News Briefs 9/11/2008

Master Planned…
A plan guiding the future management of the state’s 292,000 acres in the Catskill Forest Preserve has been finalized after years of deliberations and fine tunings, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis announced last week, noting that the update to the Catskill Park State Land Master Plan “strikes an appropriate balance of protecting the wilderness and expanding recreational enjoyment.”
Among various specifics, the plan adds a “Primitive Bicycle Corridor” for recreation and includes invasive species management to address emerging threats to resources.
The Catskill Forest Preserve is part of the Catskill Park, which consists of 705,500 acres of public and private lands. Since its creation in 1885, the Forest Preserve has grown from 34,000 acres to nearly 300,000 acres of public land within Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, and Ulster counties. Forest Preserve lands are protected under Article 14 of the state constitution as “forever wild” and cannot be logged, leased or sold, and must be managed to protect wilderness values. The state pays property taxes on DEC land.
The first Catskill Park State Land Master Plan was developed in 1985 and classifies state forest preserve lands within the Park based on their physical character and capacity to accommodate human use. This resulted in four land classifications: wilderness, wild forest, intensive use and administrative. The Plan also designates management units and directs DEC to develop individual unit management plans that guide management activities and public use of those geographically specific units.
The current plan got its first outing in 2003, when a proposed draft revision of the 2980s plan was released for public review and comment. That process resulted in the release of a second draft in April of this year, after which final comments and revision requests were weighed and incorporated.
Specific changes from the original plan include the creation of a new land classification – the Primitive Bicycle Corridor - to encompass approximately 156 acres along four 100 feet wide trail corridors, mostly in Greene County, along the entirety of the old Mink Hollow Road through the Indian Head Wilderness (3.2 miles); along 4.5 miles of the old Overlook Turnpike from the Overlook Mountain Wild Forest boundary to Platte Clove and Prediger Road; along Diamond Notch Road from outside Lanesville to Spruceton in the Hunter-Westkill Wilderness (3.2 miles); and along the old Colgate Lake - Dutcher Notch Trail. Bicycle use will also be extended to other trails throughout the region.
In addition, the size of the Colgate Wild Forest will be increased from 600 acres to 1,495 acres; invasive species will be treated wherever there is potential for significant degradation to the native ecosystem, and greater recreation tie-ins with New York City owned lands will be encouraged.
Neil Woodworth, Executive Director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, said: “This is a very balanced plan that expands responsible recreational opportunities while protecting the Catskills, one of New York’s greatest and most beloved natural resources. This plan will create new mountain biking opportunities while protecting hiking trails on steep slopes of the Catskill High Peaks and will expand the Catskill wilderness to protect the summit of Hunter Mountain and the Escarpment Range.”
The finalized plan can be found on the Department’s web site, http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/43013.html.

Conferencing
The 2008 Watershed Science and Technical Conference will be held at the Thayer Hotel in West Point on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 16th and 17th. Those interested in attending the conference may register online at the Department of State’s website at www.dos.state.ny.us or the New York Water Environment Association’s website at www.nywea.org.
“This important conference will bring scientists, engineers and technical experts together with watershed stakeholders and the public to present leading edge research findings and information regarding the protection the New York City Watershed, the nation’s largest unfiltered surface water supply,” said NYS Secretary of State Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez.
T “The conference will be valuable to elected officials, directors of public works, planning and highway departments, land use planners, consulting engineers, attorneys, educators, environmental groups and interested citizens, all of whom are our partners in protecting and enhancing the New York City Watershed”, said William C. Harding, Executive Director of the Watershed Protection and Partnership Council, adding, “Conference attendees will find themselves in a unique forum for collaboration among the many entities working within the field of watershed protection science here and across the nation.”
Special events at the conference include remarks by John Cronin, former Hudson Riverkeeper and currently the Director and CEO of The Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, and the Director of the Pace Academy for the Environment at Pace University.

