Follow Up on the News
Bedner calls himself "the original tube king", having started the business of sending people down the Esopus on massive inner tubes 35 years ago. At the time, he recalls, "They tried to throw me out of town There were probably 200 people at the town hall complaining I was bringing trash into town and creating problems. I just walked out and kept going-legally, they couldn't stop me. And now look at Phoenicia. Most people in town love the tubers, the restaurants have grown, kids that came up to tube with their families fall in love with the place and buy summer homes. One thing led to another. It's taken a lot of work, effort, and pain."
He takes credit for the introduction of wooden seat bottoms to local tubing. "I'd been doing this for ten years, and people came to me and said they had a great time, and then I wondered why they didn't come back. I had a seat in my tube, so I thought, let me try this. Next thing, I had a line all the way down to the gas station. People had a good time, and they didn't get beat up."
More recently, the Internet has been a great stimulus for his business.
Bedner is optimistic about the coming season. "Last year, June was terrible because of the weather. This year, Memorial Day was excellent, but now it's tapered off because of graduation. The weather's the key. Even gas prices didn't really hurt us. I expect [the positive trend] to continue."
At Phoenicia's other tubing concern, the Town Tinker, owner Harry Jameson agreed, "Tubing lives and dies by the weather. When it's rainy and cool, that has a much bigger effect than the economy. The rule of thumb is, four out of every five Memorial Day weekends, you get one that has at least one good sunny day. This year, we had a really nice one that kickstarted the season. After graduation people are free to take their vacations. Now it'll start to pick up."
Not much changes in tubing, year after year, he says, except that he now has a Facebook account. "We don't have friends, only fans," he explains. "We put up two posts a week to give people an idea of what conditions will be with regard to the river and the weather."
An interesting quirk of the business: "It's definitely a generational thing. You get regular customers that you see year after year, and then they're gone, and you wonder what happened. Fourteen, fifteen years later they pop back up with their kids-all those years, they were busy having kids."
Then Jameson switches hats, donning his metaphorical railroad cap, to discuss the Catskill Mountain Railroad (CMRR), where he is chairman of the board of directors. Due to increased ridership on the tourist line, which runs out of the Phoenicia railroad station on High Street, CMRR purchased a new engine this spring. The bright blue, 660-horsepower locomotive will be able to haul more cars and riders than the old one. Their second passenger coach, dating from circa 1920 and fully restored by CMRR volunteer craftsmen, will hit the rails next month.
Other changes this year include the addition of Fridays to the summer weekend schedule, as well as the opening of tracks in Kingston, where weekly themed rides include the Lollipop Express, an ASPCA benefit, and the Teddy Bear Train Ride.
The Phoenicia-Mt. Tremper line will also feature two Twilight Limited rides on July 10 and August 21, featuring refreshments and live music with Earl Pardini and the Slide Mountain String Band. It will conclude with a ride down the extension south of Route 28 to Rock Cut for a spectacular view of the night sky.
Schedules and prices for all rides are available at the CMRR website, www.catskillmtrailroad.com.
Carl Guendel, who works at the state-run Woodland Valley Campground, says the place had a good year in 2009. This year, "Everybody says reservations are up. And we just had walk-ins," he observes, nodding at the quintet of young people filling out registration forms on a sunny Thursday afternoon. Like the tubers, campers are expected to increase in number now that school is out.
This year the campground is selling heat-treated firewood, in an effort to prevent invasion by insects such as the emerald ash borer, which have been destroying trees in neighboring areas. It's now illegal to transport firewood more than 50 miles unless it's specially heated to prevent infestation, and signs at the campground read "Burn it where you buy it."
"Local businesses don't like that we're selling firewood," Guendel admitted. Normally they encourage campers to buy goods in nearby towns, but the insect crisis demands stern measures, he says.
Campground employees make an effort to create a comfortable atmosphere, checking each site to see if campers need anything, keeping the bathrooms as clean as they can manage. Assistant caretaker Linda Spielman has planted flowers around the office, and Guendel thriftily made planters from a hollow, downed paper birch.
