Follow Up on the News

Another Fiery Issue

The new laws, they say, are the result of shifts in the types of items people are burning, especially in rural areas, causing possible health dangers to the general population. As well as the increasing potential for wildfires being pushed by growing dry conditions tied to Climate Change.
And already they’re producing steam from local folk, especially in the rural Route 28 corridor towns of Olive and Shandaken, where former Woodstock Police Chief Rich Ostrander has started sounding the alert on what’s happening, and what could happen as a result.
“We will be looking at public comments over the coming months,” DEC Region 4 Director Willi Janeway said of the statewide regulatory changes set for public hearings to start June 24. “It is typical for us to revise proposals based on public reaction.”
“I have spoken to many contractors in the area and no one knows about the changes. There will be substantial cost increases for homeowners and contractors alike,” wrote former Woodstock Police Chief Rich Ostrander of Boiceville in a recent e-mail (see hisletter, and a missive from the Olive Town Board, in the letters section inside). “I personally think this is a very important issue for a rural area and it is going to hit like a ton of bricks.”
In what they say is an effort to reduce the impacts of pollutants such as dioxins, particulate matter and carbon monoxide and to limit the risks of wildfires, the DEC proposed in early May to extend a ban on open burning statewide beyond the current ban for any municipality with a population of 20,000 or more, a law in effect since 1972, to include the entire state.
Once considered harmless, DEC has reported that open burning has been found to release more dangerous chemicals into the air than thought generations ago. They cite a recent study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, undertaken in conjunction with DEC and the State Department of Health, that found that emissions of dioxins and furans from backyard burning alone were greater than all other sources combined for the years 2002-04. The study also found that burning trash emits arsenic, carbon monoxide, benzene, styrene, formaldehyde, lead, hydrogen cyanide and other harmful chemicals. Trash containing plastics, polystyrene, pressure-treated and painted wood and bleached or colored papers can produce harmful chemicals when burned.
In addition to releasing pollutants, it was found that open burning is the largest single cause of wildfires in New York State such as that which destroyed a large chunk of the Minnewaska area earlier this Spring. Data from DEC’s Forest Protection Division show that debris burning accounted for about 40 percent of wildfires between 1986 and 2006 - more than twice the next most-cited source. The proposed rule does allow for a number of exceptions, including 3 foot radius camp fires, celebratory bonfires (where allowed), fire training exercises, specialized burning to protect crops from frostbite and burning of agricultural wastes (though not agricultural plastics). But according to Ostrander, officials he spoke to about the new regs in Albany told him, “You’re not going to be able to light a newspaper on fire in this state after this,” in regards to the proposals.
Ostrander said this week that he has been telling many local contractors as he can about what’s happening, because he feels it will hit that industry particularly hard, forcing site clearings to resort to burying wood debris or hauling it away for disposal.
“The cost of a chipper’s averaging over $700 a day,” he said. “That’s a sizable expense.”
In addition, he worries about private citizens who regularly burn brush, as he does at his home. He’s unsure local landfills or the county Rural Resource Recovery Agency are prepared to handle the new loads it would have to deal with.
“The DEC believes that the private sector will solve the technical problems,” Janeway said when told of difficulties people are having with the DEC’s suggestion that local landfills incinerate local woods trash. “They will in time produce outdoor boilers that pass clean air standards. The old polluting units will age out over a predetermined time period. They will not be grandfathered forever.”
In the laws themselves, the state proposes that eventual benefits will outweigh immediate expenses.
“Due to the potential increase in the amount of household waste, brush, and land clearing debris, communities may need to upgrade their transfer facilities. Upgrades would primarily consist of large trash compactors for household refuse, and wood chippers or tub grinders for brush and land clearing debris,” the proposed law states. “Societal savings of health related costs in affected rural areas should more than make up for the increased costs of solid waste disposal. A single hospitalization for asthma outside of New York City costs over $8,900 and the total cost for asthma hospitalizations amounted to over $284 million in 2002.”
The law’s big aim, it states, is against so-called burn barrels, still a major component of rural life in many places..
Ostrander said he thinks that, in the end, some compromise can be reached, banning burn barrels, for example, while retaining a permit process for burning brush. He added that he was planning to take his campaign to other towns, the Catskill Watershed Corporation, the Coaliton of Watershed Towns and other entities that could help make the proposed regulatory changes less draconian.
Janeway, for his part, said the new laws were being less effected by Climate Change policies than a reaction to “major shifts in the waste stream.” Although he did say stemming burns in a dryer climate WAS important.
The state is currently conducting a series of public hearings on the proposal, including one at 5 PM on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 at the Norrie Point Environmental Center in Staatsburg, Staatsburg, two from 9:30 AM to noon and 5 to 8 PM on Wednesday, June 25, at DE’s Central Office, 625 Broadway, Public Assembly Room 129, Albany, NY
It is important that folks be heard at these meetings, that they write letters to the state about their thoughts regarding the proposed regulations, and that they don’t just assume their local governments will affect needed changes.
For more info visit www.dec.ny/gov.

