal and state regulations will
now require many facilities built before the late '90s
to retrofit their property to reduce runoff.
"I think it's going to be a shock," said Michael Santora,
Milford's town engineer. "Large commercial developments
that are older will be impacted most significantly."
Storm-water runoff, rich in phosphorous, fuels toxic
algal blooms in waterways, such as those that plagued
the lower Charles in the summers of 2006 and 2007.
Commercial and industrial sites in the Charles River
Watershed, even though they account for only 8 percent
of the land in the watershed, contribute 23 percent of
the phosphorous that runs annually into the waterway.
The vast majority of the phosphorous from commercial and
industrial sites comes from the three towns that will be
regulated by the EPA.
The EPA announcement comes on the heels of a National
Academy of Sciences report released last month that
faulted the agency for failing to protect the country's
waterways from storm-water pollution.
"If you look across the country," said Thomas Ballestero,
a professor of engineering and hydrology at the
University of New Hampshire's Stormwater Center, "most
of the big impairments to waterways are storm water
related or can be traced back to storm water."
Ballestero noted that although municipalities are
already regulated by the EPA, storm water from roadways
and suburban subdivisions also contributes significantly
to river pollution.
Businesses last week had not been notified of the EPA
policy, which comes at a difficult time for many.
Commercial real estate values are at record lows, and
shopping plazas face declining sales and plummeting
consumer confidence. Retail sales in October were down
more than 4 percent from October 2007 nationwide, and
stores fear a dampened holiday shopping season.
But David Begelfer, CEO of the National Association of
Industrial and Office Properties' Massachusetts chapter,
a real estate trade association, was among a few
business people who had heard of the new rules. He was
not pleased.
"It's going to be pretty disastrous . . . especially
[for] those who are operating on the edge right now,"
said Begelfer.
The costs of installing effective storm-water technology
- such as porous pavement with large stones that allow
water to permeate it, or tree-lined islands that sit
below a parking lot's surface so runoff can drain into
them - can range from $15,000 to $50,000 per acre for
new developments, said Ballestero, of UNH's Stormwater
Center. And retrofitting an existing development could
be 10 to 200 percent more expensive. But, he added,
"It's much more cost effective than letting your river
or lake get contaminated and having to do remediation."
The Charles River Watershed Association, an
environmental stewardship group, praised the new rules.
"The idea is to make our cities and towns mimic the way
nature would have worked had we never built them," said
Bob Zimmerman, executive director of the association.
"And we certainly possess the technology to do that."
Bina Venkataraman can be reached at
bvenkataraman@globe.com
Don't Trash Big Boxes, Repackage
Them!
BY JOEL
GARREAU - WASHINGTON POST STAFF WRITER | SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2008
The Washington Post assembled a team of artists, architects, engineers and
developers to think creatively about what to do with spaces once occupied by big
box stores -- our most common, underrated and increasingly available major
buildings. Below are some of their ideas. |
Read More About the Project Here
Build a Town in the Parking Lot
By Christopher B. Leinberger and Darrel Rippeteau
 Enlarge
Image
As a developer, what Leinberger hates about parking lots is that they just sit
there not making him any money. Fortunately, that can be fixed. The vast acreage
of big-box parking lots seems almost providentially proportioned to be turned
into walkable city blocks, he says. What you have to do is lay these blocks out
with parking garages at their core, and encrust those with an outer layer of
shops and apartments on all sides. That makes one block. Put together a whole
bunch of these blocks, with the shops and apartments facing each other across
the newly defined streets, and you've got a chunk of city. As it happens,
prefabricated parking deck trusses span about 60 feet. So let's say you make
your parking deck a loaf 60 feet wide and 120 feet deep. If you face it on all
sides with shops that are 50 feet deep, well, voilà -- you've got yourself a
walkable city block, with just enough space left over for sidewalks, bike lanes
and streets. Then you build apartments or offices over the shops. Didn't you
always want to live a croissant's throw away from a Target? We thought so. The
great challenge is that big-box stores always have excellent automobile
accessibility. So there's that enormous highway out there at the edge of your
former parking lot. You want to make that into a boulevard -- a Champs-Elysees.
The Estates at Place W
By Roger K. Lewis
Enlarge
Image
Windows? Windows? Big boxes don't need no stinking windows. If humans want to
live in this building, however, they do. So the first thing is to core out the
center of the big box, so you have a garden open to the sky for people to look
into, suggests Roger K. Lewis, the emeritus professor of architecture at the
University of Maryland who writes The Post's Shaping the City column.
By Roger K. Lewis
Enlarge
Image
The exterior walls are not hard to punch windows into -- structurally, they're
just steel uprights sometimes reinforced with diagonal struts. Then you punch
skylights in over the interior walkways, and the apartments almost start laying
themselves out. You add a balcony here, a second floor there, a sleeping loft
over yonder, and you're looking at the niftiest affordable housing ever. Unless
you make them too nice. Then the yuppies are going to want to move in, and there
goes the neighborhood.
The Garden of Gaithersburg
Decide for yourself what this says about the zeitgeist, but everybody wanted to
make these things into gardens. You want a growth industry? This takes the "eat
local" movement to a whole new level.
By Darrel Rippeteau.
Enlarge Left |
Enlarge Right
Organic gardeners routinely lay down weed-suppressing black plastic into which
they poke holes to plant their seeds. Asphalt is just like that, only a little
thicker, observes Darrel Rippeteau, principal of Rippeteau Architects. So in the
process of creating a truck garden (below), the parking lot becomes an orchard.
Under the parking lot you find an elaborate network of drainage pipes -- if you
think big-box owners want to see women in high heels slipping on ice, you are
out of your mind. In its new incarnation, the system collects rainwater for
irrigation. In fact, the water can be piped into the fire-suppression sprinkler
system in the big box, which now serves as a monster mister. (You could also go
hydroponic.) Much of the roof, of course, has become glass or translucent
plastic. Those gigunda halogens make great grow lights. The concrete slab floor
works as a heat sump. Major-league climate control comes with the package. Much
of the produce is packed up in the back and shipped to farmers' markets. But you
can also pick your own.
Once it sinks in how big that roof is, one's thoughts quickly turn to solar
voltaic, as demonstrated by Phil Esocoff, principal of the architecture firm
Esocoff and Associates, who also adds a recharging area for electric cars and a
veneer of apartments for people who really want to get near their groceries. He
also specifies that everything be easily disassembled and moved as the economics
of the box location changes. Once you get into how high those ceilings are,
Harold Linton's mind turned to letting the grow space of the big box become the
Virginia Arbor Conservatory. Yes, trees. Linton is chair of George Mason
University's Department of Art and Visual Technology. Or how about a vineyard?
Rusty Meadows, an engineer by training who is director of the Washington office
of Perkins + Will, an outfit that specializes in commercial buildings, loves the
idea of the Clos de Germantown.
Variation on a Garden
(Esocoff & Associates|Architects)
Enlarge
Image
This additional garden transformation is the work of Esocoff & Associates. The
vast roof supports solar voltaics, which enables not only a greenhouse, but a
recharging area for electric cars, and a veneer of apartments for people who
really want to get near their groceries. Everything is designed to be easily
disassembled and moved as the economics of the box location changes.
The SoHo of the Suburbs
By Peter Winant and Tom AshcraftEnlarge
Image
Give this assignment to artists and they start thinking about buildings
comparable to circus tents that are sitting in former rail yards and pretty soon
they wind up with ideas for artists living and working and exhibiting that are
possibly unlike any other on Earth. Peter Winant and Tom Ashcraft are both
sculptors and associate chairs of the Department of Art and Visual Technology at
George Mason. Thinking about how "the circus tent opens and folds and closes,"
they got the idea to open up both ends of the big box, and start rolling in
railroad freight cars and trailer-size freight containers. They're cheap, fairly
maneuverable and stackable, like a kid's blocks.
If you pile two or more, the upper ones can be for living and eating and
entertaining, and the lower ones given over to studios where the art is made.
The big center sliding doors of the freight cars can open up to galleries in
which the public interacts with the work of the artists.
By Peter Winant and Tom AshcraftEnlarge
Image
The ways you stack these things in turn define courtyards and stages and display
spaces where people can sit and converse and make music and have small-scale
performances. The inside space would transition to the outdoor space, which
could be filled with basketball courts, tennis courts, gardens and green space.
All of this would be the product of artists' hands, work and money. Nothing
would cost any single artist much more than $30,000 or $40,000, Winant
estimates.
But wait a minute, you say. If you open up the ends of the big box to the
weather, even if you have a roof, won't that place get awfully cold in the
winter? "They'll have wood stoves," says Winant. "They're artists, right?
They'll get pallets, break them up and burn them." After all, what is art
without suffering?
Hydroponic Truck Farm Market
(By Darrel Rippeteau )Enlarge
Image
Architect Darrel Rippeteau suggests a garden center that provides seasonal
vegetables and fruits to local markets.
The big box stores' roofing panels could be swapped out for translucent
skylights. Consumers could walk through the space to browse the offerings as at
any standard farmers market, or make drive-through purchases with the aid of a
small road through the middle of the space.
Fruits and vegetables could be grown hydroponically and continuously all year,
allowing for good horticultural practices. The space's existing sprinkler system
would become a mechanism for daily watering.
La Vigne de la Grande BoÎte
(By Rusty Meadows and Tammi Kim)Enlarge
Image
Imagine a big box in which the roof as well as the parking lots are covered with
wine grapes.
That's what Rusty Meadows and Tammy Tim, of the Washington office of Perkins +
Will, did.
The interior of the big box has plenty of space for a retail outlet as well as
areas for bottling, case storage, processing and shipping. It also features a
wine-making school and a cafe.
Virginia Arbor Conservatory
By Harold Linton
Enlarge
Image
An expansive selection of plants native to Virginia grow inside and outside this
tree-hugger's paradise. The facility's roof has been rolled back to form skylit
portals for various groupings of trees and plants. The space would serve as both
a commercial outlet for shoppers and an educational institute for individuals
and communities seeking to learn more about landscape concepts and environmental
applications to residential and commercial design plans.
(By Darrel Rippeteau)Enlarge
Image
Got Your Own Suggestions?
We'd like to hear our readers' ideas for future uses of big box store space.
E-mail your plan in words and/or an illustration to us at
style@washpost.com.
Be sure to include the phrase "Big Box" in the subject line of your message.
Undeveloped watershed
• November 13, 2008
It's good to see that clean water and common sense prevailed in the sale of an
undeveloped 30-acre property that drains right into the Village of Mount Kisco's
main drinking-water supply. Mount Kisco now plans to buy the property near Byram
Lake for $475,000 and preserve it as open space.
The property is owned by the Rene Dubos Center for Human Environments, which,
despite its name, is not an environmental organization, but one devoted to
education and research. The center had sought to sell the land to Michael
Cappelli, a luxury housing developer and brother of Westchester's
mega-developer, Louis Cappelli.
The Center and Cappelli had a deal worth $1.2 million, or more than twice the
current sale price, but that agreement couldn't withstand the loud objections to
the sale that came from many quarters, including officials from Mount Kisco and
neighboring North Castle, the Westchester county executive, the state Attorney
General's Office and the Westchester Land Trust.
Last year, the state Supreme Court ruled that the land had to be preserved. It
turns out that the Dubos center bought the wooded property in 1979 with $275,000
donated by the Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation and the DeWitt Wallace Fund for
the express purpose of preserving the land. The Meyer and Wallace families had
each owned large estates overlooking Byram Lake, and the property was
essentially in their backyards.
It has been clear since the ruling by state Supreme Court Justice W. Denis
Donovan that luxury housing would not be built on the property. What's still
left to figure out is whether some of those who helped block the development of
the land will pitch in and help Mount Kisco pay to keep the property wild. As
staff writer Sean Gorman noted in a story yesterday, the village plans to seek
partners in the purchase. Now is the time for the village's partners to rise to
the occasion.
A Journal News editorial
Please note article below:
1). A citizen complained and Jerry's concerns were dismissed as have so many of
our concerns over the years and our efforts ridiculed but here we have it eight
years after the original complaint and the regulatory agencies have finally
responded.
2). Additionally, what the excellent Elan article did not state was whether any
of the contaminants meandered into the adjoining site - the hotel, etc. Was
that site also thoroughly examined by the DEC? The hotel will have another claim
to fame: overlooking a toxic dump which can be seen from the heights of another
Camarda/Town extravanganza: The 321 unit senior Retreat at Stoneleigh which
according to Pulte representatives is experiencing "geo-techno" difficulties or
in the words of Tim Miller, "slope instability." I was there yesterday and for
$529,000 you can have a front row window seat, looking right at it, a few feet
from your doorstep. You cannot make it up.
By the way all of this instability has compelled an instability in site plans
with buildings being merged and moved but never the total reduced. (Any relation
to the original Camarda site plan as approved is purely coincidental).
Question: Has the DEP responded to resident complaints about the condition of
retaining walls, esp. after heavy rains (had to be rebuilt and reinforced around
the Club House) and possible malfunctioning of detention ponds? Ans. No. The
DEP was satisfied by the Town of Carmel's response that all is well at the
Retreat.
DEC poised to fine Putnam for old landfill, other environmental woes
By Susan Elan • The Journal News • August 10, 2008
The state Department of Environmental Conservation plans to fine Putnam County
for violations related to a long-unused county landfill in Carmel and other
breaches of environmental law, according to state and county officials.
A state order, not yet issued by the DEC, will require Putnam to clean up the
4-acre site off Old Route 6 where the county operated a landfill from April 1975
to July 1976. In addition, the state agency wants Putnam to devise a plan for
recycling, to replace a faulty wastewater treatment plant at the county-owned
Putnam National Golf Club in Mahopac and to correct violations involving bulk
storage of petroleum at county sites.