There haven't been many bears around this year. "The campers are good," he says. "They keep their coolers in the car. We explain to them that bears know what coolers look like. And we keep the recycling behind locked doors."
The forest rangers visit on Fridays. "They help us with enforcement, and they give people peace of mind," says Guendel. "They hike the trails all the time, so they tell people where the good trails are. Most people are here for hiking."
One perk of the job for Guendel is getting to drive around the campground in the late evening, when fires, campstoves, and lanterns flare in the dark. He says, "It's so peaceful."
PHCC Turns Ten Years OldPeter Fairweather, a planning consultant, had been speaking about conceptualizing better focus for a municipality by identifying existing land use patterns, surrounding housing markets, economic changes to an area, regional environmental concerns, commuting times and transportation costs and needs, and the role of growing tourism and creative economic forces. Later, he and discussed the need for communities to identify their architectural attributes.
Suddenly, he stopped and pointed out the beauty of two walls of windows in the meeting room they were in. Light dappled in softly through grape vines and Fairweather noted how you just don't find such things in New Paltz, where he lives.
PHCC Director James Krueger, who lives in a small cottage behind the former garage and research and development warehouse donated to the organization as partial pay for the umpteen hours he puts in at his supposedly part-time job, smiled at the recognition.
Throughout the morning envisioning session, sparked by the Center's recent receipt of a Catskill Watershed Corporation planning grant to help move it along towards enactment of a Main Street re-envisioning (a process started with similar Catskill Center grants, and work, over the previous decade), Krueger received kudos for his work helping the village that adopted him move forward. He had spearheaded the regular sessions, about to move to a monthly schedule, and helped bring in Fairweather, Ulster County Regional Planner Jennifer Schwartz Berky, and the Catskill Center's Peter Manning, with whom he serves as a member of the Central Catskills Consortium currently preparing a Route 28 Scenic Byway application.
The idea was simple... Find ways of bringing new investment to the community's unique mix of classic 19th century hotels and boarding houses, most currently out-of-use. Establish a new identity attractive enough to bring in the tourists and new residents needed to attract new businesses, and keep those already in the community alive and thriving. Provide simple means of reigniting the community's pride in itself, through historic signage or other means, and figure out how to reconnect it to the Route 28 corridor and its own business community.
When talk came around to the gathered group's need to address the Shandaken town board and municipal planners, Krueger offered the Community Center's services. When some worried about possible political blowback, he said PHCC's reputation was strong enough to counter any such claims, or possibilities.
Later, speaking at a picnic table outside the Center, bustling as always with a mix of crafts sales, seniors meeting, kids playing, Krueger spoke a bit about how things got where they are today.
The Pine Hill Community Center was founded after the tragic death of a local ten year old shook the community, which felt they needed a safe place where people could gather regularly. That was 1999. By 2000, a board of directors had come together and set up a nonprofit entity. Bernie and Florence Hamling offered use of the old Griffin's Garage he had been using for his fiber ceramics insulation business. Krueger was hired in the summer of 2002 to run a youth program funded by the Ulster County Youth Bureau. Very quickly, the board - tired of running the growing Center on its own steam - asked Krueger to stay on as director.
The rest, including a burgeoning number of weekly youth and senior activities, counseling programs, concerts and other events - including an ongoing web media project, Catskill Radio - is quickly becoming history (and legend, as far as PHCC's inspirational effect on other communities around the region).
"In the beginning days, I used to wonder what I was doing," says Krueger, a singer-songwriter who also works as a counselor. "The board was burned out, I was making it up along the way. But I also learned to give the community what it wanted, and have kept going in that direction. I think that's what's made this place successful."
He recalls local history projects that brought in local elders, continuing kids projects, expanding to include a regular after-school program come September, and increasingly regular funding coming to the Center form the UC Youth Bureau, the Albert Panick Fund, the Catskill Watershed Corporation, and the Dutchess County Arts Council.
