(News Briefs March 2, 2006)
Dam Repairs...
Schoharie Reservoir dam repairs that have necessitated the New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s funneling of an extra 575 million gallons of water a day through the Shandaken Portal and Esopus Creek into the Ashokan Reservoir moved a few steps forward, ahead of schedule, this past week, according to the city’s press office. According to a press release last Friday, February 17, a 200-foot by 5.5-foot notch at the Gilboa Dam was to be completed by Saturday, February 18, to help lower levels in the Schoharie Reservoir, decreasing its chance of flooding, and facilitating the installation of anchoring cables over the coming months to bring the dam up to modern safety levels.
Also mentioned by the DEP was the fact that testing for a series of siphons at the dam was set to begin this week, with each set to start removing 125 million gallons a day from the reservoir, for a total of 500 MGD, when all the siphons are set to be operational by March 3. A smaller, interim notch had been cut into the 80-year old dam the previous week to help with the current work, although DEP spokesman Ian Michaels noted this week that much work was completed by the contractors for the job, Jett Industries, while water levels were still high.
“I am enormously pleased that the notch has been completed ahead of schedule. This significantly reduces the possibility of a dam failure,” noted DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd in the February 17 press release. “I hope this will lessen the concerns of area residents.”
Late last fall, the City DEP discovered that using updated flood level statistics taking into account the 1996 deluge that wreaked havoc throughout the Catskills, its Gilboa dam was in need of upgrading far in advance of the 2008 date it had been scheduled for. After alerting local communities and counties downstream from the reservoir, and including an area as far north as the Mohawk River citiy of Schenectady, both evacuation and remediation plans were set into motion.
With recent progress, the DEP has said, they have upped the number of anchoring cables they are planning to drill through the existing earthen dam into bedrock from 47 to 79, with 34 anchoring cables set to be put into place to secure “potentially unstable parts of the dam” by the end of July and an additional 45 cables by November. Full repairs are still scheduled for two years hence.
As for possible flood actions, the DEP has announced that it has installed full surveillance lighting at the Gilboa Dam “for continuous nighttime monitoring,” and a joint DEP/Schoharie County effort “has distributed weather alert radios to residents of the downstream areas,” which could go under up to 40 feet of water, in a worse-case scenario.
Water flow out of the reservoir towards New York City, via the Shandaken Tunnel, Portal, and Ashokan Reservoir, will not be abated by the ahead-of-schedule work in Schoharie County, according to Michaels… at least for the foreseeable future.
In recent press releases, the City DEP has carefully pointed out the low snowcover figures for this winter in comparison to recent years when flooding has occurred.

County Cuts…
Ulster County is looking to cut its workforce by 10 percent over the coming two years to counter a cash flow deficit and impending budget crisis based on a projected fund balance deficit of $1.15 million left by its predecessor GOP legislature. The county currently has about 2,000 full-time equivalent county employees and could save about $3 million from a total payroll of $70 million. Action is needed immediately, county officials are saying, to avoid a reduction in Ulster’s bond rating for future borrowing.
The projected deficit would be the third consecutive decline in the county’s fund balance, after an unencumbered year-end balance of $16.01 million in 2004 represented a reduction of $8.9 million, or 35.7 percent, from the year before, and then last year’s year-end fund balance was $6.88 million, down $9.13 million, or 57.05 percent.

Rail Hopes?
U.S. Senator Charles Schumer recently unveiled a plan to create a direct rail connection from Stewart International Airport to midtown Manhattan to streamline
commutes that now require city fliers using the airport to take Metro-North’s Port Jervis and Pascack Valley rail lines and transfer at Secaucus Junction in New Jersey to get into Manhattan. The proposed new project by New Jersey Transit and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, known as “The Tunnel,” would see the construction of a new tunnel under the Hudson River that would make possible a direct Metro-North ride from Orange County to a new 34th Street station in Manhattan, with a rail link from Salisbury Mills on the Port Jervis line to Stewart.
Schumer said the new tunnel would be federally funded and would not directly affect New York taxpayers.
With Ulster County also facing development pressure, Schumer said a shuttle for residents to the non-stop train service at Stewart might be possible, along with an unstated, but hoped for, opening up of eventual rail links up this side of the Hudson.
“As the region grows, mass transit is very important,” the Senator said. “This is the first step.”