"The consent order is not finalized yet, so there is no information re: fines or
specific compliance information available at this time," DEC spokeswoman Wendy
Rosenbach wrote in an e-mail Friday.
"The main possible environmental impacts associated with the Putnam County
landfill are contaminated groundwater and contaminated sediments," Rosenbach
said.
The landfill lies within the New York City watershed and adjacent to property
where developer Paul Camarda proposed a hotel and conference center. Jaral
Properties Inc., a Garden City, Long Island, company, now owns the site.
County Legislator Sam Oliverio Jr., D-Putnam Valley, chairman of the Health,
Social, Educational and Environmental Committee, described the potential cost of
righting the environmental problems as "catastrophic" but said Putnam has no
choice but to correct them.
The DEC has been negotiating with Putnam over a number of environmental issues
for about 16 months, County Attorney Jennifer Bumgarner said last week. DEC
officials did not respond to inquiries about why they began enforcement action
against the county now.
The unanticipated county liabilities come as Putnam enters its 2009 budget
season, expected to be among the toughest in decades.
Rosenbach said Putnam had performed "some remedial measures" at the "unlined
municipal landfill." They include site regrading, improvement of surface
drainage and installation of engineering controls including dry wells and
trenches to control "leachate discharges" (the liquid that drains or leaches
from a landfill), she said. The county's measures reduced but have not
eliminated the discharges, she said.
A 1991 DEC report described leachate at the landfill as a "reddish-brown"
liquid containing, among other things, toluene and phenol - toxic solvents that
are potent cancer-causing organic compounds. The report said the discharged
liquid from the landfill entered Michael's Brook near the Middle Branch
Reservoir.
Suggestions for remediation at that time included capping the landfill and a
leachate collection system. Estimated costs ranged from $1.1 million to $2.4
million.
Instead, the county had a 2-foot-thick layer of cover soil installed,
Rosenbach said Friday. She did not say what year that took place or whether the
DEC had approved that option. Portions of the cover soil have eroded, exposing
the solid waste in the landfill, Rosenbach said.
The dump figured on the DEC's list of inactive hazardous-waste sites in 1987 but
it was later removed.
Mahopac resident Jerry Ravnitsky said on Friday he contacted the DEC and county
and Carmel officials with his concerns about pollution from the former landfill
in 2000 when Camarda planned to buy 19 acres of town-owned land near the
landfill for development of the hotel complex and other ventures. His concerns
were dismissed, Ravnitsky said.
The former county dump operated on land belonging to Saul Shapiro, a builder
based in Ossining, and his partner, Emil Landau. The dump was closed in the
mid-1970s after the state Commission of Investigation found that a former county
official had acted illegally by brokering the deal to run the dump between the
county and the property owners.
In 1987, Shapiro sued Putnam, seeking damages and cleanup costs under a federal
environmental law that holds operators of dumps responsible for cleanup. The
county argued that it contracted with a third party to operate the dump and was
thus not responsible.
In 1991, Putnam settled the lawsuit for $100,000. The county acquired the
deed to the property in 1994 over the strenuous objections of County Executive
Robert Bondi, who said it would prove costly for Putnam later.
Last week Bondi said the best remedy is to remove remaining waste from the site.
The county's environmental woes don't end there. Oliverio said his committee
will tackle the continued lack of a county recycling plan when it meets Aug. 19.
Putnam shut its only recycling facility - the Donald B. Smith County Government
Campus off Old Route 6 in Carmel - in April to save money. Bondi said it is up
to the towns to provide recycling, or residents can have it picked up by their
private hauler. DEC officials say Putnam must provide an alternative to private
pickup.
County fuel storage tanks also have come under DEC scrutiny. Under a mandate
from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the DEC is required to inspect
fuel tanks in Putnam with a capacity of 1,100 gallons or more for proper storage
and handling of petroleum to prevent leaks and spills.
Some Putnam tanks don't comply with regulations, but DEC officials have not
revealed what the violations entail.
The DEC cited Putnam Valley in 2006 and again in April for oil tank storage
violations with a warning that penalties could amount to $37,000 a day.
The DEC also wants Putnam to replace a sewage treatment plant at Putnam
National, the 374-acre country club the county bought in December 2003 using
$11.35 million in New York City Department of Environmental Protection watershed
money. Bondi said last week that the DEP had agreed as part of the deal to fix
the club's leaking sewage plant.
"We pumped out the system to try to limit the pollution," Bondi said. "But we
have been waiting for the DEP to upgrade the sewage treatment plant. New York
City has not begun the upgrade."
DEP officials did not respond to calls for comment.
Reach Susan Elan at 845-228-2277 or
selan@lohud.com.
Putnam
Valley, landowner at war over use of Cimarron Ranch
By Susan Elan • The Journal News • July 20, 2008
PUTNAM VALLEY -
The green street sign at an entrance to the 450-acre Cimarron Ranch reads
"Vineyard Trail" and a painted wooden sign welcoming visitors to the property is
labeled "Valley View Organics."
But several hundred feet up the wide dirt entry road, the scene is anything but
bucolic. A backhoe loads dirt into a 10-wheeler. Mountains of hacked-up tree
stumps, leaves, roots and branches stretch along one side of a muddy clearing.
On the other side, tires and boulders are strewn over a denuded hillside.
Residents say property owner Alexander Kaspar has transformed their wooded
neighborhood into an industrial zone where rock grinding, earth moving,
clear-cutting and wood chipping go on from sun up to sun down six days a week.
Sundays and evenings when heavy machinery and chain saws are not in use,
motorcycles and ATVs tear over roads carved out of once-tree-covered hillsides,
further disturbing their tranquility, they say.
"There's an explosion of steel as construction debris, rocks and landscape
debris are dumped into steel Dumpsters," said Lawrence Zarcone, a nearby
neighbor and Sproutbrook Road resident since 1972. "They pound at this debris
with heavy equipment."
Zarcone estimates that 30 to 40 trucks a day "barrel through" the neighborhood
"destroying the roads" and endangering the children who live there.
"We can't sit outside near the swimming pool," he said. "Our quality of life has
diminished and the value of our homes has diminished greatly."
Next month, Kaspar and Putnam Valley will face off in state Supreme Court in
Carmel in a case brought by the town in 2006 to stop what it describes as
"commercial and industrial activities" on a property reserved for agriculture.
The Appellate Division in Brooklyn recently upheld an injunction requested by
the town and granted in state Supreme Court ordering Kaspar to stop work at the
site. During Kaspar's appeal, the injunction was lifted. Since the Appellate
decision, noise and trucking activity have decreased, neighbors say. A trial
before state Supreme Court Justice Andrew O'Rourke is set for Aug. 18.
Kaspar said his good intentions have been misunderstood by the town and his
neighbors. He said he bought the 340-acre parcel about a year ago for $1 million
to save it from becoming a housing subdivision. Kaspar managed the property for
about a decade before purchasing it and other parcels that stretch from Putnam
Valley into Philipstown near the Appalachian Trail.
Kaspar said he wants to clear the land for a vineyard and plant evergreens and
ferns. He also plans to build greenhouses to grow organic vegetables and to
bring back horses to the property that many longtime residents fondly recall as
a place to ride, square-dance or have a drink in a Western-motif saloon.
The aging Western-style buildings, once used for movie backdrops, are now
covered with fading and peeling paint. The barn is empty and the riding ring is
overgrown with weeds. An old metal horse trough stands empty on its side with
holes rotting through its bottom.
"There are no ferns or fruit trees," said Town Supervisor Robert Tendy, a
criminal attorney. "He grinds tree stumps to make mulch and sells the mulch.
That's not agriculture."
Marco Gennarelli, supervisor of public works in Croton-on-Hudson, said the
village sends 60 to 70 truckloads a year of leaves, grass and tree branches to
Kaspar's property at a price of $250 per vehicle.
"It's strictly organic," Gennarelli said.
Last month Putnam Valley got permission to dig at Kaspar's property in
preparation for a court hearing. The dig turned up unprotected oil tanks,
samples of asbestos, insulation, flooring materials, pipes for plumbing,
electrical wiring, marble counter tops and other buried building materials,
Tendy said.
They are the remains of an old building that he was ordered to take down, Kaspar
said.
Wendy Rosenbach, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental
Conservation, said the agency is investigating.
But Carmel attorney Robert Lusardi, Putnam Valley's special counsel in the
lawsuit against Kaspar, said the town is frustrated with all the foot dragging.
Complaints about zoning violations at the property date as far back as 2001.
They include allowing contractors to dump debris, illegal logging, filling in
wetlands, storing forbidden items such as air-conditioning equipment on the
land, renting space to businesses not allowed on the site and maintaining an
unsafe building.
Mark Fang, Kaspar's White Plains lawyer, said his client was cited with 31 town
code violations between 2005 and 2006, but 30 of them were dismissed by the town
justice court.
"His contention is that his activities do not violate town code," Fang said. "He
took a plea for the house demolition and paid a $300 fine."
The town's "limited success" in the local court is the result of the property's
inclusion in the county's Agricultural District because that trumps local laws,
Lusardi said.
In May, troubled by "sand and gravel excavation and removal operations" and
"heavy trucks constantly delivering construction debris to the premises for
disposition," Putnam's Agriculture and Farmland Protection Board asked Patrick
Hooker, commissioner of the state Department of Agriculture and Markets, to
confirm that Kaspar's activities "seriously conflict" with the requirements for
an agricultural district.
In a June 11 letter to Tendy, Hooker wrote that Kaspar's use of cleared land "to
compost municipal yard waste … does not appear to be agriculturally related."
This month, Tendy asked the Putnam Legislature, which had included the property
in the county agricultural district, to revoke its designation as farmland. But
he was told there is no procedure to do so before a review scheduled for 2011.
"They would not pull the status because there are no procedures to allow them to
review early," Tendy said.
Kaspar said he expects things to go smoothly now that he has "thrown out" a
tenant who was "doing things to abuse the property." Once the court case is
settled, he said he will proceed with plans to clear land for pastures at the
former dude ranch.
But Kaspar remained adamant about his right to do with his property as he sees
fit, including selling off its old stone walls.
"I used them to pay my attorney fees and taxes," he said.
Because it is classified as vacant farmland, Kaspar is not taxed for the
businesses he is running on the property, Tendy said.
"He's paying less than he should be for running a commercial operation," Tendy
said.
Dutchess considers bonding for more open space preservation
POUGHKEEPSIE – Since Dutchess County began its open space preservation program a
number of years ago, it has preserved a dozen properties and the county
administration has asked the county legislature to consider bonding for
$1.6 million for additional properties.
The Environment Committee debated the issue with County Planning Commissioner
Roger Akeley Thursday.
“We have completed 12 open space and farmland acquisitions and that amounts to
about 1,600 acres of farmland and 382 acres of public open space,” he said. Now,
the administration is asking for approval to make seven more purchases.
But, some members of the Democratic majority on the legislature said they
resented Republican County Executive William Steinhaus’ inference that they are
opposed to open space preservation.
Lawmakers are going to further discuss the issue on Monday.
Also to be discussed then is authorizing $10 million in bonding for parks and
park facilities.
DAILY NEWS FROM
INSIDEEPA.COM - TUESDAY,
JUNE 17, 2008
EPA Proposes Language To Narrow Scope Of Democrats' Clean Water Bill
EPA is urging key lawmakers to scale back legislation that
would expand the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which supporters are
pushing as a way to clarify which waters are subject to EPA regulation in the
wake of recent high court rulings that created uncertainty about the law's
regulatory scope.
EPA water chief Ben Grumbles, together with Army Assistant
Secretary of Civil Works John Paul Woodley Jr. outlined concerns with the
legislation in a letter last month to House Transportation & Infrastructure
Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN).
The House bill, H.R. 2421, and its Senate companion, S.
1870, would make all waters of the
United States subject to regulation by EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, rather than just “navigable waters." Supporters of the legislation
say it is necessary to restore the integrity of the water act following Supreme
Court decisions in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and a separate high court case, Rapanos, et ux., et
al. v. United States, which both created lingering regulatory uncertainty
about federal jurisdiction over some marginal wetlands and other waters.
But scores of lawmakers, industry and municipal officials
have expressed concern the bill would expand the CWA beyond the act’s original
congressional intent.
At a marathon, 23-witness hearing earlier this year,
Oberstar expressed a willingness to consider altering provisions of the
legislation, saying he hopes to treat the bill as a “working draft” and offering
to change language to win over some lawmakers who are sitting on the fence
deciding whether to support the bill.
After the hearing, Oberstar asked Grumbles and the other
witnesses to provide “specific legislative suggestions” for revising the bill,
including language protecting “geographically isolated, intrastate waters, and
intermittent, ephemeral and headwater streams” to the extent these waters were
protected before the high court rulings.
In their letter, Grumbles and Woodly suggest that removing
the word “navigable” from the CWA would be a mistake, as the term “provides an
important indication of Congress’s intended basis of authority in enacting the
statute, and serves to bolster the regulatory framework that continues to
support our jurisdictional determinations.”
The officials also raise concerns that some current
exemptions to CWA regulation would not be covered by H.R. 2421, including prior
converted cropland and certain waste treatment systems. While the CWA regulates
“discharges” to water from a point source, the legislation uses the term
“activities.” Oberstar appeared amenable to changing the word “activities”
during the April hearing.
Additionally, EPA and the Corps in the letter express a
desire to make unspecified additions to the CWA to promote state takeover of
wetlands conservation plans, and to extend permit terms from five years to ten.
“In order to further enhance the state role in promoting
wetland conservation, we would support targeted legislative revisions designed
to promote state assumption of wetlands conservation within federal
jurisdiction,”the officials write.