"People now say we're the hub of the Pine Hill," Krueger added. "It's given people a venue in which to serve their community. And now, with this new focused planning process, we're reaching out to a greater regional sensibility..."
As we get up to head back inside to those grape-vine-covered windows, Krueger introduces a smiling woman at a table with friends. It's Floence Hamling, who donated the building to the center two years ago.
"You know what my husband says, " she notes with a smile, grabbing Krueger's hand. "Community Center is a way of life."
How true.
For further information on all things Pine Hill Community Center, including their ongoing radio station, call 254-5469 or visit www.pinehillcommunitycenter.org.
At the second "Farm-stand Summit" meeting, the first of which was last month, the divide widened between those that want more restrictions and those that want less. At one point, Stanley proposed that the size of stands be based on a percentage of the lot size, but it was pointed out that if Al Higley's farmstand, at its current size, is allowed, that would mean that other farm stands could be as big as 8000 square feet on larger lots.
Stanley, and planners Joanne Kalb and Charlie Frasier, seemed to be trying to push for relaxing prohibitions on farm stands, while planners Maureen Millar and Barbara Redfield were more vocal about making sure there were protections established that would prevent development that could harm the town and any neighborhood where they would be allowed.
Then there was the age old disagreement of restricting hours of operations, with Stanley trying to avoid restrictions and Millar wanting restrictions. At the midway point of the meeting, Millar said what was on the minds of everyone, but something that saying out loud seemed considered taboo.
"We're trying to make Al legal and everyone knows it," Millar said of the process.
Higley's Farmstand has been in operation for several years in Mount Tremper on Route 28, and is considered by the town to be illegal because it has expanded in size to be way larger and more comprehensive than Higley's permit allows for. Higley and his attorneys have disputed that notion, claiming that they are in good standing. For years legal battles over the matter have ensued and do not appear to be slowing down.
Critics of the process complain that it appears that the town ignored the matter until spring when the stand opens, then takes several months to talk about solutions and then, at the end of the Farmstand season each fall, concludes that more discussion is needed. The result is that Higley keeps his stand open another year, and some say it leaves the town liable in the event of a traffic accident at the site.
At the sparsely attended session Tuesday, Higley was not present, which was unusual, but his attorney was on hand, although he did not participate in the discussion.
Stanley argued that he only wanted a general law for the town, but Millar noted that regardless of Stanley's position, everyone knows the reason for the discussions and meetings about new laws was Higley's stand.
"Everything the planning board came up with last week is being attacked because it doesn't make Al legal," Millar said.
Councilman Vince Bernstein, who was on an earlier committee that drafted an earlier law that he later voted against, finally had it, saying he doesn't want to participate in the process anymore. He suggested that the Planning Board handle the matter by themselves. Councilman Jack Jordan agreed.
"Something needs to be brought forward so the town board can make a decision," he said, just before adding that Higley's enterprise benefits the town. "But we're not moving forward."
Councilman Tim Malloy said the town needs to come up with a plan because he does not like people just building what ever they want and telling the town to just accept it. Then he added another element to the argument.
"The Commercial businesses already in town are now getting pissed," he said, noting how many invested based on current laws, and now there is talk about changing the rules to allow new business more leeway.
Kalb said that the planning board recommends 2000 square foot maximum for new farmstands, plus allowances for a farmers market somewhere in town that could be larger. It was mentioned that the Phoenicia Plaza, a place that the Planning Board previously discussed as a location for Higley, could be a good spot for a farmers market.
Finally, Stanley asked if the town board would hand the matter over to the planning board and see what they come up with. They would have until October to come up with something, he said.
The vote was unanimous in favor. Now the planners have it, and all attention turns toward that entity's meetings.
In a separate interview, School Board President Laurie Osmond said, "When the BOE chooses not to act there is no vote taken."
This allows Ford's contract to expire. By taking inaction, there is only one fiscal year left on Ford's contract with the district. The board can review her contract again by June 30, 2011.