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Community Resilience

By dint of both independent and co-operative household efforts by people of all ages, the larders, woodsheds, ice houses, hay mows, root cellars, spring houses and granaries of the area were all stocked anew annually in a perpetual natural cycle bounded by the changing moons and seasons. Our elders were green and organic and seasonal long before anyone had ever heard the now mantric terms.
Today we are deluged and enamored with all things Green, Sustainable, Renewable, Solar, Local, Organic, Free range, Pasture Fed, and Photovoltaic with a neutral carbon footprint fully offset… as if these are all new discoveries. Whereas it once took little more than a few thousand calories of locally derived energy per day to support man and beast, it now takes hundreds of millions of fossil-derived BTU’s to stay warm and enjoy personal mobility at our modern standard of comfort and expectation.
Turn the key to start the chariot, turn on the central fossil fuel heat or simply eat some petroleum-derived food and we then contribute to the consumption in the USA of 26 barrels of petroleum per person annually. With only 4 to 6 barrels per capita consumed in the rest of the industrial world, 1.7Bbl. per person per year in China and .7 Bbl per person in India, it is becoming increasingly clear that here in the USA we will be consuming much less petroleum going forward. The rest of the world has clearly withdrawn their desire to underwrite and finance our wasteful and unsustainable consumption.
We may yet again be supported by a local solar powered, photo-synthetic biological closed loop system that uses and recycles current carbon biologically and energetically. Fancy words for a long evolving, rich, productive and diverse biota that our forebears had enough knowledge of to actually wrest a living from for generation after generation from the mid 18th century until the mid 20th century . Could you and your family today manage to survive and thrive locally by your own efforts without petroleum and the personal mobility, utility and comfort which it affords?
Cuba found out about energy and food resiliency the hard way in 1991 when their petroleum imports were halted due to the collapse of the former Soviet Union which supplied Cuba’s fuel during the still ongoing US led embargo of Cuba. Organic farmers, gardeners and agricultural educators were elevated to the status and pay of doctors and engineers and were given control of the state farms. Three years later, with an average per-capita weight loss of 25 lbs. per person, Cuba accomplished the conversion of the agricultural sector to organic systems of production that are now held out and modeled globally as a viable model of modern sustainable agricultural systems which rely on natural biological means, traditional cultural methods and inputs that are available locally if not actually on the farm.
I believe that our beloved Catskill environs will in time revert back to a slower and more naturally powered place of balanced sustainable growth that is appropriate to our local biological carrying capacity and which will rely on locally-derived, naturally occurring energy sources and systems that will once again help to provide fairly priced food, fiber and fuel. The process of planning and change could be tailored by local hands to meet the conditions and needs found here in the Catskill Mountain bio-region. People will likely seek to re-learn the many practical skills needed to keep a village going..
There now exists a patchwork quilt of those who are already practicing and developing sustainable lifestyles such as our local farmers, 4H’ers, gardeners, farm and garden educators and householders of every stripe. They will help teach the rest of us how to grow stronger and more resilient as every season passes by in a new world that will look strangely familiar to our approving elders. Given the increasing awareness of the limitations and lack of resilience in our modern cultural systems, I would even go so far as to suggest that there now may exist a critical mass of like-minded neighbors who will gather and discuss the desirability and feasibility of such a planning process.
Where to now in this brave new age of receding paper and real purchasing power values? In the new Olive garden, the herds will mow and fertile without the use of fossil fueled machinery. The answer may lie in some of the many communities around the world which are now developing and implementing comprehensive Re-Localization plans to help meet the challenges and opportunities being presented by our new and drastically changed energy and financial paradigms.
An excellent example of resilience planning for communities is the Tompkins County New York Re-Localization Plan, from farther out in New York state - a comprehensive 16 item list of considerations of all the essential areas of modern sustainable village life.
E.F. Schumacher, economist, author and former head of the venerable British Coal Board, suggested in his seminal book on small scale village economics, “Small is Beautiful,” that even when becalmed we must continue to prepare the sails to catch the wind that will inevitably arise and fill the sails. The wind is now picking up. Will we fashion the appropriate sails in time?
Leave your name and number at 845-657-2030, or e-mail waverider75@earthlink.net if you are interested in having a neighborly discussion to assess the feasibility of all this. Or contact this paper…

