Progress report on NYRI fight

To the editor:

The Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition (UDPC) would like to thank everyone who donated to the legal defense fund. As a regional community, we can fight New York Regional Interrconnection (NYRI.)

As you may know, NYRI filed its application on Wednesday, May 31 with the New York Public Service Commission for approval to move forward with its electric transmission project. UDPC’s lawyer, Richard Lippes, is evaluating the application. For more information from the New York Public Service Commission website, visit www.dps.state.ny.us/NYRI.htm.

As the weeks progress, it is important that all concerned take action to express their views. UDPC suggests that you:

• Call your legislators and express your feelings about NYRI.

• Ask them “What is your strategy?”

• Insist on specific answers.

Keep your politicians accountable by asking them to provide public updates through meetings, media or their website on their specific actions and the results. You can find contact information for many legislators at udpc.net/threats/NYRI/stopnyriresources.html

UDPC’s next action alert will contain information on becoming an intervener. This process will require that you prepare a statement on how the power line will affect you to be used in your letter to the New York Public Service Commission.

If you know anyone who is concerned about NYRI’s project, convey this message to them.

Thank you for your help.

Power—to the people, not the lines

To the editor:

The recent article in The River Reporter, “Clinton and Schumer quiet on NYRI power lines,” quoted the Public Service Commission’s attorney, Steven Blow, as saying “I know of no major project of this type that has been stopped by public opposition.”

If that remark was meant to discourage our effort to stop this power line project, be warned: it is merely a challenge, and we will rise up to it. We will continue our grassroots movement to encourage our hopes, not our fears. We will not succumb to negative thinking, because that kind of thinking gives away our power. We will continue to encourage a coalition of citizens who want to find a better way to develop energy that is life sustaining, not life threatening. And to do this, we need to think very differently.

Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the consciousness that created it.” It will take a new way of thinking to defeat this project. I have no doubt that the people who live here and who love this beautiful place are up to the challenge. It will take a lot of work and a lot of effort but what else could be worth so much? Carlos Casteneda said, “We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong… the amount of work is the same.” Let’s make ourselves strong.

I was shocked to learn that the Sullivan County Legislature has cut Cornell Cooperative Extension’s funding by 50 percent. Of all the great resources in our county, the extension has to be one of best. But the effects of this cut may kill it.

I am a backyard gardener and a member of the extension. I have benefited many times in many ways from this association: learning how to grow food which feeds us all summer and beyond; learning to beautify our property with flowers, shrubs and trees appropriate to our area; learning to garden (and deal with pests safely) in a way that enhances—and does not harm—the environment; buying healthy, reasonably priced shrubs and flowers at their annual sales. Multiply my experience by hundreds and consider the effect on property values and, more important, on people’s lives.

And as much as I value the Cornell Extension, the farmers of Sullivan County have a much greater stake in keeping its agricultural programs and services in place. How could you even think of undermining these benefits to present-day farms, future farmers and, therefore, to the county itself?

Consider the economic effects of laying off employees. These people will not be collecting salaries to spend in the county; they will be jobless and scrambling to get new jobs, which are not exactly plentiful here.

With this severe cut in operating funds, the extension will necessarily decrease its spending with local businesses—they estimate by at least 35 percent.

Please urge and encourage the Sullivan County Legislature to reconsider this budget cut and restore the Cornell Extension’s funding. It means so much to Sullivan County and all its people, whether or not they participate directly. What we would lose is much more than the money that would be saved.

Vote for the new budget

To the editor:

This past May, huge numbers of constituents of the Sullivan West Central School District voiced their displeasure with the direction of the district by voting to place three new board members on the school board. Over 2,000 residents came out to the polls in order to voice their opinion. As a board member, I can tell you that the message was heard loud and clear.

At that same time, the voters of this district defeated the budget proposal.

As a school board, in stark contrast to last year when we went straight to a contingency budget, we have decided to offer the public a new budget. The defeated budget represented an 8.5 to 8.9 percent increase on the tax levy. The newly proposed budget has reduced that number to between 5.5 and 5.9 percent.