Sale Completed
The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the Open Space Institute (OSI), and the Ashokan Foundation announced September 2 that they have completed a three-way transaction on the 374–acre property formerly known as the Ashokan Field Campus. The entire property was acquired earlier this year by OSI’s land acquisition affiliate the Open Space Conservancy (OSC) from Campus Auxiliary Services (an arm of the State University of New York at New Paltz). Under the agreement, DEP has taken title to 219 acres in Olive and 14 acres in Marbletown, and 141 acres in Olive have been acquired by the Ashokan Foundation.
The Ashokan Foundation’s principals, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, are musicians who have run cultural programs at Ashokan for 30 years. Jay Ungar said, “We feel privileged to be partners with OSC and DEP as stewards of Ashokan’s 374 acres of streams, forests and fields. We will strive to further develop Ashokan’s mission as a learning environment where schools, organizations, families and individuals can re-connect with nature and build community through shared experiences in outdoor education, living history, art, music and dance.”
Molly Mason added, “While many of our old buildings will have to make way for new structures on higher ground, the new buildings will be designed to reduce our carbon footprint. This, plus our increased use of local sources of food and materials, will help the new Ashokan become a model of green, sustainable living.”
By owning a portion of the property, DEP now has more flexibility in operating the Ashokan Reservoir and managing turbidity. DEP has the ability to release water from the reservoir to the lower Esopus Creek. Releasing water can allow DEP to create a void in the Ashokan Reservoir to capture runoff from intense storms. Capturing runoff can have benefits for water quality and enhance the attenuation effect the reservoir already provides in relation to downstream flooding.
Such releases require – and natural flooding has also caused – some inundation of areas along the Creek, where several buildings had been constructed over the years by the prior owner, Campus Auxiliary Services (CAS). The design of the subdivision puts the central feature of the 233-acre property, a 1.7-mile stretch of the Esopus Creek, under DEP’s ownership so that it can safely control releases of water. Much of the remaining uplands will be owned by the Ashokan Foundation to allow continued operation of its educational and cultural programs.
Although the entire property had been off the tax rolls since being owned by CAS, DEP will now pay property taxes on its portion as assessed. DEP plans to manage the applicable part of the property consistent with a conservation easement held by the Rondout-Esopus Land Conservancy, which ensures that the eastern half of the property cannot be developed.
Under an agreement earlier this year, OSC acquired the entire property on May 12 from CAS and sought subdivision approval from the Town of Olive in order to convey parcels to both DEP and the Ashokan Foundation. Approval was granted by the Town on June 10. On August 14, DEP purchased title to 233 acres from OSC. OSC will hold the remaining 141-acre tract and plans to convey it to the Ashokan Foundation later this month.
Over the next several years, DEP plans to remove several structures that lie within the inundation zone and will assist the new owners with reconstruction outside this zone. Reciprocal deeded rights have been established in order to allow the two new neighbors – DEP and the Ashokan Foundation – to use each other’s property for access and activities relating to their missions. The Ashokan Center, the programmatic arm of the Foundation, will continue the programs that have been offered on the site for four decades.

OCS Tax Rates
The Onteora Board of Education has released information on tax rates. The school board last month adopted a yearly tax warrant resolution calling for $35,220,498 to be raised by taxes for the 2008-09 school year. The property tax levy is unchanged from the 2007-08 school year.
The school district’s $48,215,077 budget, which was approved by voters in May, increases total appropriations 3.07 percent over the previous school year’s budget. According to the tax rate information sheet provided by the district business office, the total assessed property value in the district is $3,040,971,152.
The district will collect $5,768,830 from taxpayers in Hurley; $220,615 from Marbletown; $11,545,542 from Olive; $6,481,136.27 from Shandaken; $10,825,379 from Woodstock; and $378,996 from Lexington. Rates per $1,000 of assessed property value are as follows: Hurley: $9.81, down from $10.63 last year, a 7.71 percent decrease; Marbletown: $9.87, down from $10.29 last year, a 4.1 percent decrease; Olive: $9.12, up from $7.80 last year, a 16.92 percent increase; Shandaken: $41.46, down from $43.49 last year, a 4.67 percent decrease; Woodstock: $10.99, down from $12.11 last year, a 9.2 percent decrease; Lexington: $16.07, up from $15.43 last year, a 4.15 percent increase.

Ethics Talk…
As the Ulster County Legislature prepared to vote Wednesday on a new county ethics law, all discussion of allowing Democratic County Elections Commissioner John Parete to retain both his county job and his chairmanship of the county Democratic Committee has been halted. The Laws and Rules Committee Monday ruled against such double dipping at a September 8 meeting, as well as the making of any exceptions for Parete, who owns the Boiceville Inn in Olive.
Lawmakers in committee also discussed a possible change to the county’s administrative code and agreed to allow the county executive to appoint a former member of the legislature after that person is out of office. There had been discussion of requiring a one year waiting period.