It was recently reported in the Saratogian newspaper that Ford was one of the finalists for Superintendent for the South Glens Falls School district and rumors continue to swirl around her actively seeking employment elsewhere.
Osmond is not aware if Ford has found a job or is looking for work, calling all the talk "hearsay."
"All I know is what I read in the papers."
Ford was out due to illness and did not attend Monday's board meeting.
In a separate phone conversation, past school board president Marino D'Orazio said he couldn't recall contract renewals or discussions during the ten years he served. He said Dr. Hal Rowe retired during his time on the board, followed by the untimely death of Rowe's replacement Justine Winters. He served for one year with Ford and supported her as Superintendent. He could not give an opinion based on experience, but said any contract purposely allowed to lapse sends a message to look for work elsewhere.
"The way I would read it as a past school board member," said D'Orazio, "is this kind of inaction sends a message of no confidence."
In other news... The district is considering changing the way it retains lawyers based on the increased number of hours that they have been used. This past school year, the district used approximately 150 hours over its retainer, but was able to modify the overtime hours with Donahue, Thomas, Auslander and Drohan law firm. General legal counseling in 2009/2010 was budgeted at $34,900 with an additional increase of $13,000. Osmond said the board plans to use a "different formulation to reflect reality," based upon increased costs and mandates requiring legal council.
Over the years, legal fees have consistently increased. In the 1998/99 school year, 101.5 hours were used in legal council. Ten years later, in 2008/2009, that number increased to 402.80 hours. During the reorganization meeting in July the board will consider upping the legal retainer to $48,000. General legal council does not include contract disputes or other special disputed lawsuits.
During this past year's budget discussions, several public pleas were made demanding that the board address the aging district facilities, declining enrollment and Middle School options. As a result, at Monday's meeting, the board discussed holding community forums over the summer, but decided the summer months would not draw enough community interest. The end of September was penciled in as a target to begin discussions. The board plans to contend with recent arguments on whether an additional elementary school should be closed.
In 2004, West Hurley Elementary closed amid district wide protest. The reason given was declining enrollment and expanding budget. Community members demanded that district plans be put in place over the future of the remaining buildings and West Hurley School. The board of education at that time promised to find ways to make use of the West Hurley building, but a plan never surfaced. It remains unused at a cost of approximately $40,000 per year, in fuel and other expenses. To completely shut the building would make it unmarketable and also fall derelict according to State regulations.
In 2005 the school board at the time and newly hired Superintendent Justine Winters created the Future of The District Committee. Their responsibilities included the viability of reopening West Hurley School. After lengthy research, four recommendations were made: hiring a firm to recommend facility upgrades, redistricting to level out student population, and the creation of a separate middle school and continue with three elementary schools (instead of four). In 2005, KSQ architects were hired and based on several community forums, made a recommendation in 2006 to keep the remaining three elementary schools open and create a six-through-eight middle school. This was followed by a Board of Education rejection of the plan and substitute choice of another plan that would close an additional elementary school. This was followed by public protest and the successful election of a school board that promised not to close any more schools.
The primary purpose of the event, and five others around the state, was to urge passage of the "Englebright-Addabbo Bill" calling for a moratorium on the issuance of drilling site permits until the completion of a recently commenced EPA study of the potential impact of the process is completed. The coordinated demonstrations emphasized damage to the regional eco-system along the Gulf Coast from what they term another form of "extreme drilling" with inadequate "back-up" plans for potential environmental contamination.
"Developing infrastructure for drilling is quite a long process," observes Nadia Steinzor, a Willow resident and Marcellus Regional Organizer for the Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) of Earthworks, part of a 20 group coalition calling for the moratorium. "There are applications in front of the DEC currently and a lot of land is already leased; 40% of Tompkins County, around Ithaca, the Finger Lakes, Delaware and Sullivan Counties... There's an effort in progress to do some lease-mapping- find out where it is and how much."
Later, Steinzor said there is concern beyond the oil industry's track record of leaving ruin in their wake.
