The start of something different

It was shades of déjà vu in the Upper Delaware Council meeting room as Noel van Swol and Don Rupp urged supervisors to unilaterally reject the greenway proposal by Senator John Bonacic.

“This will erode our property rights. This is a backhand way to condemn land,” van Swol said.

“We don’t need any help. We’ve kept the valley this way for generations,” Rupp said.

Such were the battle positions 20 years ago when these same anti-park service activists motivated hundreds and sometimes thousands of people to fear for their homes and livelihoods. It was the same battle cry that bred unruly crowds who prevented testimony at federal hearings with cowbells and bullhorns, an economic boycott of this newspaper for publishing the news as it saw it, the burning of homes and the threatening of public officials.

The fact that those dire predictions of condemnation and erosion of private property rights have never materialized does not seem to have impacted this new wave of opposition.

And not surprisingly, history is being rewritten.

“We were fighting against the condemnation on the valley,” van Swol said, categorizing the opposition of 20 years ago. (Condemnation is the last resort, and a bone of contention, to noncompliance in the river management plan as it stands today.)

But students of the history of the Upper Delaware, and those of us who lived through the process, know a different story. Opponents of the National Park Service were fighting against a home rule experimental concept to protect the valley by local zoning and land use provisions. They didn’t believe that the experiment was real.

Ironically, it is that very concept, and its resulting river management plan, that is being tested today. Is the river management plan and the compliant zoning really sufficient to preserve the valley?

That’s the million-dollar question that everyone—advocates and opponents alike—want to answer in the affirmative.

For the record, the fears of the park service opponents about whether Congress was really serious about the preservation of the area without ownership were not unfounded. There had been a 1965 plan by the Bureau of Outdoor Management to purchase the Upper Delaware River Valley. There were acres of land condemned downriver by the Army Corps of Engineers for the Tocks Island Dam project, which never materialized.

River valley activists, van Swol included, worked long and hard in getting that condemnation plan scrapped in favor of the experiment of the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. Many others worked long and hard to create the mechanisms for home rule cooperation between the park service and the towns and townships along the river. Violence and differences aside, in the end we accomplished it all.

And now two decades later we are faced with another experimental concept: are we in favor of Senator Bonacic’s advocating for the Upper Delaware River Valley and having it designated as an area for New York State money that could enhance local land use planning and create a voluntary regional planning compact for the Delaware River Valley? Could a greenway designation through New York State help to preserve and enhance the Upper Delaware in all its beauty and all its private property rights?

Maybe.

Being able to tap into state money with a greenway designation is a concept that needs to be explored. And it needs to be explored without the contention, violence and fears of the 1980s.

We need to deal in facts. We need to act with calm heads. We need to collaborate on getting information. We need to understand that we all have the same agenda—to preserve, protect and conserve our homes, our livelihood and our area.

Our public officials need to be supported as they make their decision on our behalf. We need to make sure that the agendas of a few are not projected on the many. We need to make sure that the process and exploration is peaceful, respectful and accurate.

While we were once the untried experiment of public protection of a resource, this time around we’re being offered a model to study—the Hudson River Valley Greenway.

It’s not really déjà vu.

It’s a new concept for the area.

Senator Bonacic’s first step to get everyone in the same room and hear the facts from the Carmella Mantello, executive director of the Hudson Valley Greenway, was a great beginning.

We need to move forward from there.

Dr. Punnybone

Duck and Cover