And issuing new permits every five years “does not always
yield substantive improvements to the permits but often delays timely reissuance
and can result in lack of permit coverage for the regulated public,” the letter
says.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Council of the States (ECOS)
sent a May 28 letter to Oberstar expressing its desire to see Congress “restore
the definition of waters covered by the Clean Water Act.”
The state group also echoes EPA’s cry for more state
oversight of wetlands conservation, saying, “the States believe the 404 section
of the Act needs to be amended in order to facilitate the delegation of the
program from [the Corps and EPA].” ECOS notes “two primary obstacles to
delegation,” saying EPA is prohibited from funding implementation of the 404
program, and that partial or incremental delegation of power to states is not
allowed.
ECOS, however, supports removing the term “navigable” from
the CWA’s definition of regulated waters, suggesting that all such references in
the law be changed to “waters of the
U.S.,” with exception of “use of the water by commercial and other
shipping,” where the group says the term may remain.
 
Westchester Land Trust
Westchester
Land Trust is thrilled to announce one of the biggest land preservation deals
ever in Westchester County. Working with a private-public partnership, we've
protected 690 acres at the Valeria community in Cortlandt, forever.
The project was completed by Westchester Land Trust and its Cortlandt Land Trust
chapter, AVR Homebuilders of Yonkers, the Town of Cortlandt and Valeria's
Dickerson Pond Association.
The protected land stretches across a beautiful landscape that includes the
43-acre Dickerson Pond (that's it in the photo above) and the 740-foot Dickerson
Mountain. By protecting the land, the project's partners are protecting critical
watershed lands, wildlife habitat and scenic vistas.
We've got all the details on our website,
Westchesterlandtrust.org.
For more
about our activities and organization, visit
our new website
Land trusts toast new preserve
By
Michael Risinit
The Journal News • May 23, 2008
PUTNAM VALLEY - The excursion yesterday
began in Putnam Valley, where an overgrown
hay field met the edge of Indian Hill Road.
The group of land preservationists and their
benefactors rambled along an old farm road,
through a shrubby, invasive mix of
multiflora rose, honeysuckle and oriental
bittersweet, broken occasionally by a pocket
of sugar maples and other trees.
They stopped on the south side of a stone
wall marking the border between Putnam and
Westchester counties. There, representatives
of the Westchester Land Trust, Putnam County
Land Trust and Yorktown Land Trust offered
their praise and thanks to the Danners, who
donated the 28 acres, and assurances it
would be protected forever.
"Places like this are very important for
everybody," Judy Terlizzi, president of the
Putnam trust, told the group. "Being able to
get out and be in nature is one of the most
healing things for all of us."
Gene and Josephine Danner of Suffolk County
gave their land to the Westchester Land
Trust. The property straddles the
Westchester-Putnam line, with about half the
acreage in each county. The Putnam and
Yorktown trusts own conservation easements
on the portions in their counties.
The Danner Family Preserve will be
Westchester Land Trust's eighth preserve
open to the public for hiking and other
passive pursuits. As Tom Andersen, the
Westchester trust's communications director,
spoke, a bevy of birds tucked away in the
brush provided a soundtrack. The cooing of
mourning doves, the scream of blue jays and
the flute-like notes of a wood thrush
floated through the air.
The last bird caught Andersen's attention.
The Danners owned the land for more than
four decades, buying it just as its farming
use ended. A young forest of shrubs and
saplings is now replacing the the fields and
attracting species that wouldn't necessarily
benefit from the region's mostly maturing
forests. Wood thrushes, which are considered
a declining species by the National Audubon
Society, can depend on the edge of forests
and shrubby areas to nest.
"It's a good habitat for birds that are
declining locally," Andersen said.
The Danners envisioned building their
retirement home on the property, some of the
only flat acreage fronting Indian Hill Road,
or subdividing it. Preserving it ended up
being the right decision.
"This is the greatest treasure we've gotten
out of this, owning it for 44 years," Gene
Danner said.
The land sits close to the Donald Trump
State Park-Indian Hill section, part of 436
acres the billionaire developer donated to
the state in 2006. Large, green signs on the
nearby Taconic State Parkway alert drivers
to that park.
"I can't guarantee the Danner name will be
on the Taconic Parkway but it should be,"
Yorktown Councilman Nicholas Bianco told the
couple.
Reach Michael Risinit at
mrisinit@lohud.com or 845-228-2274
Shad-less festival highlights river's plight
By Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy • The Journal
News • May 19, 2008
GARRISON - Like lilacs and tulips, the
American shad has long been a symbol of
spring, a time when the fry returned from
the ocean to spawn in the warm temperatures
of the Hudson River.
The environmental group Riverkeeper first
used the opportunity 19 years ago to
celebrate the bounty of the Hudson by
organizing an annual Shad Festival to raise
awareness of the health of the river.
In addition to locally grown organic
produce, one of the main festival food draws
was the whole broiled shad, a fish with
thick flesh and a sweet taste, and shad roe,
a springtime delicacy.
But there was no shad served at the Shad
Fest yesterday at Boscobel in Garrison.
The reason: A study commissioned by
Riverkeeper found a 90 percent drop in the
American shad numbers in the Hudson over the
last 20 years.
"I'm bummed out, man," said Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., the chief prosecuting attorney
and a member of the board of directors of
Riverkeeper. "The American shad were once so
plentiful. Now they have disappeared."
Festivalgoers didn't seem to mind the
shad-less fest.
"They are absolutely right to not serve
shad," said Mary Callan of Grandview, who
attended the event with her husband and four
daughters. "We support their efforts to save
the environment."
Mindy Kimball of West Point watched a
falconer talk about various birds with her
son, Daniel, 5.
"He is very impressionable right now and
very receptive to ideas about recycling, and
so anything that brings him closer to nature
is a good thing," Kimball said.
This year, Riverkeeper is launching a new
campaign to rescue the shad - and nine other
imperiled Hudson River fish - and restore
their numbers to sustainable levels.
The serious decline in the Hudson's shad
population forced the state this year to set
severe limits on
commercial fisherman and ban
recreational shad fishing.
John Lipscomb, a patrol boat operator for
Riverkeeper, said shad conservation efforts,
if restricted only to the Hudson River,
might not yield good results.
"It has to be the whole eastern seaboard -
from Canada to Florida," Lipscomb said.
Beth Whipple, a Croton-on-Hudson woman who
attended the event, is happy to do her part.
"To be honest with you, I always found it
strange when they served shad the last few
years," she said. "If we are trying to
rescue them, then why are we eating them?"
Reach Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy at
svenugop@lohud.com or 914-694-5004.
Bill Robinson shows off a Harris hawk during
the 19th annual Riverkeeper Shad Festival
and Hudson River Celebration at Boscobel
Restoration in Garrison. (Ricky Flores/The
Journal News)
On the Web
Photo Gallery: 2008 Shad Festival
![The Town of New Scotland is often referred to as "the jewel of Albany County."](http://www.nylcv.org/sites/nylcv.civicactions.net/files/images/new%20scotland.jpg "The Town of New Scotland is often referred to as "the jewel of Albany County."")
The Town of
New Scotland is often referred to as "the
jewel of Albany County."
The Times-Union reports
that residents of New Scotland voiced opposition
to big-box development for hours before the Town
Board passed a unanimous moratorium on building
projects over 30,000 square feet.
New Scotlanders for Sound Economic
Development handed the board about
2,500 signatures from residents opposing the
retail complex, which was proposed to be built
on a cornfield in the center of the town.
About three dozen speakers took turns
denouncing the development, interrupted with
numerous standing ovations from the crowd, which
numbered over 500 people and packed
Voorheesville High School, where the meeting was
held.
Conservation center welcomes wolf pups
By Rob Ryser
The Journal News • May 12, 2008
SOUTH SALEM - The wolf pens deep in the woods
overlooking this community might appear to be the
eccentric contraptions of a philanthropist.
But to peer into the puckered face of a week-old pup
that holds all the promise of a species' survival is to
know something momentous has happened at the Wolf
Conservation Center.
The center's first pups have been born to pairs of
Mexican gray wolves - one of the rarest mammals in the
country - giving this nonprofit conservation and
education organization its biggest thrill since it was
founded in 1999.
"It's incredible because it is the culmination of years
of work," said curator Rebecca Bose, who pulled seven
pups from their den to give them a one-week checkup late
last month. "It was one of the greatest things I have
ever done."
The healthy newborn pups - four males and three females
born to two females in late April - are cuddly products
of a tenuous and controversial federally supervised
effort to reintroduce wolves to the American Southwest.
A mere 50 Mexican gray wolves are living in the wild,
making them a critically endangered species. And 350
more wolves are being held for breeding and release in
zoos and wolf centers across the country, including
South Salem.
"These pups make us one of the largest holding areas in
the East for Mexican gray wolves," said Maggie Howell,
the managing director of the wolf center, swatting May
flies from her face one morning as schoolchildren made
their way up the hill for an educational presentation.
"The fact that we went from zero wolves to 25 in such a
short time is a big deal."
The mission, a vision of French pianist Helen Grimaud
and photographer J. Henry Fair, is seen as worthy
conservation work to some -particularly those in the
East - but in states such as Montana, Wyoming and Idaho,
wolves are viewed as a threat to the ranchers, farmers
and hunters whose ancestors began the first campaigns to
exterminate them hundreds of years ago.
All the more reason why wolf pups are so valuable,
conservationists say.
Except for the paws, and perhaps the jaws, the pups have
every appearance of man's best friend. And the way they
are heralded at the center, they would certainly seem to
be.
But don't expect a glimpse of them if you visit the wolf
center.
The only wolves visitors may see are the so-called
ambassadors. A pack of four, all with names, the
ambassador wolves are comfortable enough around people
to visit gymnasiums as well as put on howling displays
in a special visitor's section on the 28-acre center.
Atka, the center's traveling ambassador wolf, recently
drew more than 100 people in a two-day appearance at
Borders in Mount Kisco that was partly to raise money
for the soon-to-be-born pups.
The other wolves that are candidates to be released have
minimal contact with people to preserve their healthy
fear of humans.
"People, roads, ranches, cars, pets - we want the wolves
to be uninterested in them," Howell said. "Making sure
these wolves are best equipped to live in the wild means
keeping them away from anything associated with humans."
Yet is is hard to come to the center and not feel a
connection with the creatures.
"How often can you have this in Westchester? Never,"
said Ed Thompson, 80, of North Salem, a wolf center
volunteer and the former editor in chief of Reader's
Digest. "And this is just the beginning."
Reach Rob Ryser at
rryser@lohud.com or 914-666-6489.
Candidates lining up for Putnam Legislature
By Susan Elan • The Journal News • May 10, 2008
Candidates are lining up to replace two of the three
Putnam County legislators who have decided not to seek
re-election in November.
Carmel Councilman Carmine DiBattista got the backing of
the Carmel Republican Committee in his bid to replace
longtime Legislator Robert McGuigan, R-Mahopac. But
DiBattista faces challenges from two Republican hopefuls
for the District 8 seat. Dini Lo Bue, a four-year member
of Carmel's Architectural Review Board, and Gary
Kiernan, a local businessman, have announced their
intentions to run.
Lynne Eckardt, Putnam Democratic chairwoman, said the
party is seeking a candidate for McGuigan's seat.
In Kent, the Republican Town Committee has endorsed Kent
historian Richard Othmer, a retired New York City
firefighter and a masonry contractor, to replace
Legislator Terry Intrary, R-Kent, who joined the
Legislature in 2000 and is not seeking re-election.
Othmer's late father, also Richard, was a six-term
Democratic supervisor of Carmel.
Former Democratic Kent Councilman Joseph D'Ambrosio has
the endorsement of town and county Democrats in his bid
for the District 3 seat.
Legislator Sam Oliverio, D-Putnam Valley, whose
three-year term is also up Dec. 31, plans to seek a
fifth term. Oliverio is the only Democrat on the
nine-member board.
McGuigan, a legislator since 1997, has faced criticism
for his chronic absenteeism from committee and full
legislative meetings during the last several years. He
missed the May 6 meeting of the full Legislature due to
the illness of one of his children, he said.
McGuigan, 50, said he supports term limits and will back
Kiernan, in part because of the respect he showed the
incumbent by waiting to enter the race until McGuigan
announced his decision to step down. That decision was
due in part, McGuigan said, to the open opposition
showed him by Putnam's Republican chairman, Anthony
Scannapieco Jr., who did not return a call for comment.
DiBattista, who now works as a marketing consultant,
cites 31 years of labor experience dealing with local,
county and state government and a master's degree in
public administration among his qualifications for
office. His service as a councilman has helped hone his
political skills, DiBattista said. His campaign will
focus on taxes.
"Taxpayers feel powerless and they are tired of
hearing about raising taxes when they can barely afford
the taxes that they pay now," DiBattista said. "We have
to look at other means of raising capital to operate
county government."
Lo Bue, a 38-year county resident, said she would bring
"innovative and creative solutions" to the fiscal
problems Putnam faces. Her suggestions to generate new
county revenue include stepping up tourism with "Bike
Putnam, Fish Putnam and Hike Putnam" campaigns and
better marketing of the county-owned Tilly Foster Farm
in Southeast and Putnam National Golf Club in Mahopac.
The county should establish a film commission, open a
film office to encourage movie-making, and open a
theater similar to the Jacob Burns Film Center in
Pleasantville, she said.
Kiernan said his qualifications include 30 years in
business administration "working with various city and
state agencies and negotiation and management of
numerous New York City and state contracts." Kiernan,
who also runs a family-owned automotive facility and
real-estate management company, said he would focus on
open government and illegal immigration.
Intrary, a retired Carmel police officer, said he would
support Othmer for his seat. Othmer, who is making his
first run for elected office, said finding new tenants
for the many vacant stores in Putnam would help reduce
the burden on county taxpayers.
"I'd like to work with the Economic Development
Committee to help get them filled and lessen the
property tax burden," he said.