Green Pizza!
A Green Pizza Fundraiser for the Olive-originated Family Farm Festival will be held Saturday, September 13th, from 4 to 7pm at the Epworth Center on County Route 1 just south of High Falls. The event will raise funds for the 2009 Family Farm Festival. Festival organizers will serve up all-you-can-eat artisanal pizzas made from locally grown ingredients cooked in a hand-made wood-fired oven. Music, an heirloom tomato tasting, and tours of gardens and a strawbale house are also on offer.
The Family Farm Festival has been held at the Epworth Center in High Falls for the past six years as a convergence of dozens of local organic farmers and thousands of good-food lovers. The Festival was started by organizers Dina Falconi and Jen Prosser, a former columnist for this paper.. With Prosser’s recent move to New Mexico, Falconi has handed off the festival to a group of local organizers. The first step in the re-organization process is fundraising, and the group’s inaugural effort - this artisanal pizza and music fete - promises to fill the coffers of the fledgling group.
“Because of financial and organizational difficulties, we’re postponing the debut of the newly organized festival until September, 2009,” says the new organization’s President, Thea Harvey. “We’re hoping the Green Pizza Fundraiser will bring in people who’ve enjoyed the Family Farm Festival in past years. We’re looking to build a broad base of community support.”
The group will host additional fundraisers over the coming year; check out its website for details on this or other events at www.familyfarmfestival.com.

Bike Benefit
The fifth annual “Bike for Cancer Care” will be held on Sunday, September 21, 2008 to benefit the Rosemary D. Gruner Memorial Cancer Fund at Benedictine Hospital. This year’s ride will again offer three routes (5-mile Family Ride, 25- and 50-mile rides) and all will travel throughout Ulster County. All rides will start and finish at Ulster Savings Bank’s 180 Schwenk Drive headquarters in Kingston. Registration for the event begins at 7:45am and rides will start as follows: 50-mile ride – 8:30am, 25-mile ride – 10:00am, 5-mile ride – 11:00am. The post-ride barbecue and awards ceremony will begin at 12:00pm.
In partnership with the Cancer Center and Health Foundation at Benedictine Hospital, the Fund, created in 2004 by the Gruner family, provides financial assistance for cancer patients and their families who are receiving treatment in Ulster County. To date, over 300 patients and their families have been assisted by the Gruner Fund in all areas of Ulster County, including Kingston, Saugerties, Kerhonkson, Ellenville, Accord, Woodstock, High Falls, New Paltz, Margaretville and Shandaken.
Applications and fundraising guidelines for the “Bike for Cancer Care” are available at www.bikeforcancer.org. For additional information, please call Dan Gruner at (845) 417-1865.

Been Flooded?
Do you own, and live in, a one or two family home that has been flooded one or more times since April 1, 2004? Is your home valued less than $250,000? Is your combined family income less than 150% of HUD median income? Would like to sell your home? If so, you may be eligible to participate in the Greater Catskill Flood Remediation Program. The Ulster County Emergency Management Office has been working with local municipalities over the last several months to identify residents who meet these criteria. This is a last call for anyone who has not been contacted by your municipality to apply for the program. For further information, please contact Art Snyder, Director, Ulster County Emergency Management at (845) 331-7000 – by September 15 for an application.

Network Meeting
The Shandaken Women’s Network will hold its next meeting on Wednesday, September 17th from 6 to 9 p.m at the Boiceville to hear speaker Judith Biannucci from United First Financial present a program on how to pay down debt faster. The topic is about the “Money Merge Account”. Please RSVP Diana Mae Munch by Sunday Sept 14th, so Barbara at the Boiceville Inn knows how much food to purchase and prepare. Contact Diana at (845) 688-7057 or dianamaemunch@yahoo.com
For more information about the event contact Shandaken Women’s Network President Melody Newcombe at 845-688-5472.

