Highland joins three river towns

By TOM KANE

ELDRED, NY — Protection of the Upper Delaware River ridgeline is an idea whose time has arrived.

The Town of Highland Board has applies for a Technical Assistance Grant (TAG) from the Upper Delaware Council (UDC) in order to change its zoning ordinances to eliminate drastic clear-cutting on the ridgeline of the river corridor.

With its action, Highland is joining the Towns of Tusten and Lumberland in New York and Shohola Township in Pennsylvania, who submitted a similar application.

“We want to preserve this river and not have it destroyed,” Councilman Joseph McDonald told board members at their meeting on Wednesday, August 12.

Earlier in the evening, Mc Donald submitted the town’s application to a committee of the UDC. All ridgeline protections applications were approved by the committee, according to Bill Douglass, executive director of UDC.

About a year ago, a resident of York Lake illegally clear-cut over four acres from the ridgeline down the side of the hill, opposite the Zane Grey House. A few weeks ago, a developer in the Town of Delaware illegally cut over three acres of the ridge below the hamlet of Callicoon along Route 97.

In other board matters, town supervisor Allan Schadt told board members that the Association of Towns stated in a letter that Republican Party members’ civil rights were not violated when they were excluded from the caucus of the Democratic Party even though the meeting was held in a town building.

Schadt congratulated members of the town’s renaissance committee for winning first place in its division of the Sullivan County Renaissance Project. The prize was $7,000.