Othmer said he would also focus on finding ways to help
the Sheriff's Department retain its staff instead of
seeing them leave for higher-paid departments.
D'Ambrosio, a political science professor at Marist
College and president of the Family Partnership Center,
both in Poughkeepsie, said his professional experience
combined with eight years of service on the Kent council
make him well-suited to fulfill the responsibilities of
legislator. He would call for a charter revision and
greater consolidation of services between towns. The
county budget could be reduced through consolidation and
by eliminating patronage jobs, he said.
Oliverio hopes to remain on the board in part to provide
the institutional memory needed as its composition
shifts to the recently elected.
Legislators are paid $35,136 a year. Their benefits
package, including medical insurance, can bring the
value of their annual compensation to $60,746.
Reach Susan Elan at
selan@lohud.com or 845-228-2277.
New EPA Standards Would
Cut Amount Of Lead in the Air
Agency Scientists Urge Stricter Limits
By
Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 2, 2008; Page A02
The
Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed
tightening the federal limits for lead in the air, but
the proposal fell short of what its own scientists said
is required to protect public health.
Lead, which is emitted by smelters, mining, aviation
fuel and waste incinerators, can enter the bloodstream
and affect young children's development and IQ, as well
as cause cardiovascular, blood pressure and kidney
problems in adults. The United States has not changed
its atmospheric lead standards in 30 years, but the Bush
administration is under a court order to issue new rules
by September.
U.S. emissions of lead have dropped from 74,000 tons a
year three decades ago to 1,300 tons a year now, largely
because leaded gasoline was taken off the market. Since
1990, however, more than 6,000 studies have examined the
impact of lead on public health and the environment and
have revealed that it has harmful effects at lower
concentrations than previously thought.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, EPA
Deputy Administrator Marcus C. Peacock announced that
the agency is proposing to cut the current standard of
1.5 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air to a range
of between 0.10 and 0.30 micrograms per cubic meter.
"We are writing the next chapter in America's clean air
story," Peacock said, adding the new standard would be
"up to 93 percent stronger than the current standard."
Environmentalists criticized the administration for
proposing a range of lead levels that exceeds what an
independent scientific advisory panel and the EPA's
scientific staff identified as the maximum amount of
lead that should be in the air. Both groups said the new
standard should not exceed 0.20 micrograms of lead per
cubic meter of air, and EPA staff members said it could
be set as low as 0.02 micrograms.
The two groups also recommended that the agency average
lead emissions from any given source over a single
month, rather than over three months, as EPA officials
proposed yesterday.
Avinash Kar, an attorney for the advocacy group
Natural Resources Defense Council, called the rule
"a flawed proposal" even though it is "moving in the
right direction."
"According to EPA projections, emissions of 60 pounds of
lead from a single pollution source could cause a median
loss of up to three IQ points in children," Kar said.
"Thousands of children across the United States live
near lead plants emitting more than 60 pounds of lead
every year. In fact, some plants emit tons of lead
annually."
Frank O'Donnell, who heads the advocacy group Clean
Air Watch, said the agency engaged in "statistical
trickery" by providing a range of possible lead limits
and lengthening the period over which polluters could
average the amount of lead they put into the air.
But Rogene Henderson, who chairs the independent air
advisory committee, said she was pleased with EPA's
decision. "They heard us," she said.
Robert J. Meyers, principal deputy assistant
administrator at the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation,
said officials tried to "tease out" how much of the lead
in the air comes from atmospheric emissions, as opposed
to the lead in pipes, paint and other sources. Adults
and children inhale lead from the air, which then works
its way into the bloodstream from the lungs, but people
can also ingest lead that has been deposited in the soil
or on surfaces in the home.
The EPA estimates that the proposed rule would apply to
16,000 sources of lead nationwide and, depending on what
standard is eventually adopted, between 12 and 23 U.S.
counties would fail to meet the stricter standards.
Jeffrey R. Holmstead, who directed the EPA's office of
air and radiation from 2001 to 2005 and now heads the
environmental strategies group at the law firm Bracewell
&
Giuliani, said the 60-day comment period on the rule
that will start once it is published in the Federal
Register "will be even more important than usual."
"Most people thought the lead issue had been solved, and
it's only recently that people have begun to focus on
it," he said in an interview. "They're really taking
comment on a broad range here."
The agency is also soliciting comments on setting the
standard higher or lower than the proposed range, up to
0.50 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Putnam Valley deals with DEC
violations on underground oil tanks
By Barbara
Livingston Nackman
The Journal News • April 28, 2008
PUTNAM VALLEY - The Town Board has scheduled a special
meeting for tonight to discuss what action to take in
the wake of pending violations - and possibly thousands
of dollars in penalties - from a state agency concerned
about aging oil tanks buried under Town Hall.
The Department of
Environmental Conservation cited the municipality
with a violation in 2006, and again April 9, for not
complying with petroleum bulk storage regulations, which
detail proper storage and handling of petroleum to
prevent leaks and spills. Last year, the agency stepped
up its efforts to bring properties with such underground
tanks into compliance with the law and turned its sights
this month on Putnam Valley.
At issue are the tanks at the Town Hall complex on
Oscawana Lake Road. Violations range from unregistered
tanks and no color coding on filling ports, to not
having leak monitoring on some tanks and failure to
report a spill. Town officials had attempted to move
ahead with remediation, according to a resolution
adopted in July 2006 that authorized the hiring of a
Newburgh-based consulting firm for $9,490. But the town
has not done so to the satisfaction of state inspectors,
who visited the site this month.
The town could be subject to penalties of $37,000 a day,
but it is more likely to pay a one-time penalty of
roughly $5,000 if it can produce a plan to quickly
remedy the situation, town officials said Friday.
DEC officials met with town officials Wednesday to
discuss a settlement agreement.
"It seems we are not in compliance and we are getting
details on how to change this," said Deputy Supervisor
Eugene Yetter Jr., who joined the board in January. "I
don't know much more now, but will by Monday."
The board is expected to meet with the town engineer and
others knowledgeable about tank storage at 5 p.m. at
Town Hall. The focus will be the violations, a
resolution authorizing the hiring of necessary
consultants or contractors or both, and the payment of a
penalty, according to a meeting agenda made available
Thursday. Because potential litigation is involved, the
board is expected to discuss some topics in executive
session.
Town Attorney William Zutt said Friday that a consent
order had been presented and that it needed to be
discussed.
"The town is trying to respond and react responsibly,"
he said, "but first we need to develop the history to
determine what needs to be done."
Under a mandate from the federal
Environmental Protection Agency, the DEC is required
to inspect tanks with a capacity of 1,100 gallons or
more, spokeswoman Wendy Rosenbach said. In Putnam, this
is done through the state agency, whereas in Westchester
and Rockland it is handled by the counties' health
departments. Because of the size of the tanks, most
properties that house them are municipal buildings,
schools or industrial-commercial centers.
"We do try to work with the property owner, in this case
the municipality, to resolve the issue. That is our
goal, not collecting fines," Rosenbach said. "We are
strict because a leak in a tank could result in possibly
contaminating water supplies or nearby properties."
Details about the Putnam Valley situation were not
immediately available because some members of the
state's technical staff were attending a conference
outside the office.
Reach Barbara Livingston Nackman at
bnackman@lohud.com
or 845-228-2272.
Officials Pleaded Guilty, but Town
Was Changed Forever
By
RONALD SMOTHERS
Published: July 11, 2005
MARLBORO TOWNSHIP, N.J., July 6 - The price of
corruption in this New Jersey town may best be seen in
the many rooflines that snake down Woodcliff Boulevard
at a uniform 25-foot setback from the curb. Or perhaps
in the postmodern stylings of the luxury five- and
six-bedroom homes in the planned community of Lexington
Estates.
Noah K. Murray/The Star-Ledger
Mayor Robert Kleinberg blames former officials for
Marlboro's overdevelopment.
Marlboro Township, N.J.
Marko Georgiev for The New York Times
The Woodcliff Estates is one of the township's
subdivisions.
Maybe another way to view it is in the population
increase, 100 percent in 15 years, to 40,000 today from
20,000 in 1990.
Or some say it can be summed up in one word: sprawl.
In the last decade, this Monmouth County suburb was
transformed from a town that was open and airy to one
that is condensed and clustered with new development
bordering new development - but where housing for
blue-collar families and others of moderate income is in
short supply.
Local, state and federal officials say the rapid
growth is not an accident but the consequence of
development that went largely unchecked because of
complicity between builders and local officials.
A federal inquiry into corruption in this town led to
the arrests of a former mayor, who pleaded guilty to
corruption charges this spring; a former utility
authority commissioner and Democratic leader, who on
Tuesday pleaded guilty to extortion and bribery charges;
and a local developer, who is charged with bribery. At
the same time, a flood of subpoenas have been served on
current and former town planning and zoning officials.
The arrests and subpoenas are part of a broader sweep of
Monmouth County that has led to 19 arrests or
indictments of elected and appointed officials or
contractors and three guilty pleas this year, with the
investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and
the office of United States Attorney Christopher J.
Christie continuing.
Investigators and current local officials say they
have identified a pattern in which some developers
received zoning variances to build sprawling,
high-profit housing subdivisions on land that had been
set aside for commercial development. In many cases,
they were able to build these subdivisions at higher
densities than would ordinarily have been allowed.
Often, developers, as well as local officials, justified
the rezoning and higher densities of the subdivisions by
citing the town's need to meet state goals for building
so-called affordable housing.
But what actually happened in most cases, said
lawyers for the town and current town officials, was a
shell game of land swaps in which units of low- and
moderate-income housing that were included in early
drafts of plans fell by the wayside, and the resulting
developments were solely market-rate housing at the
higher density anyway.
From 1995 to 2005, 3,388 new homes were built in this
33-square-mile town, much of which was made up of horse
farms and cornfields as recently as 20 years ago. Of
that number, only 184 homes that meet the state's
definition of affordable for moderate-income families
were built, far short of the 1,019 units that the
state's Council on Affordable Housing required to be
built by July 2004.
As a result, the township, which officials say has
already been strained by the surge in development, is
still required by the state to immediately build
additional units for low- and moderate-income residents.
Mayor Robert Kleinberg, who was a local gadfly until he
was elected in 2003 after the investigation of the
developers and the former mayor, has appealed to the
state to back off its requirement.
"We have argued that because a lot of the land-use
actions were criminal and the subject of ongoing
investigations, that we should be allowed to put it off
for a time," Mr. Kleinberg said." We haven't met our
goals because of all the manipulation and wheeling and
dealing by town officials and developers."
Mr. Kleinberg and other officials say that the last
thing the town needs right now is more housing. In
addition to a glut of four- and five-bedroom homes, the
town is suffering from schools swelled to bursting,
congested local roads, and flooding and drainage
problems. He and other officials have said they will
build lower-price housing, but would like to put it off
until the federal inquiry is complete, and so they can
mix it with more taxable commercial properties that will
help ease burdens on residents. (The town carries
enormous debt because the previous administration chose
to borrow rather than raise taxes, Mr. Kleinberg said.)
Kathleen Cali, a resident for decades, asked: "What will
affordable housing do now but just increase the number
of people in a smaller area, kids in the school and
traffic on the roads?"
She added, "Sometimes I can't even get out of my
development because of the traffic. It seems that we are
going to suffer because of those wrong decisions made by
officials in the past."
April 7, 2008
Court halts Trump from working on North
Castle road
Chris Serico
The Journal News
A Westchester County Court judge Friday
issued an injunction that prevents Donald
Trump from doing maintenance on a part of
Oregon Road that he wants to use as access
to potential luxury housing he would build
on his Seven Springs estate.
Neighbors and the Nature Conservancy, which
owns part of Oregon Road through the Meyer
Nature Preserve, objected last month when
Trump's workers cleared and graded part of
the road, which was closed to the public in
the 1990s and has overgrown into a hiking
path. Lawyers opposing Trump challenged the
real estate mogul's claim that he has an
easement over the road that gives him access
to Seven Springs.
Trump has been pursuing a 2006 lawsuit that
seeks a court declaration that he has an
unfettered right to use the road. Friday's
order by Westchester County Court Judge Rory
Bellantoni in White Plains halts maintenance
on the road until the lawsuit is decided.
Bellantoni was prepared to issue a
preliminary injunction March 18, but after
objections by Trump's attorneys, issued a
temporary restraining order and decided to
allow more time for arguments. After
listening to more than three hours of
arguments Friday, he said vehicular traffic
on Oregon Road would damage property and the
"nature" of the conservancy.
"There would be irreparable harm by opening
the street," Bellantoni added.
"I think it's great news and we're pleased
that the injunction was decided in our
favor," said Katie Dolan, executive director
of the Nature Conservancy.
Before the decision, Nature Conservancy
attorney Leonard Benowich said, "Altering
the natural state of the land can't be
compensated for (with) money."
Bellantoni said the law required him to have
the Nature Conservancy post a bond to
"consider actual damages by the injunction."
The judge set the amount at $100,000 after
Trump's attorneys requested $1 million and
the Nature Conservatory's attorney requested
$1,000.
Alfred E. Donnellan, one of Trump's
attorneys, said afterward that he was
disappointed and that they would be "trying
to move the case forward."
Oregon Road resident Amy Fenno celebrated
the decision, but said she and her neighbors
would be wary about what subsequent action
Trump might take.
"We know that with Mr. Trump it takes
forever for it to really be over," she said.
"We won't rest until we know he has no
intention of pursuing this road."
Trump filed a $300 million lawsuit in March
in state Supreme Court accusing North Castle
officials of impeding access to the road and
of trying to delay his housing plans. In
this latest lawsuit, he charges that the
town has infringed on his "right" to use the
road because of a gate on the path that the
town maintains.
Trump once planned a 17-home subdivision in
the Bedford and North Castle portions of
Seven Springs. The 213-acre estate runs
through those two towns as well as New
Castle.