Senior BBQ…
On September 26th the Onteora Senior Class is having a District Wide Welcome Back Chicken BBQ with the help of Hickory Pit Smokehouse from 5 to 8 PM Tickets are for sale in the offices of each elementary school, via Fran Hollander at the Middle School and Liz Sopata in the High School, along with many senior class parents. The goal is to sell 500 dinners. Tickets will be available at the door also .The event will help kick off the annual Onteora Homecoming Weekend.

Biodiversity!
Two upcoming events stress the new emphasis on biodiversity and sustainability for the coming decades.
On September 19 and 20, Sustainable Hudson Valley will hold its third annual conference, Cool Communities/ Living Economies: Ten Years to a Green Economy. The program is published, and online registration is now available at www.sustainhv.org. The regional gathering will take place at the Seven21 Media Center, 721 Broadway, Kingston, NY.
The conference brings together entrepreneurs, industry and civic leaders, funders, educators and engaged citizens for a practical exploration of the ways communities can work together to accelerate the region’s transition to a green economy.
A week later, the Watershed Agricultural Council is sponsoring a site visit and talk about biodiversity at Arkville’s Lazy Crazy Acres on Thursday, September 25. At 1 p.m., Dr. Darrell Emmick, State Grazing Land Management Specialist with the USDA-NRCS, will lead a two-hour pasture walk through the Fairbairns’ fields. For over 25 years, Emmick has promoted grazing-based dairy production systems in the Northeast United States. Emmick’s work includes developing practical grazing guidelines and providing on-farm technical assistance. Emmick will discuss the importance of grass species biodiversity as it relates to a rotational grazing system. Topics include: How to increase biodiversity in pastures, how plants and animals benefit each other, how rotational grazing on biodiverse land affects animal behavior and how rotational grazing helps the environment.
Lazy Crazy Acres, managed by Jake and Karen Fairbairn, is a small grass-based dairy farm with 35 cows and 30 youngstock. Their goal is to maintain a healthy herd that will produce a high-quality product. The Fairbairns milk twice a day in a swing parlor. In the winter months when the cows are not on pasture, the animals are housed in a bedded-pack barn.
There is no fee for the pasture walk, however pre-registration by September 22 is encouraged. To register, call Kim Holden at (607) 865-7090 or email kmh19@cornell.edu. For more info on the event, visit www.nycwatershed.org.
Conventional?
More than 800 arrests were reported during a week of sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent dissent at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. The last of the actions, following arrests of numerous non-Mainstream members of the press corps, occurred on Thursday, September 4 when anti-war protesters rallied at the state Capitol and then planned to march to Xcel Energy Center, where Sen. John McCain was due to accept the GOP presidential nomination. But their permit had expired the previous hour, and police — in riot gear and using horses, snow plows and dump trucks — blocked their way. For hours, police let the protesters amble from one blocked intersection to another. And then the arrests began… with protesters blockaded onto a bridge police said they were forbidden to block.
The crowd varied from a high of about 1,000 down to a hundred and back to around 500. Officers then set off smoke bombs and fired seven percussion grenades, causing protesters to scatter.
Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said the St. Paul police department and its police chief decided that members of the media and protesters should be charged for unlawful assembly.
“The tactic of blocking people on the bridge could very well have prevented a lot of activity later tonight,” Fletcher said. “ Clearly there were a number of people with no intention of being law-abiding here.”

Labor, Again!
The National Labor Relations board has set Thursday, September 18 as the date for a union-representation election for registered nurses at Benedictine Hospital in Kingston. The nurses are seeking to join the New York State Nurses Association for a unified voiced to address workplace issues including nurse staffing, non-competitive salaries, and lack of incentives to retain experienced nurses.
Last month, the NLRB rejected hospital management’s effort to prevent the election.
Congressman Maurice Hinchey sent a letter of support for the nurses’ organization efforts.
“The call for unionization should not be viewed by the administration at Benedictine as something counterproductive to hospital goals” he wrote to hospital CEO Thomas Dee. “In fact, unionization of the nursing staff will help to improve policy on an array of issues ranging from working conditions and nurse-to-patient ratios, to the role of nurses will play in determining standards of care.”