Jail Trouble?
Ulster County decided in recent weeks to finally cut its ties with Bovis Lend Lease, the company that’s been overseeing construction of the county’s long-delayed new jail now over $12 million over budget and nearly two years behind schedule. Members of the county Legislature’s Law Enforcement Center Oversight Committee voted in February to terminate the county’s month-to-month contract, effective Feb. 28, and replace them with Ralph Johnson, who already has been retained on a per-diem basis of $175 per day out of a $40,000 line item already approved by the Legislature.
The delays and cost overruns at the new jail were key issues in last year’s election of a new 21-12 Democratic majority to the county legislature.

New Exemptions?
The Ulster County Legislature’s Administrative Services Committee is pushing a provision in New York State Real Property Tax Law (Section 469) to allow families an exemption in assessed value if they build or renovate living quarters for senior parents and grandparents. The measure is allowed by New York State Law, and must be adopted by individual towns, cities, villages, counties and school districts in order for families to receive the exemption.
This matter was brought to Chairman Parete’s attention by Marbletown Supervisor Vincent Martello. The Town of Marbletown adopted this exemption, which is enacted by the passage of a local law last year. Martello has since informed neighboring towns about the measure and has been lobbying the towns, the Rondout Valley School District, and now the County, to follow suit.
Under the provisions of the law, families wishing to take advantage of the exemption must comply with specific conditions in order to qualify. Basic qualifications are as follows: The living quarters must be for a senior parent or grandparent, 62 years of age or older. It must be the senior parent/grandparent’s primary place of residence. The family must apply to their local municipal assessor, with the proper documentation, and must reapply for certification on an annual basis. The construction/reconstruction must meet local zoning/building requirements. The total exemption may not exceed the lesser of (a) the increase in assessed value attributable to the new construction/reconstruction (b) 20 % of the total assessed value of the property (c) 20% of the median sale price of residential property in the County.
The Legislature would need to adopt a local law in order to enact the exemption. Should the Legislature adopt the measure, it would be in effect for 2007 County taxes. For further information, please contact Robert Parete, Chairman of the Ulster County Administrative Services Committee at 845-340-3627 or by e-mail at rpar@co.ulster.ny.us.
Also proposed is possible state legislation which would permit Ulster County to give volunteer firefighters and emt's up to a 10 percent reduction in their real property taxes. If the State Legislature enacts the requested legislation, then Ulster as well as municipalities and school districts within the County would be eligible to enact the tax relief.

Teen Wellness…
Frost Valley YMCA, along with Senior Girl Scout Troop 358, is organizing “It’s All About Me,” the first annual Teen Girls’ Wellness Weekend on March 11-12. Topics will include Natural Skin Care; Yoga: Learn a new, relaxing way to stay in shape and improve flexibility; How to Deal: Discussions on how to handle emotions regarding both the physical and emotional aspects of dating, body image and self-confidence; an Open Forum: “Teen Talk,” in which girls pick the topics and anonymously ask the questions they might otherwise be afraid to ask; Self Defense and Safety courses; and a host of outdoor activities including hiking, climbing, cross-country skiing, snow tubing and broomball.
The Teen Girls’ Wellness Weekend package includes one-night accommodations in Frost Valley’s Quirk Super Lodge with linens, five meals (Saturday breakfast through Sunday luncheon), all workshops and activities, plus a welcome breakfast for participants and their families. Limited financial assistance is available for this event.
The program drop-off time is 9 a.m. Saturday. Participants should bring warm clothes for outdoor weekend activities, fun games and music, an extra blanket and a great attitude. Spaces are limited.
For program information on or to make a reservation for the Teen Girls’ Wellness Weekend, please contact Bob Eddings, Community Programs Director, at (845) 985-2291, ext. 305 or e-mail to: beddings@frostvalley.org.