Bedford officials had said that given the
size of the plan, he needed to have a second
emergency access road. Trump in 2006 sued to
get a ruling that he had a right to use
Oregon Road, but state Supreme Court Justice
John R. La Cava ruled that the road had been
shut down long ago and the time for
challenging its closure passed.
Trump then dropped his proposal to put homes
on the North Castle side of Seven Springs,
but continued to pursue building seven
luxury homes in Bedford, a plan currently
under review.
The Appellate Division Second Department in
February overturned La Cava, saying
abandoning a public road doesn't extinguish
private easement rights on it, and returned
the case to the lower court. Amid the
appellate ruling, Trump is again talking up
plans to put housing on the North Castle
side |
Stony Point considers a law to make
companies responsible for their environmental mess
By Akiko Matsuda • The Journal News • April 6, 2008
STONY POINT - The town is considering a law to protect
it from being responsible for a corporation's
environmental mess.
The Town Board will hold a public hearing Tuesday on the
"Environmental Protection and Abandoned Commercial
Property Reclamation Law."
"This is about handling all environmental issues so that
the wrongdoers pay for the cleanup, not the hard-working
taxpayers," said Dennis Lynch, the town's special
counsel.
Supervisor Phil Marino said the proposed law was not
targeting a specific company, but it was prepared
because of the scheduled closure of Mirant Lovett
Generating Plant in Tomkins Cove.
"Obviously, that's the pressing issue," Marino said.
Lovett's environmental problems were pointed out by
Mirant itself when the company sued Orange and Rockland
Utilities, a former owner of the plant. Mirant accused
O&R of failing to disclose environmental problems, such
as Lovett's coal-ash containment facility and inadequate
containment system for oil storage tanks.
Lovett has been scheduled to discontinue operations at
the end of this month.
Jeffrey Perry, president of Mirant Lovett LLC, said
Friday that he was not aware of the proposed law and
would not be able to comment on it. But he said the
company has been following requirements by the state
Department of Environmental Conservation.
"We do have the plants to demolish," Perry said. "We are
working with the DEC on any requirements for the
demolition, which includes a cleanup of the facility."
If approved, the new law would be applied to a company
that deals with hazardous substances or wastes occupying
more than 25,000 square feet of buildings on a single
parcel or contiguous parcels of land. When such a
company plans to sell the property or terminate
operations, it would have to remove hazardous materials
from the facility.
The town's Environmental Review Board, which would
consist of five town residents including one from the
Zoning Board of Appeals and one from the Planning Board,
would be in charge of overseeing cases that fall under
the new law.
In case pollution is found at the site, the owner of the
property would have to work with the town's
Environmental Review Board to clean up.
George Potanovic, president of the Stony Point Action
Committee for the Environment, suggested in May 2007
that the town consider such a law, said he would support
it because he it was "designed to prevent large
international corporations from leaving small
communities like Stony Point with big environmental
problems that are expensive to remediate"
Reach Akiko Matsuda at 845-578-2431 or
amatsuda@lohud.com.
Palisades mall: Not all the predictions, good and bad,
were realized
April 1, 2008
As a series of opinion pieces and news articles made
plain, the Palisades Center in West Nyack has make quite
the impression during its 10-year existence. The mall
now attracts some 20 million visitors annually, making
it a regional player in commerce and retailing. Its
prominence is beyond dispute, though the perspective
afforded by history invites discussion as to whether it
lived up to the grand billing and promises of developer
Pyramid Cos. and likewise the dire prophecies of its
critics. The short answer to both, in a word, is "No."
While the mall has been an economic engine, it is hardly
the shining community leader promised by the developer.
By the same token, it has not brought daily traffic
nightmares or reduced property values that so many
predicted.
Indeed, after 10 years, the Palisades Center seems to
have blended into the Rockland landscape, with a faint
memory of the drama that marked its development. That
would have been hard to believe in the beginning.
Clarkstown had never seen the likes of this kind of
developer - one that fought back, built alliances and
worked the political system to get what it wanted, and,
even in the face of organized community opposition, just
didn't go away.
Skepticism
The dozen years it took for Pyramid Cos. to get a shovel
in the ground was just the beginning of a tense
relationship. Within a year of its opening, the
Palisades Center and Clarkstown were in a property
assessment dispute. The mall refused to pay $17
million in taxes on an assessment it called "illegal,"
and headed to court. In 2000, the town settled the tax
flap and cut the tax bill back to $12 million. Two years
later, when the mall wanted to lease about 243,000
square feet of unused space, residents handily defeated
the move in a public referendum. Many viewed the fact
that the "void" space existed in the first place as
proof that Pyramid constructed the mall with built-in
expansion options, and then bet on winning approval
later.
The mall had launched a major PR campaign complete
with invitations to "come see our 'empty attic'"
advertisements, to underscore how the space already
existed for more businesses, and a tax-base boon.
After the loss, the walls and windows-to-nowhere on the
fourth-floor space continued to carry the "empty attic,"
labels as mall management made clear its disappointment.
Ironically, a wonderful community-minded program, STAR
Kids program, which offered free sports opportunities -
from ice skating to fencing to chess - was hosted in the
mall area voted down for expansion.
Today, locals may shop at the mall, and may do so
frequently. The fourth-floor community rooms host all
kinds of public meetings and informational forums. But
it has not become the "community center" that sponsor
partner Tom Valenti hoped for.
Predictions
The mall's big promise of enriching the town, county and
Clarkstown school district coffers from the broadened
property tax base didn't turn out to be a boon, after
all. Of course tax collection went up, but so did
expenses. Government grew, absorbing the extra property-
and sales-tax funding and taking on more expenses. Some
of those costs, most notably police expenses for
Clarkstown, were pushed by the mall itself. Today,
Rockland has become heavily dependent on sales tax
revenues. The rate is now 8.375 percent, which makes for
fat coffers during times of economic excess, rough going
when the economy sours, the current state of affairs.
In short, the mall has been no economic panacea for
Rockland.
Crime was a major worry for townfolk and leaders alike,
who feared the crowds would bring violence to a town
consistently ranked among the safest in the nation.
Clarkstown still earns that designation each year, even
with a swell of shoplifting and petty larceny arrests
made since the West Nyack center opened. Violent crime
numbers certainly haven't matched the dire expectations.
Of course, knowledge that any magnet of people and money
will also attract crime - the Nanuet Mall has also been
the scene of some tragic incidents - means the town and
the mall must continue to be vigilant. Additionally, the
mall and police must continue to address the worrisome
night-time dynamics of the mall: youth violence and a
growing gang presence are real concerns.
Neighbors feared their quiet streets would be cut-throughs
for the hoardes of shoppers (note the weird traffic
pattern along Snake Hill Road). Side streets weren't
swamped, though Route 59 eastbound backs up during the
holiday shopping season. The ring roads within the mall
and the main road exits and entrances into the mall
property, though, are a mess. The system needs yet
another serious review, with the developer footing the
bill this time.
Blame
Since the Palisades Center has been built, the impact on
Rockland's commerce has been felt. In the last decade,
movie theaters in Pearl River, Nanuet and northern New
City have been boarded up (we are thankful that
Suffern's Lafayette Theatre's Beaux Arts beauty was
saved from multiplex homogeny in 2000), family-owned
clothing stores have continued to fade away and what
became the "second mall" in Nanuet, built in 1969 and
blamed in its heyday for killing other shopping meccas,
started a precipitous decline.
At age 10, the Palisades Center may find new trends
biting at its heels. Across Rockland and the Lower
Hudson Valley, downtown revitalizations are restoring
walkable, shoppable villages and hamlets to draw back
the foot traffic lost in the last decades. Nanuet Mall's
owner, Simon Properties, has announced plans to relaunch
the shopping mall as a new "lifestyle" center, whatever
that means. In another decade, the mall's place in our
culture could end up being just a place to shop, not the
community center Palisades Center once pushed as its
vision.
A Journal News editorial
March 22, 2008
Rye town cuts off assessment firm
with rocky track record
By Aman Ali • The Journal News • March 21, 2008
RYE - A monthlong investigation by The Journal News has
revealed the previous town administration spent almost
$2 million in no-bid contracts with a property
assessment firm with a rocky track record in Putnam and
Dutchess counties and an additional $458,000 on a
consultant with few records to show what work he did for
the town.
Supervisor Joseph Carvin said this week that the town
is considering suing Queens-based firm MJW Consulting
and consultant Paul Jonke to retrieve the money, which
was spent in connection with a 2004 townwide
revaluation. Carvin said the town had wasted a hefty sum
of taxpayer dollars on poor quality work from both MJW
and Jonke, the town assessor in Carmel.
"Our goal is to stop the town's hemorrhaging from untidy
practices that clearly don't hold up to any kind of
scrutiny," Carvin said.
Last month, the Town Board fired MJW - one of several
municipalities in the area to do so - after questioning
its work to bring the town's assessed values to 100
percent of market value.
In response, MJW President John Watch said the issue of
revaluation is often politically charged because
property assessments form the basis for property taxes.
"People always want someone to blame for their property
taxes going up," Watch said. "We know in our line of
work that we will be the fall guy."
Previous Supervisor Robert Morabito hired Watch by
issuing his firm three no-bid contracts, with payments
from the town totaling $1,935,757. But only the first
contract appears to have been voted on by the Town
Board. The first contract totaled $80,000 and was
approved by the board on Sept. 20, 2001. A month later,
without the board's approval, changes to the contract
were made that gave an extra $542,500 to MJW Consulting.
No board resolutions are on file authorizing the other
two contracts - one for $960,000 signed by Morabito on
Sept. 20, 2002, and another for $440,000 on Dec. 15,
2005.
Morabito maintained the board did vote to hire MJW to do
the town assessment "for a million-some-odd dollars"
during a public vote in December 2003. And board member
Michele Mendicino, who was on the board in 2003, said
she wasn't sure of the specific date, but the town did
vote on it.
"We definitely voted on it," Mendicino said. "There's no
way we could have done the reval without public hearings
and committees looking into it."
Town Clerk Hope Vespia said no record of that vote is on
file.
Morabito defended Watch's work, calling him an
"invaluable asset to the town of Rye and an invaluable
asset to me."
"I'm not going to nitpick what John (Watch) did,"
Morabito said. "Joe Carvin is the supervisor now and
he's entitled to hire and fire whomever he wants. Yes,
John was a little lax in his file work and, I guess on
that end, that could be his flaw."
Last year, then-Supervisor Morabito asked an independent
group -the International Assessment of Association
Officers - to review MJW's revaluation as a routine
double-check of the work.
In January, the IAAO said it was unable to finish its
review because MJW's cooperation was "very limited."
IAAO consultant Pat O'Connor said the company's data
appeared good, but Watch -who uses software different
from the state's - was not able to document how it was
produced.
Watch said he has not read the report but is aware of
its findings. He said he had "unequivocal documentation"
in e-mails saying he cooperated with the IAOO
investigation. O'Connor acknowledged Watch did make
several attempts to send documents he asked for, but the
files sent were "usually corrupted in some kind of way."
Meanwhile, Rye town paid $458,584 over nine years to
Jonke, who helped hire MJW to do the Rye town work and
was a consultant to Rye town on the contract.
Vespia, the town clerk, said there are few records
indicating what kind of work Jonke did for the town,
aside from board resolutions authorizing his employment.
Carvin also ended that relationship.
"Mr. Jonke was paid close to half a million dollars,
and we're having difficulty finding any record of work
he's done," he said. "That's problematic."
Jonke said he wasn't sure why the town didn't have
records of his work. He said he "was the go-between" for
the town and MJW during the 2004 assessment; a
characterization Morabito affirmed.
However, Rye Town Assessor Mitchell Markowitz said
Jonke's role in the 2004 assessment was minimal.
"I had very limited communication with him over time,"
Markowitz said. "I didn't find his participation up to
what it should have been, given the fact he was expected
to oversee the work."
Putnam County hired MJW under two contracts in 2001,
totaling $73,500. The firm was to perform trending
analyses, a process which involves updating assessment
values year after year.
But assessors from Kent, Patterson and Southeast did
not use the data. Patterson Assessor Chris Boryk said he
questioned Watch's procedures and the final analysis he
produced.
"That guy could sell ketchup ice pops to nuns wearing
white gloves," Boryk said of Watch. "He's a good
salesman but his deliverables never seem to pan out."
Southeast Assessor William Ford said Watch couldn't
convert his data into the town's software -something
Watch disputes.
"We would have had to convert his numbers by entering
all his data into our system by hand," Ford said.
"There's no way you can enter in 12,000 pieces of
information without getting significant errors."
Jonke said he recommended the firm to Rye town after
hearing from George Michaud, Putnam County's head of
Real Property Tax Services, who handled the MJW contract
there.
Three years after that contract was singed, Michaud's
son, Greg, was listed as an MJW employee in a contract
with the town of Fishkill.
Michaud downplayed the connection, noting that the
county ethics board found no conflict.
"John was looking for data entry help and Greg and some
of his
college friends were looking for work," Michaud said
of his son. "But it had nothing to do with the contract
in Putnam County. Greg ended up getting fired for poor
work and he deserved it."
Last month, the town of Fishkill terminated a $407,000
contract with MJW, saying the firm had done
unsatisfactory work. Fishkill secured the contract
collectively with the Southern Dutchess Consortium, a
group of Dutchess County municipalities that also
includes Beekman, East Fishkill, LaGrange, the towns of
Poughkeepsie and Wappinger, the city of Beacon and
village of Fishkill.
Contracts for the eight municipalities totaled about
$3.4 million.
"When you do poor work, you can't expect to get paid the
money promised," Fishkill Town Assessor Christian
Harkins said. "Now he's trying to sue us for nonpayment
and breach of contract."