Regional Grant
The Center for Research, Regional Education and Outreach (CRREO) at the State University of New York at New Paltz has been awarded a $286,899 grant by the U.S. Department of Education. Directed by Gerald Benjamin, associate vice president for regional engagement, the Center serves as the principal locus of the college’s efforts to raise its level of engagement within communities, government and businesses across the Hudson Valley.Benjamin said that the Congressionally-directed grant, secured by Senator’s Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, will be used to develop measures of Hudson Valley and Catskills communities’ social, economic and environmental character that are broadly accepted and allow the tracking of change over time.
Teaching materials will also be developed on the environmental/developmental nexus for use in college courses, and other materials will be prepared for distribution to local government decision makers – county executives, county legislators, mayors, city councils, town and village board members.
For more information about the Center, visit www.newpaltz.edu/crreo.

Economic Factors
Sales of existing single-family houses in the Hudson Valley and Catskills remained sluggish in July; however, they rose considerably in two counties, according to the New York State Association of Realtors.
Sales rose year over year in July by 155 percent in Sullivan County and by 46 percent in Delaware County, according to the trade organization. The county with the least decline in sales was Dutchess with just under five percent loss while the largest decline was in Rockland County at 27 percent.
Statewide, sales of existing single-family homes fell by over 14 percent.
Median prices of existing homes also declined in most counties in the region in July. Ulster county homes dropped 14 percent year to year.
In other regional economic news, State Department of Labor officials “put companies on notice” recently with the introduction of a new law requiring more advance notice for layoffs, and stiff penalties for lack of compliance.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act unveiled at the Poughkeepsie branch of the New York State Department of Labor by Labor Commissioner Patricia Smith is based on the 1988 federal WARN Act which forced companies with more than 100 employees to give a 60-day notice of layoffs, downsizing, or closing. The new state law calls for a 90 day notice, and lowers the minimum number of employees in companies forced to comply to 50. It also gives the commissioner the power to ask for relief, including back wages and unpaid medical benefits, for employees who didn’t receive the proper notice, and penalizes any company who doesn’t comply with the law $500 per day they didn’t give notice accordingly.
Smith said the federal law was “inefficient and has virtually no enforcement mechanism.” This, she said forced the state to take the reins in this issue.
In 2004, Imperial Schrade, in Ellenville, showed up one day and the plant was closed, with several hundred employees effected.
Assemblyman Kevin Cahill of Kingston said the new bill addresses a bigger issue than just layoffs.

Senior Failures
While the bankruptcy filing rate for those under 55 has fallen, it has soared for older Americans, according to a new analysis from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, which examined a sampling of noncommercial bankruptcies filed between 1991 and 2007.
The older the age group, the worse it got - people 65 and up became more than twice as likely to file during that period, and the filing rate for those 75 and older more than quadrupled.
“Older Americans are hit by a one-two punch of jobs and medical problems and the two are often intertwined,” said Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who was one of the authors of the study. “They discover that they must work to keep some form of economic balance and when they can’t, they’re lost.”
. In 1991, the 55-plus age group accounted for about 8 percent of bankruptcy filers, according to the study, which looked at more than 6,000 cases filed in 1991, 2001 or 2007. By last year, filers 55 and over accounted for 22 percent.
Each age group under 55 saw double-digit percentage drops in their bankruptcy filing rates over the survey period, older Americans saw remarkable increases. The filing rate per thousand people ages 55-64 was up 40 percent; among 65- to 74-year-olds it increased 125 percent; and among the 75-to-84-year-old set, it was up 433 percent.
A number of factors are contributing to the increase. Higher prices for ordinary consumer goods have hit seniors on fixed budgets. For older Americans living below the poverty level, or not far above, a safety net likely doesn’t exist for economic setbacks such as medical problems. And some fall prey to scams that cripple their finances.

Gas Drilling
On September 10, Riverkeeper attorney Jay Simpson was set to testify before the New York City Council Environmental Protection Committee’s emergency public hearing on natural gas drilling within the NYC Watershed. Riverkeeper applauds New York State’s decision to conduct a supplemental review of gas drilling’s environmental impacts throughout New York State; however the NYC Watershed, as the source of drinking water for half the state’s population, is the state’s greatest natural resource and warrants special protection.
Robert Goldstein, Riverkeeper’s General Counsel, stated, “This hearing is critical so that the public can learn about the potential impacts of natural gas drilling on the NYC Watershed. We still have much to learn about the gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”— the jury is still out on it. But we know for certain that the disruptive surface activity that would accompany any drilling process in the watershed would irreparably damage our precious unfiltered drinking water supply.”