Some might debate whether the cuts made were substantial enough, but the new budget represents a good faith effort by this board to try and balance the needs of the taxpayers with those of the students. I would like to thank each board of education member who agonized over where to make cuts. Personally, I believe that this budget is very important to the future of our students and also to the direction of our district.

With a new school board comes a new optimism that some real progress can be made in our district. However, the $1.9 million worth of cuts that would be mandated by a defeat of this budget would severely tie the hands of the new school board and would handicap us in our efforts to fix the district’s problems. I believe that the incoming board of education will work hard to be fiscally accountable to the public and will also try to make decisions that are consistent with common sense. For this reason, I am voting for the budget and asking all of the constituents of the district to do the same.

Shawn Colin Bailey Sr., member,

Throwing cold water on the problem

To the editor:

[Editor’s note: the below is a slightly abbreviated version of a letter written to New York City’s Commissioner of Environmental Protection from the Friends of the Upper Delaware River (FUDR).]

I’d like to draw your attention to a continuing policy of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection that not only appears wholly illogical, but is also severely and unnecessarily threatening to the unique wild trout fishery and related regional economy of the Upper Delaware River.

Virtually every year, there are repeated instances when the three reservoirs on the Upper Delaware’s principal tributaries fill to capacity and begin to overflow. The quantity of spillage is often substantial and, being reservoir surface water, is subject to very warm late spring/summer air temperatures and seasonal sunshine. Consequently, the overflow is warm water. This warm spillage flows into the river’s main stem, raising the water temperature and becoming a lethal threat to wild trout populations. As you know, this spillage is not, and cannot, be made available to the city.

For years, the DEP has been asked to release cold water (from the bottom of the reservoirs) equal to the amount of spillage—an exchange that would cost the city absolutely nothing, but that would be critical to the survival and protection of this renowned fishery and its related economy. While there is no apparent reason for denying this simple but critical request, the DEP has consistently disregarded it.

We are, of course, aware that, although the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is legally charged by the state with the protection of the fishery, the current 671 regulations apparently provide the DEC with an “avoid the issue” clause on this particular 671 provision; accordingly any resolution to the issue of spillage has been left to the discretion of the DEP.

If there are, indeed, logical reasons for this policy we would be most anxious to know what they are.

Conversely, absent any logical reason, we would be genuinely grateful to learn what, if any, corrective measures the DEP will be taking to reverse this recurring circumstance.

Stay out of women’s birth options

To the editor:

Election time has again put the pro-life, pro-choice argument before the more important issue of running a country in a way that is safe, economically wise and fruitful for all of the citizenry.

I am not only a pro-choice advocate, but a pro-abortion advocate. I believe that no man should ever be allowed to make a women pregnant without first establishing himself as a provider for fatherhood and as the legal husband of the intended mother to be. Men should never be allowed to go scot-free, as the butterfly does, to fertilize woman after woman as is done in our immoral society.

Laws that penalize women who do not bring pregnancies to term without mandatory penalties to the pollinator are biased and discriminatory. These anti-abortion laws, in effect, say the heck with you women and elevate man as the dominant factor—while in fact there isn’t a man on this earth capable of standing the rigors a woman bears throughout a lifetime. To my responsible and loving mother and father, I thank you for what you gave of yourselves for my brothers and sister.

There would not be a man on this earth if not for a woman who bore him. Why are men so bent to discriminate and persecute women? The real answer is power. It is horrendous to see outright torture to women in some religions and countries on this planet.

But our nation is a democracy, where people are supposed to be equals. If people believe that abortion is not for them, they should practice their own belief without forcing it, or their religion, upon others by law. Most of us don’t practice the religions that consider abortion a sin. Abortion is a religious issue and only a religious issue. It is because of immoral hypocrites called politicians and judges that anti-abortion laws are contrived. Until man bears the fruits of a birth, man must stay out of the private choices of the woman’s birth options.