Looking out for all their interests

To the editor:

I attended the meeting at the Lake Huntington High School on Tuesday, August 19 and was impressed by the turnout and the quality of the speakers. I was also impressed by the questions asked by our local landowners, at least most of them. I sat next to a neighbor of mine, 86 years old and still farming. He didn’t want to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. But he made it clear that he wanted to be able to choose the area on his 100 acres to be drilled. He was concerned to keep his property, as much as possible, as he has always known it. I had earlier spoken to a farmer on the other side of our hill who expressed the same sentiment: drill, make the money, but don’t mess with his spring—it’s the water he drinks.

It’s obvious to me that the landowners with enough land to drill, and those of us with a few acres we love, have more in common than not. Drilling is coming. Not only is it inevitable, it’s a good idea—we need the gas. And I see the justice in the farmers who’ve been just hanging on for so many years being able to finally get something more back from their land than the satisfaction of seeing the hay in.

Gas-leasing attorney Chris Denton told us that there was no monetary downside to putting the protections that my farmer-neighbors felt so strongly about into their leases. It wouldn’t decrease their signup dollars nor their royalties. But I was distressed that the leader of the property owner group representing these men asked questions relating only to signup bonuses and minimizing taxes. He didn’t have any questions about the inherent risks involved in drilling.

This fixation on money alone led me to wonder if these group leaders were paying enough attention to environmental issues. And to worry, for all our sakes, if they have hired an attorney who fully understands gas leases and how they may be framed. Certainly a group that stands to receive millions of dollars the minute they sign leases can figure a way to hire the best legal representation. I don’t have a right to demand an answer as to whether they have or not, but members of the landowner’s group do. I hope that they are making sure that their leadership is looking out for all their interests, and not thinking only about the money.

Not in my back yard

To the editor:

I attended a meeting at the Sullivan County Legislature on Thursday, August 21 in Monticello, NY.

The legislature heard Stewart Salinger’s bid, on his own, to make his property an agricultural area. I say “on his own” because he completely ignored the Town of Forestburgh’s town board, planning board and zoning board.

Stewart has over 200 animals on his property, which, before he did this, was an upper-middle-class area and very pristine.

A number of people spoke on Mr. Salinger’s behalf, and a number on the behalf of the Town of Forestburgh. Those who spoke in the town’s behalf were board members, of which four of five were present. Three of those four spoke against Salenger’s proposal.

The Sullivan County Legislature completely overlooked the principle of home rule and voted in Mr. Salenger’s favor. So much for town boards deciding what is right for their towns.

My question for the Sullivan County Legislature: “Would you want this in your back yard?” Please explain to all in Sullivan how you came to this conclusion? Shame on you for not doing the right thing.

Roger O’Dell,

(For news story click here)

Thank you for the nice article about my work, “Local Artist Fills Calendar with Flowers,” on page 9 in the August 21 issue. I was very pleased with it. However, it didn’t mention that the calendars and cards are for sale here in Narrowsburg at the Signature Gift Shop of the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance. This fine organization contributes significantly to our community, and so, I hope anyone wishing to buy a calendar or box of note cards will shop locally.

Let’s go there

To the editor:

Even though Rusty MacKechnie’s signing this letter, as your wicked newspaper requires, I want everyone to know it’s Mildred Hitone doing the talking here. My religion forbids me to commit to paper what needs be said, so I’ve asked him to do the dirty work.

The River Reporter started out as a newspaper devoted to family values, but now it’s spewing out only the most base and wretched kind of stuff. Shame on you. Your latest outrage, Cass Collins’s piece in the August 14-20 issue, is the straw that broke this God-fearing camel’s back, right between my humps.

Crass Cass says so coyly “Let’s not go there” but there she went anyways—chanting such filthy, godless trashmouth stuff that I may just cancel my subscription—and insist that the proper authorities require your paper to be delivered in plain brown wrappers like any other pornography.

What’s a body to do when all she sees vomited up in a supposed “family” paper are filthy thoughts and filthy vocabulary and other filthy filth that would make the devil himself blush: obsessions and yens, small pipes (my poor husband Dick was so embarrassed) and snakes splashing in large receptacles (my land!), wall-mounted spigots, rubbers, tools, and rapturous sprays of goop late at night in bed; gurgling holes right beside men and teenaged boys with pumps.

And there, all filthy in the middle of all this filth, there it was: Hypertufa. And if you think I’m exaggerating, readers, you just look at her pornographic column one more time: every single filthy word I’ve talked about is floating in that filthy sewer. She may talk like that in Tribeca or Sodom or Gomorrah or wherever she struts her citified ways, but we don’t talk that way up here in the River Valley.

After you wash her mouth out with soap, I hope you’ll remove that Collins hussy from your paper. Shame on her. Shame on you. Shame.

Writing for Mildred Hitone of Bethel and Babylon

(The column referred to is “The Water Feature” in our August 14 issue.)