Watch's legal claim says the town still owes his firm
$175,496 for its work.
"He cut off all our access to the data he provided,"
Harkins said. "We paid him about 80 percent of the
contract, yet he is holding 100 percent of the data
until he gets the rest of his money."
LaGrange, East Fishkill and Beekman also have terminated
agreements with MJW, and Harkins said the town of
Wappinger, where he is also the assessor, would
terminate its agreement with MJW in the next few weeks.
Poughkeepsie Assessor Kathy Taber, on the other hand,
seems satisfied with the company's work.
"I'm not going to say that everything he did was
perfect, but I knew the job he did was a difficult one,"
Taber said. "I feel bad for the other towns because
things didn't work out quite as well with them. But I
guess we fared better than everybody because we did our
reval first and I had more time to go over the data with
MJW."
Asked about being terminated from at least nine
municipalities in three counties, Watch said the
criticism is no surprise.
"Every town we work with has the ability to opt out of
their contracts and that is perfectly fine," he said.
He noted that the state Office of Real Property Services
gave him high marks for his work in Rye town and Putnam
County, finding MJW "complied with 100 percent of its
standards."
ORPS spokesman Joe Hersch said the department did
certify MJW's 2004 work in Rye town and the 2001 work in
Putnam County, finding the values computed were at 100
percent of market value. As a result in Rye, the state
rewarded the town with a six-year grant averaging
$53,000 annually.
But Hersch said ORPS rates assessments by mainly looking
at raw data, not at the procedures used to get those
numbers.
Reach Aman Ali at 914-694-5063 or
aali@lohud.com.
March 19, 2008
The following summary is courtesy of Joyce Mitchell from
Kent Fiscal Watch who attended the Putnam County
Legislative meeting that discussed this measure and I am
told by Joyce that it lent its approval.
There is no doubt that only with resident pressure that
dependency on property taxes for school funding, will be
eliminated. We need to review the measure carefully.
I've highlighted certain portions. The bill is online
for all to read. Comments and suggestions will be
appreciated.
Sincerely,
Ann
Tuesday March 18, 2008
Putnam County Office Building
Room 318
6:25 PM - SHARP!
Dear Friends,
The Putnam County Legislature will be voting this coming
Tuesday, March 18th
at 6:25 PM, to support Assemblyman Kevin Cahill's
Education and Property Tax
Reform Bill entitled "The Equity In Education Act" (
A04746 )
This bill will provide meaningful property tax reform
and guarantee quality
education to every child in New York State, not only
those from wealthier
districts. It will, over 5 years, eliminate the
school property tax portion
of your annual tax bill as the method for financing
public schools and
replace that funding with a graduated addition to state
income taxes. During
a recent informal poll of PlanPutnam readers,
respondents showed they would
save money under the new system, from $250 to more than
$1000 a year.
Assemblyman Cahill's bill is the only bill in Albany
that provides a
permanent and equitable solution to our school property
tax crises. This
bill is not a quick fix, it's not a "circuit breaker"
and it's not a complex
"cap". It is a permanent solution - which is exactly
what we need.
Under this proposal 95% of New Yorkers will come out
ahead, and more
importantly, it will provide a certain measure of
security from losing your
home due to inability to pay the school portion of your
property taxes. It
is an abomination for the most vulnerable of our
citizens to be forced from
their homes because they cannot pay the crushing burden
of property taxes to
support our public schools. School property taxes in
our area have risen 60%
since 1995, with an increase of 42% in the last 5 years
alone! This is an
issue that affects us all, especially our seniors, those
just starting out,
those on fixed incomes, and those who may have a health
or other crisis.
It is essential for our state to maintain quality
education to compete
nationally and internationally. EVERY child in New York
State should have
access to a basic quality education, regardless of which
school district
they reside in. Beside the onerous financial burden of
health care costs and
insurance, education funding is the single most pressing
issue that affects
US ALL, Republican, Democrats, everyone.
The Putnam County Legislature will vote to support the
Cahill bill at a
special Legislative session on March 18th - This Coming
Tuesday.
The meeting will be held in the County Office Building
in Room 318, at 6:25
pm - Sharp.
It is important that we all show up to support this
courageous, historic and
important action that will prove to be the spark that
gets REAL property tax
REFORM out of committee and passed by the NYS
Legislature. When we add our
voices demanding change to all the others across our
state, our collective
voices have great power.
PLEASE show up in support of Kevin Cahill's Bill,
Education and TRUE
PROPERTY TAX REFORM!
Write your County Legislator and tell them that you
support a permanent
solution to this problem and ask them to vote in favor
on Tuesday!
ASSEMBLY BILL: A04746
Makes provisions for the state to assume all costs of
basic quality
education and for the elimination of real property taxes
for the support of
education;
requires board of regents to establish a schedule of
mandatory basic
services and costs thereof; school districts shall
submit an annual basic
budget to
the department of education for basic services;
increases taxes on personal
income and business; makes special provisions for
reduction of tax in
certain cities and for reduction in rent by tenants in
such cities; provides
for phased in methods of funding using a "Basic Quality
Education" formula;
repeals certain provisions of the tax law and real
property tax relating
thereto.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this plan is to permit the
financing of public
schools in New York State within the context of the
following objectives:
1) the elimination of the inequitable and regressive
real estate tax as the
support of public schools;
2) the retention of present levels of local control by
school districts; and
3) the guarantee of quality and equality of educational
opportunity for all
children of the state.
Read the full synopsis at
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A04746
The full bill can be read in full at
http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A04746&sh=t
March 6, 2008
Tell Albany to combate
climate change
Background
Buried in Bottles: a Survey of Beverage Containers in
New York’s LitterMyths
and Facts About Updating the Bottle BillReport:
20 Years of Happy ReturnsBottled
Up in Albany: Report on Industry Lobbying and
ContributionsSurvey
of New Yorkers’ Attitudes…”
Proposed changes to the Bottle Bil
Endorsement FormList
of BBBB endorsers
The bottle bill is New York’s most effective recycling
and litter control program. Since 1982, more than 90
billion bottles and cans have been returned and recycled
in New York because of the 5-cent refundable deposit on
beer and soda containers. The bottle bill has worked
hand in hand with local recycling programs to make
our communities cleaner and healthier places to live. We
all share responsibility for keeping our communities
clean and healthy. State legislators need to do their
part by updating the current bottle bill. Nearly
three billion bottles and cans end up in the trash or
polluting our state’s rivers, beaches and neighborhoods
each year because of a loophole in our current laws that
the politicians in Albany have failed to close.It’s time
to make New York’s most successful litter prevention and
recycling program even more effective. Because the
bottle bill was enacted in 1982, before bottled water
and sports drinks became popular, it did not include
non-carbonated beverages. Today, these drinks account
for more than 25% of the market, and sales are
growing rapidly. It makes no sense for a bottle of
sparkling water to be covered under the bottle bill and
a bottle of plain water to end up as pollution.
Governor Eliot Spitzer has proposed updating the bottle
bill to include bottled water and other non-carbonated
beverages that were left out of the original law. He has
also proposed in his budget to require beverage
companies to transfer unclaimed bottle deposits to the
state’s Environmental Protection Fund to support clean
air, water, parks and open space.Click
here to take action!
Urge the New York State Legislature to support
cleaner communities, a healthier environment, and
increased funding for environmental programs by
including the Bigger Better Bottle Bill in the 2008-2009
state budget.
Cleaner Communities
The original purpose of the bottle bill was to control
the growing problem of litter. As the beverage industry
shifted from refillable bottles to disposable
containers, New Yorkers began seeing more and more
bottles and cans polluting our streams and rivers and
broken glass in our streets and playgrounds.
The bottle bill has been tremendously successful in
cleaning up our communities. The deposit provides an
economic incentive for people to return their beverage
containers rather than discard them. Immediately after
the bottle bill passed, total litter rates dropped by
30%, with a 70% reduction in beverage container litter.
Unfortunately, the bottle bill has not kept up with the
times. Today, non-carbonated beverages make up more than
one-quarter of the beverage market, and a
disproportionate amount of our litter. Litter surveys
conducted by NYPIRG and other groups found that nearly
two-thirds of the bottles and retrieved in litter
cleanups around New York State are non-deposit
containers. NYPIRG’s survey conducted in fall 2007
found that these containers made up 10% of the total
litter volume. The Bigger Better Bottle Bill will
prevent litter and make our communities cleaner.
Healthier Environment
With an average return rate of over 70%, the bottle bill
is by far New York’s most effective recycling program.
Since 1982, more than six million tons of glass,
plastic, and metal have been recycled through the bottle
bill, conserving natural resources and energy and
reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills. The
bottle bill saves taxpayers money by making beverage
companies responsible for the waste they generate,
rather than placing the burden on local governments.
Today, New Yorkers have more recycling choices because
most communities now have curbside recycling. However,
curbside programs are not effective at capturing
single-serve beverage containers. That’s because
thirst-quenchers like bottled water and sports drinks
are typically consumed and discarded away from home.
Less than 20% of non-deposit beverage containers end up
in recycling bins. In contrast, an estimated 80% of
deposit containers are recycled - 70% through the bottle
bill, and another 10% through curbside programs.
Updating the bottle bill to include non-carbonated
beverages would ensure that almost 3 billion
additional bottles and cans will get recycled in New
York each year. In plastic bottles alone, this would
save roughly 600,000 barrels of crude oil and 20,000
tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year. The
Bigger Better Bottle Bill will increase recycling and
save taxpayers money. Support for Environmental
Programs
Currently, beverage companies are keeping at least
$85 million each year in unclaimed deposits from bottles
and cans that are not returned. New York is out of
step with many other states, which require beverage
companies to return unclaimed bottle deposits to benefit
the public. The Bigger Better Bottle Bill would direct
unclaimed deposits to the State Environmental Protection
Fund (EPF), a dedicated trust fund for New York’s
environment. The EPF supports local recycling programs,
parks, waterfront revitalization, open space, farmland
preservation, and other programs to protect our land,
air, and water. Currently, New York’s environmental
funding needs far outpace existing resources. The
Bigger Better Bottle Bill will generate at least $100
million a year to support the Environmental Protection
Fund, and by some estimates more than $200 million.
. For more information about the bottle bill, go
to:
Container Recycling Institute:
http://www.bottlebill.org
N.Y.S. Department of Environmental Conservation:
http://www.dec.ny.gov
www.nypirg.org:
consumer protection |
environment |
straph
March 3, 2008
Good morning all - wonder why the most egregious
projects in Carmel, Kent and Southeast have received DEP
approval (Camarda Park, Camarda Senior Housing, Kent
Manor, Brewster Highlands and Terravest) and Patterson
Crossing in the wings, please read the following post
from New Jerseyite, Bill Wolfe. Riverkeeper at one
time wrote a monograph of the organizational workings of
the DEP and titled it "A Culture of Mismanagement." It
needs to be retitled as "A Culture of Corruption."
Sincerely,
Ann
www.putopenspaces.com
PS - Please note comments at end of post.
Public business done behind closed doors
Posted by Bill Wolfe February 15, 2008 5:54PM DEP
does the people's business - its internal workings
should be able to withstand public scrutiny.
Today, I attended a public hearing at the Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) headquarters in Trenton.
The hearing was DEP's attempt to solicit public input
into developing revised storm water management
regulations. I applaud those efforts.
 Bill
WolfeDEP Headquarters. Trenton, NJ.
The hearing was fairly well attended by the usual
suspects - government staffers; lawyers, lobbyists and
engineers representing developers; and environmental
advocates. There were only 3 citizens and no press in
attendance. The hearing was announced publicly well in
advance, open to the public, the discussions were
recorded, and a DEP facilitator took extensive notes.
Nothing shady, secret, or inappropriate going on today
during that meeting.
Just the opposite - there was an open and healthy
exchange of viewpoints; participants were known to all;
policy issues, alternatives, and upcoming decisions were
transparent; and the discussions are all a matter of
public record.
But this meeting is not my concern - it was what I saw
after the meeting that disturbs me.
You see, the DEP building was literally crawling with
lawyers, engineers, and lobbyists representing the
chemical industry, developers, major air & water
polluters, and other private interests that have huge
economic stakes in the outcome of work that goes on
inside the DEP building. This kind of access by private
sector interests is a daily routine at DEP.
I don't think the public has any idea how much access
the developers and polluters have to DEP managers on a
daily basis and how much influence these lobbyists have
on the outcome of DEP decisions.
The DEP is supposed to be doing the people's business so
its internal workings should be able to withstand public
scrutiny.
 Bill
WolfeChemical industry lobbyist - former DEP staffer -
had a meeting with DEP today. With whom? To discuss
what? Doesn't the public have a right to know?
DEP's decisions impact public health and environment. By
law, DEP manages natural resources that are held in
trust for the public. DEP s supposed to make decisions
openly, based on science and law. But there is often a
tremendous amount of discretion or judgment inherent in
those decisions. Regulations are ambiguous and subject
to interpretation and the science is almost always
uncertain.
This is why access to DEP decision makers is such a
critical issue.
We have tried to bring more transparency and openness to
curb the special interest influence on DEP. Recently, we
petitioned DEP to:
* 1) Provide public disclosure of meetings with
regulated industry. DEP convenes closed-door meetings
with lobbyists and designated insiders with no public
attendance or publication of meeting agendas.
This request was denied by DEP Commissioner Jackson
who claimed that meetings with regulated industries must
stay confidential as a matter of "executive privilege
and the deliberative process privilege". The
Commissioner claimed the substance and participants in
those meetings are exempt from OPRA public records laws.
All visitors to DEP already sign in to a daily log that
identifies the DEP staff person to be visited. Yet our
OPRA request for that log was denied. What does DEP have
to hide?