Terror Listed?
A National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC, government database of alleged international terrorism suspects or associates includes 325,000 names, four times more than when the central list was created in 2003. The NCTC name repository began under its predecessor agency in 2003 with 75,000 names. Civil liberties advocates and privacy experts have expressed surprise over the size of the NCTC database and said it heightened concerns that large numbers of innocent people may be included on government terrorism lists.
The NCTC database is a compilation of reports supplied by the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency and other agencies, the report said. Officials refuse to say how many names on the list were linked to the NSA’s controversial domestic eavesdropping program.
Meanwhile, about a fifth of Americans think federal agents have listened in on their phone calls, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll suggests. Twenty-one percent of the 1,000 adults who replied to the survey said it was very likely or somewhat likely their conversations had been wiretapped, while 52 percent said it was not at all likely. Twenty-four percent said it was not too likely.
Shortly after 9/11, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to conduct electronic surveillance of communications — phone calls, e-mails and text messages — between people inside the United States, including Americans, and terrorist suspects overseas, bypassing a secret court set up to provide warrants for such surveillance. The Bush administration has said the program is designed to monitor terrorists, while critics say the spying is illegal and may infringe on the civil liberties of Americans.
According to the poll, Americans appear to be split over the legality of the domestic eavesdropping program. About 49 percent of respondents said the president had definitely or probably broken the law by authorizing the wiretaps and 47 percent said he probably or definitely had not. Those numbers were similar to a question about whether the program is right or wrong — 47 percent said it was right and 50 percent called it wrong.
A federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to release documents about its warrantless surveillance program or spell out what it is withholding, a setback to efforts to keep the program under wraps. At the same time, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said he had worked out an agreement with the White House to consider legislation and provide more information to Congress on the eavesdropping program.
For Americans troubled by the prospect of federal agents eavesdropping on their phone conversations or combing through their Internet records, there is good news: A little-known board exists in the White House whose purpose is to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected in the fight against terrorism. Unfortunately, however, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, initially proposed by the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, andwas created by the intelligence overhaul that President Bush signed into law in December 2004, has never met and exists today only on paper.
Foot-dragging, debate over its budget and powers, and concern over the qualifications of some of its members — one was treasurer of Bush’s first campaign for Texas governor — has kept the board from doing a single day of work.
Critics, including the Sept. 11 commission, say the inaction shows the administration is just going through the motions when it comes to civil liberties.

Finally Evolved
Scientists at the recent American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nation’s largest gathering of scientists, didn’t just defend evolution - they rallied in support of it. Many spoke out over the weekend against what they called religious pressure in public schools. And they enlisted the help of about 300 teachers from across the Midwest who attended the conference to discuss the national debate over evolution.
“We are not rolling over on this,” Alan Leshner, chief executive of AAAS and executive publisher of the journal Science, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s too important to the nation and to the nation’s children.”
Some teachers told of parents who insist they abandon high school biology texts in favor of biblical creationism or intelligent design - the theory that life is so complex that it must be the work of a supernatural designer. They told of school board pressure in the science classroom.
Scientists also announced the formation of the Alliance for Science, a new organization of scientists, scientific groups and supporters. The goal is to fight what they see as an assault on science from religious conservatives.
The new organization will seek to create graduate fellowships, increase funding for research, train math and science teachers, and build tax incentives for research and development.

Formula…
Mead Johnson and Co. is recalling about 41,500 cans of its Gentlease powdered infant formula because they may contain small metal particles. The Evansville, Ind., company has not reported any injuries, but the metal particles could seriously harm a baby’s throat and respiratory system. Symptoms could include coughing and difficulty breathing or swallowing. Any symptoms would be likely to appear within three to four hours of feeding.
The recalled 24-ounce cans of formula were stamped on the bottom with lot code BMJ19 and “use by” date 1 Jul 07. They were sold at major retail stores nationwide. If you have fed some of this batch of Gentlease to your baby and are concerned about the child’s health, contact your doctor.
This recall is being conducted in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers who have cans of this batch of Gentlease should stop using them immediately and call Mead Johnson for more information at 888-587-7275.