"New York is not the only state looking to close its budget gap in this way," Steinzor said. "But there's very little calculation as to cost to municipalities and long term cost in building out the gas industry areas of the state which would lose tourism, farming, vineyards, fishing, and other areas that are difficult to put figures to...There's no attention being paid to that end and what it would mean; extensive build-out for thousands of wells, where municipalities are saddled with the costs around road damage, health care issues and other things."
Another group sponsoring the New Paltz rally, FrackAction, estimates budgetary shortfalls from the 29 new DEC positions the Governor proposes to oversee gas extraction,,, Meaning taxpayers would subsidize the methane gas industry by $5 million over 2 years. Calculated over a 20 year period, potential total gain from gas extraction is seen as $22 billion (by FrackAction estimates), to be sized against an unmeasurable decrease in the $392 billion the state realizes from the farm, tourist and other revenue expected to be affected . Under a chart with these figures, they add: "Other deficits not included here are up-front lease payments, or costs from damage to the infrastructure or loss of farmland and potable water."
Horizontal hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is a relatively new process elaborated from drilling techniques developed by the Halliburton Corp in the 1940s which injects huge amounts of water with chemical additives far below ground surface to break shale layers and free the gas, a process which critics claim endangers aquifers and water systems through the region because the chemicals can "travel for miles along underground fissures to groundwater and ultimately streams that feed reservoirs." Even EPA's 2004 report concluded that 30% of toxic components of fracking fluid, like benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene ans xylene, remain underground after injection and were "likely to be transported by groundwater supplies." A 2008 investigation identified at least 65 chemicals used in gas drilling that were classified as hazardous or toxic under federal environmental laws.
Although the industry denies contaminating wells, a letter from Northeast Pennsylvania residents, Craig and Julie Sautner, offered first-hand testimony stating otherwise. The Sautners, now dependent upon delivered water, enjoyed "pristine" well water before drilling began. In less than a month their well had "high levels of manganese, aluminum, iron, sodium, chloride, TDS and heavy metals with highly satured methane gas." Their tale is echoed by residents in other states where the process has been used, as documented by Josh Fox in his film Gasland, which won a documentary award at the Sundance Film Festival in January and scheduled for a screening on July 17 in Woodstock.
The contaminants in the Sautner's well are only a few of the toxins routinely involved in the fracking process, points out SUNY professor, public health expert and Woodstock resident Donna Flayhan. She spoke at the demonstration about how there are many ingredients which have remained "trade secrets" because of an addition to the 2005 energy policy act now called the "Halliburton Loophole" which (besides giving the energy companies federal eminent domain powers) exempts the oil & gas industry from federal statutes to protect and environment, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, Clean Air Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, National Environmental Policy Act and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act.
Flayhan's prime concerns are with synergistic effects, compounds which, when combined, cause escalated and unforeseen effects. Her experiences working with toxin synergies in Gulf War Syndrome, toxin exposures of 9/11 and other unusual ailments drew her attention to the potential fallout from frack-drilling in the watershed.
When groundwater and aquifers are contaminated, it effects everybody,' Flayhan said. Efforts to close this loophole are included in the so-called FRAC Act (Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness Act sponsored by Rep. Maurice Hinchey , among others. Hinchey, like Earthworks, does not oppose drilling per se but is demanding that it be approached responsibly and safely. A companion bill has been introduced in the Senate by Sen. Charles Schumer , with others. The debate has formed along roughly partisan lines, with Hinchey's opponent for the 22nd District seat, George Phillips, making the issue a major platform in his campaign, accusing Hinchey of an "anti-drilling agenda" and "opportunistic fear-mongering" due to the "troubling events" in the Gulf of Mexico, which he contends is completely unrelated to the Marcellus deposits.
Another bill, introduced the day before the rally, was less favored at the gathering because it proposed only a one-year moratorium regardless of how long the EPA study took to complete. A previous EPA study, undertaken with Christie Whitman at the helm, provided foundation for the loophole the FRAC Act hopes to erase, provoking controversy when Vice President and former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney cited executive privilege to keep the deliberations between EPA and his drilling task force secret.