* 2) Publish the daily meeting calendars of top managers
on the DEP website. The DEP Commissioner and top
deputies routinely make decisions on enforcement and
other pollution control policies in meetings with
corporate lobbyists and executives, often from the same
companies that are charged with violations.
Commissioner Jackson rejected that request on the
grounds that it "implicates the privacy interests" of
attendees. Tellingly, she also argued that revealing the
"identity and the sequence of the persons with whom the
Department senior staff consult could reveal the
substance or direction or the mental processes of the
Commissioner and Department staff"; and
* 3) Repeal a gag order and current Press Office policy
that forbids DEP staffers answering questions posed by
Media and the public. Under current DEP rules, agency
scientists and other specialists are barred from
speaking without prior approval from the agency Press
Office.
Commissioner Jackson denied that request and maintained
that any "issues" staff have should be raised within the
management chain-of-command, noting that there are also
whistleblower statutes. New Jersey whistleblower law
does not, however, protect employee disclosures about
threats to public health, manipulation of science or
gross mismanagement, among other topics.
(for further details, see:
NEW JERSEY SAYS SECRET MEETINGS KEY TO ENVIRONMENTAL
POLICY -- Petition for New Transparency Rules Rejected
the Same Day Notice Is Published
Trenton -- The New Jersey Department of Environmental
Protection has formally rejected a petition to give the
public notice of its meetings with lobbyists and to post
appointment calendars of its top officials, according to
an agency ruling released today by Public Employees for
Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The action by DEP
Commissioner Lisa Jackson was dated the same day,
July 2, 2007, the PEER petition for rulemaking was first
published for public review in the July 2, 2007 New
Jersey Register.
(for full report:
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=885
The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission has
rules which require disclosure of any communications by
registered lobbyist with DEP managers. Why doesn't DEP
have similar rules?
This is a fundamental reform issue about whether the
agency operates in the public interest, is perceived as
objective, and makes decision based on science and law,
and not political influence and access.
We all lose when special interests exploit the back
door and revolving door at DEP.
 Bill
WolfeDEP Trenton HQ - back door courtyard view
Posted by nohesitation on
02/15/08 at 9:42PM
I don't just want to complain about it I am trying to
fix it.
This is not normal - we can do better.
If every lobbyist going into the DEP building knew that
what he recommended was a public record posted on the
internet, then his influence would be greatly curbed.
DEP staffers also would be empowered to apply the
science and the laws in the public interest -
Managers would be far more reluctant to follow unwise
orders dictated from above, often for political reasons.
Inappropriate? Alert us.
Post a comment
Posted by notebene on
02/16/08 at 8:14AM
Bravo Bill Wolfe. Sad to say what you describe is
typical of all state agencies. The "regulated" have the
access and the clout to move their agendas in Trenton,
Newark and in the legislature even while their cases are
pending. This administration is not much different than
the others. Access and confidentiality and deliberative
process are all part of the smoke screen to cover up
what actually goes on when big bucks are at stake. The
"sunshine law" and OPRA are so much blather when it
comes to stopping the manipulation of policy by vested
interests. Hail to the $$$$$$ long live the revolving
doors!
Inappropriate? Alert us.
Post a comment
Posted by hglindquist on
02/16/08 at 8:19AM
This is a fundamental reform issue about whether
the agency operates in the public interest, is perceived
as objective, and makes decision based on science and
law, and not political influence and access.
nohesitation,
This is an excellent post! I am going to spend some time
with it and try to digest all of your facts, opinions,
and suggestions.
Based on my first reading -- with your followup comment
-- I would say immediately that "a public record posted
on the internet" garners a rock-solid A+
Can you imagine what the NJ Voices bloggers could do
with THAT?!
[Sound of cheering crowd]
[Fade to black]
Posted by nohesitation on
02/16/08 at 10:13AM
Hglinquist and notabene
Thanks - just think for a moment - aside from bad
decisions that all that access to DEP provides. What
about potential corruption?
Local mayors have gone to jail for getting their
driveways paved - all for a couple thousand bucks.
A State Senator was just indicted for kickbacks for
legislative favors - for $5,500 per month.
One of the facts disclosed in US Attorney's plea
agreement with John Lynch was that Lynch was lobbyisnbg
DEP for various environmental approvals.
So why does the pay to play, ethics, and corurption
debates NEVER focus on DEP?
DEP approvals are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Posted by hglindquist on
02/16/08 at 10:57AM
nohesitation,
I've already suggested over on Jon Shure and John Atlas
threads that we make this a collaborative NJ Voices
issue following your lead.
And though I will chide you mercilessly on occasion ...
this is a -- what did Maslow call them? -- peak,
self-actualizing moment of creative thought.
It's what makes the adventure here on NJ Voices worth
the time and effort.
We the people need this access to information to
effectively participate in governing ourselves.
Posted by jerseyswamp2 on
02/16/08 at 7:18PM
Top management lays out the mores of any organization.
In this case the Governor and the Commissioner have
clearly let it be known that the people coming through
the back door are DEP's "clients". Business and industry
are to be served and their lobbiests taken very
seriously. For example a lobbiest like Harold Hodes of
Public Strategies Impact Inc., not only represents
polluters put he is a major fund raiser and political
strategist for the dems. If his client wants a rule
changed, bent or more likely "reinterpreted" his client
will walk through the back door of the DEP building and
be served coffee and doughnuts while three or four
assistant commissioners take copious notes of exactly
what "adjustments" his clients would find helpful.
Operatives like Hodes have long ago figured out the
recipe for cooking the system. To disrupt this highly
refined well entrenched system is not a matter of
"blowing the whistle" it is more a matter of changing
the culture at DEP and other state agencies.
Unfortunately that only happens when top management
seriously emphasizes an ethic of principal and public
service.
I
Posted by nohesitation on
02/17/08 at 9:46AM
jswamp - again, your enlightened comments surpass the
original post!
We need to change the culture at DEP from the top down -
the first step should reflect the old adage:
"sunlight is the best disinfectant"
Posted by byramaniac on
02/17/08 at 11:27AM
Wolfe - once again, great job!
It's not just DEP that suffers the "revolving back door"
problem - it's prevalent all throughout NJ government.
Take this example I'm dealing with in Byram, regarding a
major roadway project on Route 206. The text below comes
verbatim from a director in the Community Relations
department, to our township manager. This group could
REALLY use some sunshine!
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2008 11:03 AM
To: (Township Manager)
Subject: Re: Route 206 Widening Project
Good morning, (Township Manager name removed),
I spoke with the Mayor this morning by phone on my way
into work about this very topic, and assured him that
this "10 year list" is only in DRAFT form. It could
change at any time. HOWEVER, I told the Mayor that I
will do EVERYTHING that I can possibly do from my end to
make sure this project stays on track. My biggest
concern is the press getting a hold of this info and
having a field day with it. I know (name of project
opponent removed) will use this as a means to attempt to
again derail this project and I expressed this to the
Mayor. If at all possible I think it should be kept out
of the papers which I know won't happen. My suggestion
to the Mayor was to contact (name removed), owner of the
Shop-Rite, and ask him to send a letter down to the
Commissioner. The Mayor then suggested having the
Chamber of Commerce sending a letter down as well. I, if
I get the chance, will speak directly to the Deputy
Commissioner who met with Freeholder (name removed) last
week and expressed to him the importance of this project
and see if he is willing to take a field trip with me so
that he can ask the different business owners along Rte.
206 how they feel. I think it would be a real 'eye
opener' for him. Having done that myself, I know only
too well that the business owners would be very upset if
this project did not move forward. With regard to the
'10 year list', the project manager, (name removed),
told me that once this list is finalized by the
Department it then has to go to the MPOs for review. So
with Freeholder (name removed) sitting on that board,
and as Director of that board, I believe, I can't
imagine that it would be approved. At least that would
be my wish!! Hopefully this info has been helpful and
again, I did speak directly to the Mayor this morning
about it. (DOT project manager name removed) stated to
me when I spoke to him that he is still planning on
moving forward with the Final Design phase until
otherwise told to do so. So we still are planning on
coming up for that CSD meeting later this month. And
(DOT project manager name removed) and I will be at the
Planning Board meeting this Thursday, Feb. 7th evening.
Take care and have a great day. If you need to discuss
further, I will be in the office all day today, feel
free to contact me at (609) (number removed).
(name removed)
NJDOT
Office of Community Relations
Honestly, Wolfe, you can't make this stuff up!
February
23, 2008
Good morning all - in the
face of reports concerning the rejection of bids for the
operation of Putnam National Golf Course by the County,
the following excerpt from the Executive Summary of the
entire report by Comptroller DiNapoli should be of
interest for all residents. It appears that culpability
lies on the shoulders of all county officials.
Sincerely,
Ann
Local
Government and School Accountability
County of Putnam
Contracting for the Management of the Putnam National
Golf Course and Internal Controls Over Purchasing
Executive SummaryComplete
Audit in PDF
Putnam County (County) is governed by the County
Legislature which comprises nine elected members and is
responsible for developing policies and overseeing the
County’s financial affairs. The County Executive is the
chief executive officer and is responsible, along with
other administrative staff, for the daily management of
the County under the direction of the County
Legislature. The County Legislature adopted a budget of
approximately $121 million for the 2007 fiscal year.
The Purchasing Department is responsible for procuring
goods and services for County operations. The County’s
procurement policy and the General Municipal Law govern
County purchasing procedures. The County owns a golf
course facility, which is currently managed by Putnam
Golf, Inc. The County retains all profit and absorbs all
losses incurred by Putnam Golf, Inc. in operating the
golf course.
Scope and Objective
We examined the County’s process for contracting for
management of the Putnam National Golf Course and
internal controls over purchasing for the period January
1, 2005 to August 31, 2006 to determine if County
officials were properly safeguarding their financial
resources. Our audit addressed the following questions:
Did the County solicit competition from vendors prior to
entering the agreement to manage the Golf Course?
Is the agreement to manage the Golf Course appropriate
and in the best interest of the County and its
taxpayers?
Were controls over purchasing adequate to ensure that
goods and services were purchased prudently and in
compliance with applicable laws and established policies
and procedures? Audit Results
The County did not use a Request for Proposals (RFP) to
select a manager for the golf course. The County entered
into a management agreement with Putnam Golf, Inc.,
which is solely owned by the County Commissioner of
Highways and Facilities (Commissioner). The agreement
contains terms and conditions that allow the
Commissioner to operate Putnam Golf, Inc. as if it is a
County department. The County absorbs Putnam Golf, Inc.
revenues, expenditures, profits, and losses. The
total dollar amount of operating cost incurred by the
County for the golf course cannot be easily determined
because Putnam Golf, Inc. revenue and expenditures are
accounted for within the County’s Highway and Facilities
Department and the Parks Department. The County
cannot and has not properly evaluated the financial
impact of the golf course’s operations due to the lack
of separate detailed accounting records. The
contractual agreement also allows County officials to
circumvent County purchasing policies and procedures,
such as competitive bidding, that would ensure prudent
and economical use of taxpayer moneys. However, it
appears that the County established Putnam Golf, Inc. in
this way to avoid oversight that normally occurs in
County departments. In effect, the County has
established an agent to operate in a manner in which the
County could not act. The management agreement
entered into by the County Executive is inappropriate
and not in the best interests of
taxpayers. Under the terms of the agreement,
the vendor, a County employee, has no incentive to
operate and maintain the Golf Course in an efficient and
economical manner.
Internal controls related to County purchases need to be
improved. The Legislature and the County Executive did
not develop and implement a procurement policy that
would require the use of RFPs when contracting for
professional services. The County expended approximately
$6.5 million on professional services during 2005 and
another $3.4 million from January through August 2006.
We tested $6 million of the payments made for
professional services and found that the Director of
Purchasing obtained these services without seeking
competition through RFPs. As a result, County officials
cannot be certain that these services were obtained in
the most economically beneficial manner.
We also found that the Director of Purchasing did not
adequately implement the County’s purchasing policy. We
selected two samples consisting of 36 and 25 purchase
orders totaling $136,220 and $6.5 million, respectively
and found no documentation for 17 written/verbal quotes
totaling $67,174 and five bid advertisements totaling
$155,000. In addition, the County did not document its
decision to make purchases of $15,768 from sole-source
suppliers as required by the County policy.
Comments of County Officials
The results of our audit and recommendations have been
discussed with County officials and their comments,
which appear in Appendix A, have been considered in
preparing this report. County officials disagreed with
many of the recommendations included in our report. We
have included additional commentary in Appendix B to
more fully communicate the rationale for our position.
|
February 16,
2008
Westchester legislators to vote on Peach
Lake sewer funding
By
Elizabeth Ganga
The Journal News • February 13, 2008
PEACH LAKE - The Westchester County Board of
Legislators is set to vote on $10 million in
funding for the planned sewers around Peach
Lake at a meeting Tuesday.
The funding, which was expected but not
appropriated for years as North Salem and
Southeast developed plans for the sewers,
was approved by the Budget and
Appropriations Committee and the Environment
and Energy Committee on Monday in a joint
session.
The money goes a long way toward building
the estimated $20.6 million sewage system
and treatment plant, but both lake towns are
seeking more money to bring down the annual
cost to homeowners in the sewer districts.
The money was given to the county by New
York City for projects to improve water
quality in the city's watershed. Peach Lake
is the first of five water quality projects
that the Northern Westchester Watershed
Committee, a panel of the supervisors of the
watershed towns, has recommended for
funding.
Reach Elizabeth Ganga at
eganga@lohud.com or 914-666-6482.
|
|
February 11,
2008
Region's
horse industry mounts comeback
By
Elizabeth Ganga
The Journal News • February 9, 2008
With a dramatic rebound in the number of
horses between 2000 and the end of 2005,
southeastern New York overtook the western
part of the state to become No. 1 in horses.