Weaker Sex?
Populations of boys born in stressful times enjoy an advantage their whole lives, living longer, on average, than males born in times of peace and prosperity. A new study adds to earlier findings that pregnant women are more likely to miscarry male fetuses than females fetuses during times of stress. It shows that this tendency to miscarry males has a culling effect, said Ralph Catalano of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study.
“The populations are hardier because they lost the weak ones earlier,” Catalano said in a telephone interview. “No individuals got stronger — it’s just that the weak ones aren’t there.”
The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also solidify what biologists have long known — that males are the weaker sex.
“Statistically, it is clearly true,” Catalano said. “Compared to men, (women) are biological fortresses.”
On average, around the world, about 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. But males are more likely to die young in general, and by the time couples are courting the ratio is fairly even. Except after hard times.
There are two competing theories as to why, Catalano said. One was that a stressed pregnant woman produces more of a hormone called cortisol, which in turn damages fetuses. Damaged fetuses are frequently miscarried. “Because male fetuses are more fragile than female fetuses, they are more likely to be damaged,” Catalano said.
Cortisol often makes a male fetus kick and squirm, and a second theory holds that a mother’s body will miscarry a male fetus that does not kick or wiggle strongly enough and which is, presumably, weak.
“It’s not in her evolutionary interest to have a weak son in times of stress,” Catalano said. “He may not survive or may not be competitive for females.”
Both theories predict that fewer boys would be born, but they would have different long-term outcomes, Catalano said. Either all the male fetuses are damaged a little, and the boys who are born are weakened, or the miscarriage process culls the weak fetuses and leaves the strong ones.
So they looked at the data. In Sweden, which has been keeping records since the 18th century,after the most stressful times such as a famine, men’s lives were four months longer than in happier times.
“The weak boys got culled out and those boys that survived are hardier on average. They live longer,” Catalano said.
For an individual, this might be a small difference but over a population it is significant, Catalano said.
Catalano said he has seen the same effects in action today.
“In California after 9-11 we reported that the sex ratio in California went down,” he said. “Many more males than you would expect died after September 11 in utero.”
Similar effects were seen after the collapse of East Germany in 1991, he said, when unemployment soared in the former socialist state.

Reser-Controls
In a recent upstate power play over New York City, the State Senate, under John Bonacic’s lead, has passed legislation stripping city regulators of the power to determine how much water four of its Catskills reservoirs should hold. Several New York City Democrats joined with the 45 lawmakers voting yes to giving the state Department of Environmental Conservation power to lower reservoir levels in an effort to reduce flooding downstream.
As of now, it’s up to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to make the call on lowering the water levels. But that bureaucracy has been under fire of late for alleged bogus dam inspection reports, poor dam maintenance and perceptions in the Catskills that it neglected actions to control recent flooding throughout the region.
Bonacic’s bill was first introduced in the Senate in 1997 but was never before voted on. Assembly Democrats, who must noe enact a similar bill to bring the measure to lifem held a hearing on DEP reservoir oversightrecently and several other bills imposing new regulations on the DEP are pending in both house of the Legislature.
“3Enactment of this legislation would cripple the city’s ability to operate its water system” DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd said in prepared testimony at the hearing. City officials contend the legislation would put city residents at risk.
‘The bill threatens the public health and safety by asking millions of people who rely on the city’s system to accept the possibility that sufficient water may not be available,” stated an opposition memo Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s office sent to lawmakers.
Bonacic said the legislation would give DEC more control over the water levels in the Neversink, Rondout, Ashokan and Schoharie reservoirs, two of which were listed as at or above 100 percent capacity in recent weeks.