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Ready To Changeover

“May 20 was truly a sad day for this district,” Valvo said. “The three of you did not deserve this modern day witch hunt of a campaign your opponents ran against you.”
She went on to accuse the four newly elected board members of using fear, emotion and confusion as a way to boost their platform to success.
Valvo then said that the transportation department is much safer than it was on June 18, 2002, when O’Connor’s son, Kevin, was tragically struck and killed by a school bus driver on Route 28. She thanked O’Connor for personally seeing that the children are safer.
Donna White-Davis of Woodstock voiced the thoughts of many in attendance offended by Valvo’s statements. She mentioned that it was the community as a whole who rallied new transportation director Dave Moraca for change to create a child safety zone, “When he wanted students to walk a mile on the same street that Kevin was killed on. We had to push to get people to make a decision to actually do something about the situation,” Davis said. “I respect and love Cindy, I know she worked hard, I loved Kevin, but to even paint the new members or this election with that is really unfair.”
Parent Abbe Aronson, also angered over Valvo’s statements on the election, said broader representation was a way to move forward.
“The more that certain members speak for certain communities, the easier it is for other people to say ‘wow, thank goodness we all got out and voted,’ because we need everyone’s representation in this community,” she said.
O’Connor replied, “I would like to talk about transportation because I don’t like what has developed in the past couple of months and if anyone has anything to say about transportation, I have the right to say it.”
She addressed comments made during the election that transportation was not safe and the department did not need a director, but a head bus driver. She called on Superintendent Leslie Ford, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Victoria McLaren and Moraca to “educate the new board on where we are and how far we have come.” She said it was time for the new board members to learn the process and slow down their celebrations.
“For all of you that know me and my family, it has never been about celebration and picnics or campaign jingles, it’s been about relearning how to celebrate life when you are dealing with death,” O’Connor said tearfully. “Six years ago on June 18, I watched my son die before my very eyes, I watched him take his last breath due to complacency and non compliance, so nobody can tell me about transportation.”
Also causing a small stir was the extension of Ford’s and McLaren’s contracts through June 30, 2011. All voted in favor except for newly elected board member Laurie Osmond, who abstained. She explained that their contracts require the action, but wished the new board could make the decision in six months time when they had time to process.
“I understand that if the extension does not happen it is the equivalent of telling the superintendent that they should start looking for another job and it should not be renewed and that is not a message I am comfortable with,” she added.
School board trustee Maxanne Resnick, reading from a statement, gave more detail, noting that some parents are not happy with Ford’s job performance.
“Not knowing the specific complaints, I recognize that there is some dissatisfaction in the way both the superintendent and this board has conducted business and that this dissatisfaction coalesced to change the board composition,” she said, adding that by law, New York State Superintendents must have a three-to-five year contract.
Ford is in the middle of her contract with specifications that it be reviewed every December and June. She said the board has given Ford a positive review but outlined areas of improvement that may fall in line with parents’ concerns.
In other business, longtime Director of Pupil Personnel Services Barbara Boyce announced that she will retire affective October 1,2008. She received flowers and a standing ovation for her services.
“It has been an honor and privilege and I have valued all these years,” she said.
Also, the school board welcomed new Middle School principal Andrew Davenport, who will begin July 1. He replaces Paul Schwartz, who resigned after one year.

