Highland’s Sullivan Renaissance project

ELDRED, NY — The Town of Highland received a $1,500 phase 1 Sullivan Renaissance grant to begin work on an eagle observation site along Route 97 in Minisink Ford.

Highland Councilman Robert Burrow said the site is along Route 97, and currently consists of an informal parking area and a sign alerting passers-by of the bird-watching locale.

The Renaissance category B project, Burrow said, would cost roughly $30,000 to complete. The work would include paving the parking area, landscaping along the parking lot, adding low planters of annuals and perennials and grass seeding the area surrounding the lot. It should be completed by August.

Carney calls for investigation into port management deal

CLARKS SUMMIT, PA — Chris Carney, Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress running against Republican incumbent Don Sherwood, has called for an investigation into the administration’s proposed plan to contract with Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates to run ports in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans and Miami. “I call on Don Sherwood to demand a congressional investigation into the proposed outsourcing of U.S. port security,” said Carney.

Carney is a veteran of multiple foreign military operations, a Lt. Commander in the Naval Reserve and an associate professor at Penn State, focusing on U.S. security policy. As of press time, Sherwood’s office had not returned our call to ascertain his position on the issue.

Railroad building not exempt

PALMYRA TOWNSHIP, PA — The township solicitor, Randy Borden, said at a meeting of the township and the Lackawaxen-Honesdale Shippers Association that the building that the shippers plan to lease/sell to a New York steel company would not be exempt from local municipal permit procedures.

The shippers plan to construct a building for the Ideal Steel Supply Corporation on the property the organization owns in White Mills.

Borden said that bridges and sheds for equipment and controls are exempt because they are vital to the operation of the railroad, but that a leased building is only a rental building.

Tom Shepstone, director of the shippers, said that they would work together with the township to meet the standards the township maintains.

Hinchey, Gunther announce meeting on Swinging Bridge dam

SULLIVAN COUNTY, NY — Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther (D-Forestburgh) have scheduled an informational session regarding the dam at Swinging Bridge Reservoir for Thursday, March 2 at the Forestburgh firehouse at 5:30 p.m. Representatives from Mirant NY-Gen, which manages the dam, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees the dam, and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) will attend the public forum to give an update on the dam and field questions from those in attendance.

Funding fight could affect basin commission

HARRISBURG, PA — Republicans in Harrisburg are protesting cuts in Gov. Ed Rendell’s new state budget that they consider insensitive to rural areas, including $250,000 that has been granted to the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) for the prior two years.

Rendell spokeswoman Kate Philips has pointed out that the programs are not included in the executive budget because they have been handled in legislative initiatives in previous years, added to the budget as it moves through the House and Senate.

Carol Collier of the DRBC confirmed that the grant money was added by legislative initiative in previous years and is hoping that it will be added again this year. The funds are used to help the state of Pennsylvania complete a water management plan scheduled for completion in the spring of 2008.

The GOP lawmakers’ complaints come at the same time that they are trying to pass legislation to put a cap on state spending.

Hinchey gets DOJ response on domestic spying

WASHINGTON, DC — The Department of Justice (DOJ) has written a letter informing Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) that it is conducting an internal investigation into the department’s role in the NSA’s warrantless domestic eavesdropping program. The letter is a response to a written request by Rep. Maurice Hinchey and three of his house colleagues asking for such an investigation.

“Countless legal scholars across the nation, including the President of the American Bar Association, have strongly spoken out in opposition to President Bush’s warrantless domestic surveillance program, saying that the initiative is illegal,” Hinchey said. “...President Bush never even bothered to ask for congressional approval. What we’ve seen is a stubborn president who has refused to acknowledged that he went above the law and hopefully this investigation will finally make him realize that he is wrong.”

Bethel applies for landfill treatment system

WHITE LAKE, NY — The Town of Bethel has filed an application with the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to build a facility that would collect and treat groundwater coming off the Town of Bethel landfill. According to a public notice from DRBC, the landfill, which is closed, is capped but has no lining, and “residual leachate currently flows overland to the West Branch Mongaup River without any prior treatment.”

Under the town’s plan, that leachate would be treated once construction is complete.

The landfill is located on a 10-acre parcel of property off Old White Lake Turnpike, about a quarter mile east of State Route 55.

The DRBC will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, March 1, 2006, at 25 State Police Drive, in West Trenton, NJ.