The state Department of Agriculture and
Markets, which surveys the horse community
every five years, counted 42,500 horses,
ponies, donkeys and mules in the latest
survey in the 10 counties from Westchester
to Delaware. Westchester and Putnam
helped contribute to the rebound, adding
1,000 horses between them, while Rockland's
horse population continued to decline. Its
400 horses put it near the bottom of the
state.
The numbers show a strengthening of the
horse industry in the Lower Hudson Valley
after steep declines in the 1980s and '90s
as farms succumbed to rising costs and
development pressures and either closed or
moved north. The growth, though modest
compared with earlier plunges, is keeping a
critical mass of horse businesses in the
area and keeping land in farming that
otherwise might have been developed.
Horses fill the gap other farms leave
behind.
"The horse people can compete now with the
developers for the same land," said George
Michaud, director of real property services
for Putnam, who helped organize the county's
agriculture district.
Statewide, the numbers also have been on the
upswing.
"The industry seems to be thriving," said
Stephen Ropel, the state director of the New
York field office of the National
Agricultural Statistics Service, which works
with the state agriculture department in
collecting the statistics.
The survey was conducted in early 2006, and
the results have been dribbled out during
the past year. The final compilation of
results, the New York Equine Survey 2005
book, was released Jan. 4. Most of the
results are compiled by region, with the
only county-level statistics being
population and total value of equines.
The survey, which some criticized as overly
complex, focused on the economic value of
the horse industry. Statewide, the value of
equine-related assets rose 69 percent in the
first half of the decade, and the value of
equine assets in the southeast region was
$3.4 billion.
Audrey Reith, an equine and livestock
educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension,
said $1 spent in the horse industry turns
over at least seven times in the community,
supporting vets, tack shops, feed suppliers,
manure haulers and other businesses.
"With our farm owners, most of their
transactions are within a small radius of
their facilities," she said.
Even with the obvious difficulties of high
land costs and taxes, northern Westchester
and Putnam have advantages that make running
a lesson barn or a show barn a viable
enterprise. They have enough open land for
attractive farms, and they are surrounded by
a wealthy population that can support a
riding hobby or even an expensive interest
in showing horses. Observers said the
growing popularity of riding is also buoying
the industry. Horses for pleasure riding,
lessons and competition make up the vast
majority in southeastern New York, and
pleasure horses accounted for most of the
increase since 2000.
In North Salem, where barns are expanding
and new ones are being built, bridle trails,
open land for riding and a concentration of
good trainers attract riders, said Carol
Goldberg, a former stable owner and a real
estate agent who specializes in horse
properties.
"The deli is full of people with paddock
boots," Goldberg said.
Sarah Friedman, a trainer who runs Autumn
Farms on Hardscrabble Road, finished a new,
red, nine-stall barn in September, bringing
her capacity to 25 horses. She hesitated
about making the major investment, but her
business was growing as her clients, who
spend as much as six figures on a horse,
were having success at shows.
"That's a very expensive thing to do, for
sure," Friedman said.
Riders make a commitment to the sport and
their horses, Friedman said, often coming up
from Manhattan several times a week or
buying second homes in the area.
Mary Elizabeth Bunzel came back to riding
when her 12-year-old daughter, Loulie, took
it up five or six years ago. Now the
Manhattan family has a house in Garrison and
comes to Autumn Farms to ride four days a
week. They're kind of addicted, she said,
and instead of riding closer to the city
where the farms and horses are much more
crowded, they put up with the drive to North
Salem.
"It just epitomizes horse country," Bunzel
said.
Despite its overall health, the economics of
the industry are squeezing some owners.
Maria DiSalvo, who owns North Ridge Farm and
serves on the Putnam County Agricultural and
Farmland Protection Board, moved her
operation from Eastchester to 35 acres in
Patterson about 10 years ago. She said the
survey results don't show how difficult it
has become in the past few years for barn
owners catering to more middle-class riders
who are trying to keep fees down. And the
lower land prices in Putnam that made it
affordable in the past are gone.
"It's just getting economically harder and
harder," she said.
Only a few horse farms remain in Rockland,
where development long ago pushed the
business to the margins. But the remaining
farms have long histories there and are
hanging on for the love of the business.
Top of the Line Stables in Chestnut Ridge
has 70 horses, and many travel to thriving
horse shows around New York and in Florida
in winter. The farm has been there for 30
years, nine under its current operators,
Joseph Sorce and Leslie Ward.
While many smaller farms have been
pinched out and moved north, Sorce said, the
landowner who leases to them wants the land
to be a horse farm. And though there is some
uneasiness about the economy, their
customers are somewhat insulated from those
pressures. Even the school business, which
caters to the less well off, is thriving,
Sorce said.
"You're going to get people who can't afford
a horse, but they want their kid to take a
lesson a week or two lessons a week," he
said.
Many of the farms that moved north from
Westchester, Putnam and Rockland are still
in the southeast region. Dutchess and Orange
counties, along with Saratoga farther north,
have the most horses in the state.
Though the survey showed increases in
pleasure riding, breeding and racing
decreased in the southeast region.
Sue Vitro formerly managed Tanrackin Farm in
Bedford Hills, a thoroughbred breeding farm
with a long history, before it closed in
2004 after the death of the owner. She said
new people don't seem to be getting into
breeding.
"As the owners get old and either die or
retire, nobody new comes along and buys the
farm," said Vitro, who now works in
Saratoga.
But other facets of the horse world are
thriving as the popularity of riding
spreads. People get hooked by the undeniable
appeal.
"You can get on a horse and you can walk in
the woods," said North Salem Supervisor Paul
Greenwood, the former owner of Old Salem
Farm, a major horse show venue, who now
breeds ponies with his wife on about 300
acres in Southeast and North Salem. "You're
50 miles from Manhattan, you can walk in the
woods, and you're in the for-real country."
Reach Elizabeth Ganga
at
eganga@lohud.com or 914-666-6482.
February 11,
2008
Somers
to take tax hit if Pepsi stays
By
Jerry Gleeson
The Journal News • February 11, 2008
Among the stakes in the possible departure
of the Pepsi Bottling Group headquarters in
Somers is $1.94 million in tax revenue that
the company pays to the town, county and
local school district.
It's a figure that still could be reduced
substantially, even if Pepsi Bottling
decides to stay put.
A trial was held in January before state
Supreme Court Justice John LaCava on the
company's demand for a 58 percent
reduction in the $12 million assessment on
the office building it leases at 1 Pepsi
Way.
Both sides are still awaiting a verdict,
which could take several more months. If
Pepsi Bottling prevails, it stands
to collect back taxes on assessments for
2004 and 2005.
Last year, Pepsi Bottling said it was
considering leaving Somers when its lease
expired at the end of 2010. The
company employs 1,100 at its headquarters.
It's the largest tenant at 1 Pepsi Way,
where it leases 360,000 square feet from the
owner, Murray Hill Properties.
County and state officials have been
negotiating with Pepsi Bottling to persuade
the company to stay. Sen. Charles Schumer
said last week that he has lobbied the
company's chief executive officer, Eric
Foss, to stay.
Officials at Pepsi Bottling Group could not
be reached Friday for comment on the
assessment challenge. Earlier last week,
spokesman Jeff Dahncke described the
company's plans for its headquarters as a
"very fluid situation."
Office tenants may challenge the property
assessment of the space they're renting,
even if they don't own the property, if
their lease calls for them to pay the taxes
on their share of the property.
Somers Supervisor Mary Beth Murphy said the
assessment lawsuit by Pepsi Bottling was the
first that had gone to trial that she could
recall in her nearly 10 years as supervisor.
Most assessment challenges are settled
before trial.
With the verdict pending, Murphy would not
discuss the lawsuit in detail. She said it
is among the largest assessment challenges
the town faces.
"We anticipate a successful outcome," she
said.
Pepsi Bottling Group manufactures, sells and
distributes Pepsi-Cola beverages but is a
separate business from Purchase-based
PepsiCo Inc., which owns a little more than
one-third of the stock in the bottling
group.
Pepsi Bottling pays school taxes of
$1.47 million and town and county taxes of
$472,000, Murphy said.
Reach Jerry
Gleeson at
jgleeson@lohud.com or 914-694-5026.
|
February 11, 2008
Putnam County gets first Empire
Zone
By
Allan Drury
The Journal News • February 9, 2008
BREWSTER - The state this week granted Putnam County its
first Empire Zone, a move that local economic
development officials hope will produce good-paying
jobs.
The county's three-year fight for an Empire Zone
designation finally paid off when a state board gave its
approval, allowing lucrative tax breaks for companies
that create jobs.
"We finally got our piece of the pie that, in my
opinion, we should have gotten earlier," said Richard
Ruchala, who owns a business on Main Street in Brewster
and is vice chairman of the Putnam County Industrial
Development Agency.
"I'm hoping for the best jobs possible," he said. "I'd
like to see high-end, incubator-type jobs. But even if
you create one job, you're eligible for some tax
benefits."
He said the zone includes about 200 acres in Brewster
and can be expanded up to 1,280 acres outside the
village.
Ruchala said that until several years ago, Putnam was
not eligible for the program because the county's median
income was too high.
Companies in an Empire Zone can get tax benefits based
on their job creation and investment. It's possible for
a company to operate virtually property tax free for 10
years.
The company would still pay its tax bill but would get
reimbursed by the state, he said.
The best program available now from the county IDA
offers up to 50 percent off a company's property taxes
during the first year. The tax break declines by 5
percent a year, he said.
Ruchala said a company can get up to $3,500 for each new
job it creates.
A business outside the designated zone can benefit, too,
he said. That company would have to show that its
development is a "regionally significant project," to
qualify for some of the benefits, Ruchala said.
Rockland got its first Empire Zone designation in 2006.
Steve Porath, director of economic development at the
Rockland Economic Development Corp., said it has helped
attract or keep 11 businesses and about 500 jobs. The
most recent company to take advantage of the program was
Plastic Grinding International, which is in Hillburn and
recycles plastic bottles, he said.
In Westchester, Yonkers and Mount Vernon have areas
designated as Empire Zones.
Assemblyman Greg Ball, R-Carmel, said he was pleased
with the designation. Ball said he promised during his
2006 campaign to fight for an Empire Zone in the county.
"The creation of an Empire Zone will help strengthen our
local economy, not only through attracting lucrative
businesses, but by ensuring those that are already here
have the support needed to grow," he said in a prepared
statement.
Reach Allan Drury at
adrury@lohud.com or 914-694-5069.
January 5, 2008
EDC's Inaugural
Presentation on Channel 8
Good morning all
New Year brings all sorts of new and different things,
some portend good and some fall flat. And so it was
with the unhappy selection of a company to trumpet the
efforts of the EDC.
Don't recognize the initials. Well, it is one of those
organizations that I termed "the shadow government" at
one meeting of the Carmel Town Board and I believe
legislature. EDC has come out of the shadows and is
inaugurating a monthly program to acquaint the residents
with their efforts to attract businesses - good clean
only - to Putnam County. We should have such an
organization and they should be commended.
What is the EDC? EDC is the Economic Development
Committee made up of volunteers who indeed seek to
expand the number and diversity of businesses in Putnam
County. Along with Eric Gross, who served as moderator
and Kevin Bailey, the program highlighted Joe DeVestra
from Smith Barney and John Lynch, Commissioner of
Planning for Putnam.
The program was informative. Residents should be aware
of this organization since according to the participants
they brought in $30 million in new jobs. But
paradoxically - (yes, they mentioned the Putnam
Paradox), they chose to highlight as the poster child
for their successful efforts - Powers Fasteners, a
company recently relocated to Brewster.
In viewing this particular segment, I gringed but then
how many folks are there like me who are familiar with
its record. They recently paid $6 million to the family
of the unfortunate woman who was using the "BIG DIG" in
Boston to drive home and was killed by material
dislodged from the ceiling of the tunnel. You guessed
it. Powers was involved and as their name connotes;
they make fasteners. Just in case, you may have missed
the Boston Globe article, I've attached it below.
That being said. Future programs should be very careful
in their selection but this misstep should not deter the
efforts of the EDC to provide information to the public
nor discourage those involved in the program.
Sincerely,
Ann
www.putopenspaces.com
Criminal trial of Powers Fasteners to
proceed
The
criminal manslaughter trial of
Powers
Fasteners will proceed after a Massachusetts judge
rejected the fastener and adhesives manufacturer’s move
to dismiss the charges,
The Boston Globe reported.
Judge Patrick Brady rejected the Brewster, N.Y.-based
company’s that Massachusetts attorney general Martha
Coakley's office should not be able to prosecute the
case because it also filed a civil lawsuit against
Powers and other companies, stemming from the fatal
ceiling collapse in one of Boston’s “Big Dig” tunnels
last year.
The indictment alleges that Powers supplied the epoxy,
“Power-Fast Epoxy Injection Gel Fast Set,” used to
secure the concrete ceiling of the tunnel that collapsed
last July, killing 38-year-old Milena Del Valle.
Brady ruled that the attorney general's office is
"authorized to conduct the civil and criminal cases at
the same time. … Powers has not shown there is any
conflict or other reason to disqualify the office."
Powers, the only company facing criminal charges related
to the accident, also faces a civil suit brought by Del
Valle’s family. That case may be settled for roughly $6
million, according to a separate
Globe report. The Del Valle family’s suit also names
14 other defendants, including Big Dig project manager
Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the Massachusetts Turnpike
Authority and several contractors.
Lawyers involved in the case told the newspaper that if
Powers accepts responsibility for the incident and
compensates Del Valle's husband and three children, it
could help in its fight against the manslaughter charge
January 02,
2008
A
Washington Post Article
By Anita Kumar
CHATHAM, Va. --
Underneath a plot of farmland used to
raise cattle, hay and timber in south
central Virginia lies what is thought to
be the largest deposit of uranium in the
United States
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