The River Reporter Online - Letters to the Editor

[EDITOR'S NOTE: The River Reporter welcomes letters on all subjects from its readers. They must be signed and include the correspondent's phone number. The correspondent's name and town will appear at the bottom of each letter; titles and affiliations will not, unless the correspondent is writing on behalf of a group.

Letters are printed as they are received, or at the discretion of the editor, and without correction to grammar or spelling. It is requested they be limited to 500 words; correspondents may be asked to cut longer letters. Deadline is 1:00 p.m. on Monday.

For anyone who missed it, I quote Sullivan County Planning Commissioner Alan Sorensen’s piece in this newspaper’s Today’s Business section (March 14 - 20) as he talked about the challenges that large scale projects, like the performing arts center and casinos, present: “Mishandled zoning decisions are the greatest danger Sullivan is facing now.…” Sorensen said that “the temptation is going to be to grant zoning changes and map amendments that allow for the proliferation of new commercial activities on the periphery of, or in traditional residential areas. Giving in to that is proliferation of strip commercial development along the highway corridors that exacerbates visual clutter and traffic congestion and, without intending it, will encourage further disinvestment in traditional downtown areas.” This, to me, expresses how most people who attending the public hearing in the Town of Tusten on proposed changes to our zoning law were feeling, and expresses it very well.

I also applaud Jeffrey Moore’s piece in this week’s paper “Traffic and suburban sprawl: a foregone conclusion?”

In talking about the same Today’s Business section, and the “foregone conclusion” of growth on a huge scale, he points out, “the false notion that adding all this ratable tax base will somehow hold or lower taxes is an old myth that has been thoroughly disproved when the added costs of new schools (due to increased population), and/or newer widened roads that need more maintenance to accommodate more people, more fire and police costs more government services of all kinds.… I hope no one will be surprised and shocked to see the budgets soar and taxes go up.”

Wishing doesn’t make it so. That old adage applies to the inaccurate and erroneous editor’s note added to my letter in the March 21 issue of The River Reporter. This addendum said, “Effluent from the Cortese Landfill, a successfully cleaned up Superfund site, flows downward and toward the river. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the landfill does not pose any threat to the students at the Sullivan West at Narrowsburg building.”

I realize Laurie Stuart and others have a great emotional attachment to the present Narrowsburg School building, but that doesn’t change the facts.

The Center for Health, Environment and Justice in its January 2002 nationally distributed report listed the Narrowsburg school as the only school building in Sullivan County located within one half mile of a federal or state Superfund site. Their map of Sullivan County specifically says, “Sites within half a mile of schools can pose threats to students and teachers.”

A recent five-nation study published in the “Lancet,” a major British medical journal, says there is an increased risk of birth defects within 1.8 miles of a toxic waste site.

The Center for Health, Environment and Justice stresses that young children are very susceptible to the environmental toxins found near such sites which explains its concern about high risk school locations.

The Golder Associates 1994 “Revised Phase III Remedial Investigation Report, Cortese Landfill Site” states, “No core holes have been drilled into the bedrock of the site.” This means we have no definitive geological knowledge of how much contamination or seepage may have penetrated the sedimentary rock substrata or how far and in what direction it may have traveled.

The same report also states that, “There is not enough data to assess seasonal or long term concentration trends.”

If the Cortese Superfund site were totally cleaned up as Ms. Stuart claims, you would not need to cap the site or use offset wells to test the ground water or monitor the site for the next sixteen to thirty years. In fact, the design for the ground water extraction/treatment system won’t be completed until mid 2002 at the earliest.

The most ominous indication that the five-acre Cortese Superfund site is not cleaned up can be found in the 1994 United States Environmental Protection Agency Decision Summary.

This important government document says, “The selected remedy treats hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants at the site through both the drum removal and groundwater extraction components of the selected remedy. Despite this, hazardous substances, pollutants and contaminants will remain onsite above health based levels as the entire Landfill mass itself cannot be effectively excavated and treated because of its size.”

Laurie, you shouldn’t be playing dice with children’s lives. Let us do the sensible thing and use the 4.8 million dollars in renovation money to build a brand new “state of the art” school on a safe piece of ground in the Narrowsburg area far away from the Cortese Superfund site, or build an appropriate new annex at Delaware Valley or Jeffersonville-Youngsville for the Narrowsburg kids.