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A Jar Of Olives...
Atlas Shrugged

The senior art group finished fifteen weeks of lessons with Judith Boggess. They will display their paintings at the Olive Free Library this July and will begin a fall session on September 8. An end of the year luncheon, after the last class, will culminate a group of would-be artists who became friends. At the luncheon, they will celebrate Marjorie Zinkand’s birthday who is turning 84.
My calendar for June is inked over with retirement and graduation parties; however, I am looking at a month of blank boxes for July and August. I intend to do NOTHING in fine style. How many of you have a hammock that you hang in a cool, resfreshing spot on your property? I bet you never actually lie in that hammock. Same thing with lounge chairs. Do you lounge enough? My recipe for a great summer vacation is to kick back and do next to nothing. Read a good book. Invite a neighbor to have a cool glass of iced tea on your deck or lawn. Real relaxation doesn’t cost much. A few hot-dogs, ice cubes, a fan and a whole lot of NOTHING can be quite a nice mini-vacation.
When the world gets out of hand, like it is now, my plan for retaliation is to step back and not be in the fray. Most things sort themselves out without my direct interference. Besides, some problems like war, homelessness, food shortage and outrageous cost of oil and gas seem overwhelming. I shrug and vow to drive less and buy less. Someone near and dear to me, on the other hand, took direct action when gas rose above four dollars a gallon. He parked his gas-guzzling, three-quarter ton truck until winter when he needs it to plow. He bought a two seater Mazda Miata convertible that gets over thirty miles to the gallon. He showed those oil company money lords! He realizes that it will take him nine years to break even on gas savings, but, at least, the Miata is his and the money isn’t going into some greedy corporate pocket.
You might want to join me in fixing yourself that iced tea, lying in a lounge chair and reading a good book this summer. I would suggest Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. When the world in this futuristic novel gets out of hand with looters and moochers in control (perhaps it is not that futuristic!), the leaders “shrug.” In this philosophy of OBJECTIVISM, change is effected through in-action or self-directed choice. To quote from John Galt’s Speech, as presented in the novel: “Evil is impotent and has no power but that which we let it extort from us,” Rand claims that morality requires that we do not sanction our own victimhood.
It is time to react to the rocketing price of fuel, not just grumble about it. Drive less. Force auto makers to create an efficient vehicle by not buying what is sitting on the lots. Ayn Rand wrote in Capitalism:The Unknown: “Wealth, in a free market, is achieved by a free, general, “democratic” vote—by the sales and purchases of every individual who takes part in the economic life of the country. Whenever you buy one product rather than another, you are voting; every man votes…on his own preferences, interests and needs. No one has the power to decide for others or to substitute his judgment for theirs; no one has the power to appoint himself “the voice of the public” and to leave the public voiceless and disfranchised.”
In this long and convoluted primary season, I wonder how much power we have granted to the media. Candidates were made or hurt by public opinion polls and media commentary. Is the media reporting or manipulating? Is the stock market reacting to or driving the economy? I guess I don’t really know, so I shrug. By the way, who is this guy, John Galt?