Whistleblown…
Dissent often carries a price in official Washington, especially in the war years of the Bush presidency. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the number of insiders alleging wrongdoing in government - either through whistle-blower channels or directly to the press - has surged, as have reprisals against them.
That’s the message from a recent congressional hearing on protections for national security whistle-blowers - the first in more than a decade. “The system is broken,” says Rep. Christopher Shays (R) of Connecticut, who chaired the House Government Affairs subcommittee hearing.
Disclosures of flawed prewar intelligence, secret prisons and prisoner abuse, and warrantless surveillance by the National Security Agency have launched a debate on the conduct of the war on terror within Congress and the American public. Critics say some of those disclosures also compromised national security.
“At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle: the battle to protect our classified information,” wrote CIA director Porter Goss in The New York Times.
The struggle over dissent in dangerous times is not confined to national security matters, however. It appears to be settling deeper into the federal bureaucracy, where government scientists and even analysts at the scholarly Congressional Research Service - who are not actually blowing any whistles but who are staking out positions that deviate from the administration’s - report efforts to control their contact with the press and public.
If whistle-blowers and others “do not see an option for dissent within the system, then the system is in bad shape,” says Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. “Secrecy has become a growth industry.... It makes it harder for ordinary citizens ... to ask questions ... and to hold officials accountable.”
While federal workers have had whistle-blower protection since 1989, a 1999 US court ruling requires these workers to have irrefutable evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse to be eligible for protection. Last year, House and Senate committees each passed bills that strengthened protections for whistle-blowers, but neither bill has come to the floor for a vote. Only the Senate version includes national security whistle-blowers.

Lost Safeguards
The federal Environmental Protection Agency last month proposed a big change in how companies report pollution data. If the Bush administration gets its way, companies will tell the public a lot less about pollution by reporting less often on fewer chemicals.
In the Capital Region, 16 facilities would no longer have to report anything to the EPA about the toxic substances they emit, according to analysis from OMB Watch, a Washington D.C.-based open government group.
Environmentalists and elected officials, including Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, are urging the feds to back off. They say the Toxic Research Index has helped communities and researchers investigate threats to local health and safety while encouraging companies to cut pollution.
The proposal is designed to reduce the paperwork burden on companies and would save 165,000 work hours each year, according to the EPA. The agency points out that most information would still be public, except for relatively small amounts of chemicals from certain facilities.
Advocates aren’t buying the burden argument. They point out that the EPA’s own data shows it costs companies just $430 to $790 for each chemical they report on.
Congress passed the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act in 1987, in the wake of the release of the deadly chemical methyl isocyanate in Bhopal, India, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
The TRI data, available at http://www.epa.gov/triexplorer, is heavily used by researchers, community groups, journalists and even state and local officials. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has urged the EPA to maintain the current system.

A Death Test?
There’s a new test for baby boomers and their parents, and it’s one where you definitely want a low score. The 12-question test measures risk of dying within four years, and the more points you get, the greater your risk.
Created for people older than 50 by researchers at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the quiz is designed “to try to help doctors and families get a firmer sense for what the future may hold,” to help plan health care accordingly, says lead author Dr. Sei Lee.
“We know that patients and families want more prognostic information from doctors,” said Lee, who helped develop the test. “It’s a very natural human question of, ‘What’s going to happen to me?”’
The test measures risk factors linked with mortality, including 2 points just for being male. Diabetes, smoking, and getting pooped trying to walk several blocks each also get two points, and points accrue with each four-year increment after age 60. Zero to 5 points says your risk of dying in four years is less than 4 percent. With 14 points, your risk rises to 64 percent.
The test doesn’t ask what you eat, but it does ask if you can push a living room chair across the floor.
Roughly 81 percent accurate, the test can give older people a reasonable idea of their survival chances, the researchers say, warning not to try it at home, saying a doctor can help you put things into perspective.
The test is based on data involving 11,701 Americans over 50 who took part in a national health survey in 1998. Funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging, the researchers analyzed participants’ outcomes during a four-year follow-up. They based their death-risk survey on the health characteristics that seemed to predict death within four years.