Noel van Swol
Long Eddy, NY
[Editor’s note: According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the organization responsible for cleanup and monitoring the Cortese Landfill, the site does not pose a threat to the population at the Narrowsburg school building.]

It happened to me once again. Enjoying lunch with my wife in a local restaurant, we were talking between ourselves in our native Ukrainian language. To our surprise a man at the next table got up and nervously reminded us that we are in America and should talk in English. Not taking him seriously, I explained to him politely that nobody, including him, can stop me from using the language that I want.

Yes, I’m in America. I’m a naturalized citizen, but I’m also proud to be Ukrainian. It does not stop me from being involved in the life of my community. Serving on one of the boards in our town, I work closely with other people of different heritages: German, Jewish, Ukrainian and native American. We all respect each other. We all work for the betterment and growth of our community. At my volunteer job, I closely work with a woman who is proud to be of Italian heritage. There are no disagreements or objections if, sometimes in conversation with her, I use Italian words (not many of them are in my vocabulary).

As a naturalized American and proud Ukrainian by birth, I greatly respect this country and I am fulfilling my obligations as a citizen of this nation. It is my intention to remind this gentleman, who annoyed me at the table in the restaurant, that this nation is a conglomerate of the people of many different nations. Together we make America great and strong.

I am faxing you a copy of a letter, which we received on March 29, concerning the landing of emergency helicopters at the Fawn Lake Forest ball field. This is only temporary until our landing zone is rebuilt. When Fawn Lake Forest first built their ball field, the then Board of Directors verbally agreed to allow Central Volunteer Fire Department to land emergency-type helicopters in their ball field. A few years later, we also obtained permission from the Hillview Rod and Gun Club to use its field, which is adjacent to the fire station, as a landing zone. This became our primary landing zone so that we would not disturb and annoy the residents of Fawn Lake with the loud noise of the helicopter.

The Central Volunteer Fire Department wants the residents of Fawn Lake Forest Development to know how the current Board of Directors is treating the volunteers of this community. Many of the residents of Fawn Lake Development are members of both the ambulance and/or the fire department and give selflessly of themselves to help and protect their community and probably they have no idea of the current situation. Imagine how you would feel if one of your loved ones, good friend or even a neighbor had to be airlifted to a hospital, but could not, due to your Board of Directors not letting an emergency helicopter land on their property.

[Editor’s note: The following letter was sent to the Central Volunteer Fire Department and the Lackawaxen Township Volunteer Ambulance Corp.]
Re: Helicopter Landing on Fawn Lake Property

Please be advised that the law firm of Farley & Bemathy, L.L.C, represents Fawn Lake Forest Association. Fawn Lake has brought to my attention Central Volunteer Fire Department and Lackawaxen Township Volunteer Ambulance Corp’s practice of permitting the landing of helicopters on property located in Fawn Lake Forest.

Please be advised Fawn Lake Forest Association does not condone the practice of permitting the landing of helicopters on Fawn Lake property. Further, the individuals who land the helicopters on Fawn Lake property shall assume all risks inherited in such activity. Be advised that the landing of helicopters is not approved by the Board of Directors. Further, this activity is strongly objected to by the Board and may be in violation of the Restrictive Covenants.

Fawn Lake Forest therefore requests you immediately terminate the landing of helicopters, or the contemplation of landing of helicopters, on Fawn Lake property.

The Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York would like to thank New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Vitagrant review committee for selecting our organization to receive $591,000, the second grant they awarded in the state.

The funds, from New York State’s $19 million share in a vitamin price-fixing case, will be used toward our capital campaign.

Nearly two million New Yorkers are hungry or at risk of hunger; we are steadfast in our commitment to alleviate this hunger. However, our existing facilities and trucks are strained to capacity, so we recently launched a $3 million campaign to address this challenge.

Since 1982, we have collected large donations of food from the food industry and distributed it to our member agencies, including soup kitchens, food pantries, emergency shelters, and day care and senior programs. Demand for food has risen dramatically in the last several years. When we began operation 20 years ago, we distributed 400,000 pounds of food to 60 agencies in six counties. Last year, we distributed more than 18 million pounds of food to over 900 charitable organizations in 23 counties.

The support of Attorney General Spitzer has put us well on the way to reaching our $3 million goal. We greatly appreciate his commitment to alleviating hunger in New York State.

Mark Quandt
Executive Director Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York
Latham, NY