Muddy
Waters
We'd hoped to have moved past the resort by now, to finally
take the time to discuss the state of our schools.
But given that things have gone so poorly for its developer
with the science behind the Belleayre Resort, a hard
turn into the realm of politics was really the only card that
could have been played. And to Dean Gitter's credit,
it's now been played and played strongly. For years,
he's sought to characterize his project as the test case for
the strength of the Memorandum of Agreement between the City
and the watershed towns. But now whether it is or it
isn't, should or shouldn't be, means little. Because In a
move intended to politicize the project's review process to
the maximum degree possible, the Coalition of Watershed Towns,
the political voice of the elected town supervisors of the
region, appears to have taken on the developer's cause as
its own. We didn't think this would happen but it has.
What it means at this moment is anyone's guess, and if you
thought the Resort issue may have been complicated before,
just watch what's coming. Because if you thought the
Esopus looked like chocolate pudding after last weeks cloudburst
over the project site, wait 'till you see what this runoff
looks like.
The Coalition of Watershed Towns was formed to protect the
rights of the watershed communities, and both the publisher
and editor of this newspaper have been among its staunchest
supporters since 1996. It's certainly within the Coalition's
purview to file for party status in the project's hearings;
we doubt they'll be excluded from the table, nor should they
be. The CWT's lead counsel Jeff Baker, has said the towns
need to step in to provide a counterweight against the coalition
of environmental groups opposing the project. What's odd about
that is that those groups together have collectively brought
to bear only a tiny, tiny portion of the resources the developer
has. And what they've submitted by way of response to the
particulars in the DEIS bears little or no relation to the
issues the CWT identifies as central, which are basically
interpretive issues regarding the document.
To be sure, some of the points raised in the CWT's newly passed
resolution are real enough. We agree for example it may not
be reasonable for DEP to interpret regulations so as to prohibit
post-development water quantity and quality loading from exceeding
pre-development levels: Any way you build it, 1 acre of parking
lot yields the same runoff as 16 acres of forest, and no one's
outlawing parking lots. Other points made by CWT are less
real: Insisting it's an "attack on Home Rule" to
preclude golf courses from a particular location with unusually
steep slopes, unsuitable soils and major runoff problems,
that's a stretch. That's not to say DEP's comments don't include
their share of overreaching: they do. For instance the regional
secondary growth projection of 158 new homes over 10 years
is insignificant enough it should have been relegated to a
footnote. But stormwater and secondary growth and all the
other issues are complicated ones, and there will be time
enough to look at all of them. That's why there's a
process for the whole thing.
In the past, we've expressed skepticism about DEC's neutrality
but we've always said we believed the process can work for
the collective good. We still believe that, our view bolstered
of late by Judge Wissler's evident reasonableness on a number
of small issues. But our read on what's just happened is that
the developer and the Coalition of Watershed Towns are now
seeking to use political means to circumvent the regulatory
process for the resort, and to obfuscate analytic and scientific
issues by manipulating emotional ones.
We think the first thing that has to happen is that the State
and that means DEC Commissioner Crotty if necessary, has to
hold the line here, and make sure the resort's upcoming hearings
don't turn into a circus over every problem anyone in watershed's
ever had with the City. That prospect is clearly evidenced
by the CWT's inclusion in its resolution of old beefs with
DEP over snowmobiles and small game hunting, and those are
just the tip of the iceberg. Because there are real issues
to be sorted out with DEP as well in the near future: issues
related to taxes, infrastructure, roads, septic operation
and maintenance, and a range of program funding that impacts
nearly everyone in the watershed. And to have the future of
the real watershed issues held hostage over the Belleayre
Resort by a developer and some politicians he can sway, that's
a risk we've a hard time finding acceptable.