According to a WCNY story by Susan Arbetter, the NY legislature is vulnerable to some sway on the issue due to the fact that State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, as Trustee for the NYS Common Retirement Fund, has significantly invested state pension monies in gas-drilling companies. The new elements of the fracking process were first worked out on Barnett Shale deposits in North Texas, using an average of 2,226 gallons per million cubic feet of gas in a drought-troubled region with 10,000 new wells and thousands more in the works. In a report from that state which speculates that 100,000 wells may be targeted for the Marcellus Shale Project, it is stated that the gas companies are already "bankrupting" the Lone Star water supply. Billions of gallons of fresh water have become "polluted beyond use, and the portion that surfaces from the drilling hole, called flowback, is pumped into a disposal well deep into the earth under a 'containment barrier.' This permanently removes the water from our hydraulic cycle."
Off that beaten path, on either side, it is even more hit and miss. A tower built in Woodstock a couple years ago has provided a healthy signal in that town's central hamlet and immediate environs, but that drops like rock once you get beyond Bearsville proper and into places like Wittenberg or Lake Hill.
Another tower in West Shokan that went online around the same time as Woodstock's gives phoners signal over in the West Shokan area, but folks in the Samsonville area don't have much of one. Over in Olive the most recent reports are that there are no plans for any new towers anywhere. Last year Verizon considered building its own tower near the Olive Transfer Station in Olivebridge, but pulled out of the plan almost as quickly as it they announced it.
Beyond Boiceville there is pretty much no signal, despite cries for it from the Town of Shandaken, where Verizon began ripping out pay phones last year, leaving the area high and dry when it comes to public telephone availability.
Ulster County stepped in and convinced Verizon to leave a couple pay phones along Route 28. Meanwhile the town itself continues to try and get Verizon to expand coverage into, well, anywhere in town.
Nothing has happened yet, but motivation can come in strange ways.
Ever hit a deer at night and have to walk two miles before finding a phone to call for help? Shandaken Town Councilman Jack Jordan has.
Jordan, a Pine Hill resident and the point man charged with trying to increase cellular phone service in town, plans on making a note of the incident, and he wants others to do the same.
Jordan interfaced with Verizon representatives Friday, June 11, to talk about why the communications giant has yet to install any significant system in the vast town, which has almost 20 miles of the well-travelled Route 28 corridor within it. The majority of the corridor remains a dead zone for cell phone users.
No promises were made, Jordan said Monday, but there was some good news.
"We've moved up on the priority list," he said.
Shandaken has certainly rolled out the red carpet for Verizon. Three years ago a 180 foot tower was erected on town- owned land and all cellular service providers were invited to locate on the structure. To this day, it remains vacant. Town Officials like Jordan and Supervisor Rob Stanley say they continue to work with county officials to try and convince companies like Verizon to set up shop. But the communications giant, this year anyway, has other plans in terms of new infrastructure.
Rather than build in remote, unpopulated areas like the Catskills, Verizon is building new towers in places like Saratoga where they already provide plenty of service coverage. The reason for new towers, despite complaints from nearby residents, is that Saratoga overloads the existing network during the summer months.
In the meantime, there is no service in the Catskills to speak of, save for a few pockets in the Highmount area, where Verizon does have equipment, but that signal heads westward mostly, hitting some parts of the Hardenburgh and Denning areas, but not much due to the intense mountain terrain of both towns.
So it is true that right now it doesn't look good for improvements. But that could change, Jordan said, if Verizon is convinced that there are too many emergencies to ignore. The company's representative told Jordan that such data would help the cause.
"I'll talk to (Shandaken Police Officer in Charge) Jim McGrath," Jordan said. "We will start documenting."
He urged that anyone with stories about how a cell phone could have saved a life, or a home, or prevented a burglary, or just been needed, should notify Jordan at 688-7165.
Sometimes you have to work for the things the rest of the world already has.
Remember when cable started being offered, anyone?