TRR photo by Tom Kane A large section of ridge below Callicoon, NY was clear-cut. (Click for larger image)

Is clear-cutting along the ridge legal?

By TOM KANE

HORTONVILLE, NY — At the meeting of the Delaware Town Board on Wednesday, July 16, some residents complained about a contractor who clear-cut about four acres on the side of the Delaware ridge just below the hamlet of Callicoon, above Route 97.

“There’s no town ordinance against clear-cutting on the ridge,” said town supervisor Bill Moran.

“If someone owns property along the ridge, they can do what they want with it,” said Highway Superintendent Bill Eschenberg.

“I’m against such a practice but there’s no law,” Moran said.

There is a regulation in the town’s zoning law that requires a special use permit to build within 100 feet of the of the ridgeline or at a lower elevation which would be visible from the river.

There is a town zoning ordinance that establishes a two-acre limitation on clear-cutting anywhere in the town without a special use permit. By implication, the town ordinance allows a property owner to clear-cut on the ridge, but no more than two acres.

Andrew Parsons of Parsons Enterprises, Inc., a North Branch construction company, did the clear-cutting on two lots that he recently purchased.

“Nobody in the town told me about not clear-cutting on the ridge or that there was any regulation against it,” Parsons said. “If they did, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Jim Scheutzow, the town’s Code Enforcement Officer, said that the town didn’t know Parsons owned the ridge property.

“When he came to me to tell me he was logging, he never mentioned that he was doing it on the ridge,” Scheutzow said. “He owns several parcels in the Beechwoods, so I thought he was logging there.”

Parsons said he never read the information on logging that Scheutzow gave him.

“We’re all beginning to feel the pressures of growth,” said William Douglass, executive director of the Upper Delaware Council. “We need to take a look at how to better protect the ridgelines throughout the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River.”

Recently, a local group of business leaders, municipal officials and other groups concerned with managing growth in the valley called the Visioning Committee of the Upper Delaware have held two forums on balancing growth with the protection of the environment. One of the chief concerns is the protection of the ridgeline.

Three towns along the river, Tusten and Lumberland in New York and Shohola in Pennsylvania, are currently seeking funds from the Upper Delaware Council’s Technical Assistance Grant program to create an ordinance to protect the ridgeline.