He Has Power!
Vice President Dick Cheney says he has the power to declassify government secrets, raising the possibility that he authorized his former chief of staff to pass along sensitive prewar data on Iraq to reporters. Cheney coupled his statement in a TV interview with an endorsement of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his ex-aide. Libby is under indictment on charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame.
In a recent court filing, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed Libby’s assertions to a grand jury that superiors had authorized him to spread sensitive information from a National Intelligence Estimate. The administration used the NIE assessment on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction as part of its justification for going to war. Fitzgerald did not specify which superiors Libby may have been referring to when he testified that higher-ups had authorized him to spread sensitive information. But in the interview, Cheney said an executive order gives him, and President Bush, power to declassify information.
The indictment against Libby says Cheney advised his chief of staff on June 12, 2003, that the wife of Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson worked at the CIA in the counterproliferation division. Libby was indicted last October on five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about how he learned of Plame’s identity and what he told reporters about it.
A defense that Libby was authorized to leak sensitive data about Iraq would not appear to provide any defense against the charge of making false statements regarding Plame.
An authorization defense in the CIA leak case would mean that “much of what Libby was trying to do was aid and protect his boss Cheney,” lawyers have suggested. The downside to employing such an approach is that it “almost comes with a defense that I did it.”

Plan D Nightmare
The complexity of the new Medicare drug benefit is keeping many seniors from signing up. For others, it’s simply the math. After weighing the specific plans available to them under the new benefit, seniors are concluding that they’ll end up paying more for the medications they currently take than if they continue with no coverage at all. Taking into account monthly premiums and co-payments — which under some policies can run as high as 50% to 75% of a drug’s retail price — they think they can get a better or equal deal doing what they’ve always done: asking doctors for samples and ordering from pharmacies in Canada.
It is unclear how many people have made such calculations. But of the 14.3 million people enrolled in the drug benefit as of January, only 3.6 million signed up voluntarily. (Others, like low-income beneficiaries who were in both Medicaid and Medicare programs, were automatically enrolled in a drug plan.) The deadline for enrolling is May 15. Anyone who wants to enroll after that faces a “penalty” in the form of higher premiums.
To some extent, the government has encouraged people to compare and select plans based on their current drug expenses. Both Medicare and the federally subsidized health plans offering the new drug benefit suggest seniors use their current list of drugs to calculate their best option. Medicare’s online drug-plan finder sorts and compares plans for them the same way. But this approach may be short-sighted, because it neglects to take into account a senior’s future drug needs, which are likely to be more expensive. Consequently, making a decision based on current needs could prove costly.
There are also potential legal issues for some people who are deciding to go it alone. The Food and Drug Administration says it’s illegal to import medicines from abroad, but so far it hasn’t moved to intervene in the mail-order pharmacy operations or prosecute individuals. Generally, the agency turns a blind eye to purchases for personal use. The FDA does support the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s warning that buying drugs from foreign pharmacies carries safety risks, a claim that Canadian pharmacies reject.

More Gay Bans
Efforts to ban gays and lesbians from adopting children are emerging across the USA as a second front in the culture wars that began during the 2004 elections over same-sex marriage. Steps to pass laws or secure November ballot initiatives are underway in at least 16 states, adoption, gay rights and conservative groups say. Some - such as Ohio, Georgia and Kentucky - approved constitutional amendments in 2004 banning gay
Florida has banned all gays and lesbians from adopting since 1977, although they can be foster parents. Mississippi bans adoption by gay couples, but gay singles can adopt. Utah prohibits all unmarried couples from adoption.
Critics say the move reeks of GOP politics that is looking for a distraction from ethics problems and the continuing problems in Iraq.


and draw out conservatives in close Senate and governor races in states such as Missouri and Ohio, says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, University of Southern California political scientist.
The aim is to replicate 2004, says Julie Brueggemann of the gay rights group PROMO: Personal Rights of Missourians. She says marriage initiatives mobilized conservative voters in 2004 and helped President Bush win in closely contested states such as Ohio. Republicans “see this as a get-out-the-vote tactic.”
Republican pollster Whit Ayres is skeptical. Adoption, he says, “doesn’t have the emotional power of the gay marriage issue because there is no such thing as the phrase ‘the sanctity of adoption.’ “