NARROWSBURG, NY — In keeping with a report from their nominating committee’s report last week, 12 of 13 voting town and township delegates on hand for their January 7 meeting elected a new trio of Upper Delaware Council (UDC) officers, headed by Fred Peckham of Hancock, who was named as chair.

Former chair Jeffrey Dexter of Damascus and outgoing chair Al Henry of Berlin were elected as vice-chair and secretary treasurer, respectively.

Voting this year was by paper ballot and the published results were 11 votes and one abstention for Peckham, and unanimous support for Dexter and Henry.

In the past, the installation of new officers came in February and had involved some ceremony, with attendance of a jurist to administer oaths of office, prior to the seating of the officers. Installation of the new chairman this year was instantaneous, as Henry immediately turned the gavel over to Peckham following the vote.

A Hancock native, Peckham has been the Delaware County town’s primary delegate since 2009. He operates Kilgour Fams, upriver of Lordville, from which he sells bluestone, sand, gravel and topsoil. The property and business were formerly operated by Peckham’s late uncle George Frosch, who was a founding member of the UDC, where he served from 1988 up until his death in 2002.

Peckham is a graduate of Hancock High School and the SUNY Oswego School of Business. He also serves as chair of the Town of Hancock Board of Assessment Review and is a volunteer member of the Equinunk Watershed Alliance.

Meeting business

The council’s meeting was largely devoted to a presentation by glacial geologist Dr. Andrew Kozlowski of the New York State Museum. Kozlowski gave a PowerPoint presentation on his upcoming study of geologic formations along the river, between Hancock and Narrowsburg.

Kozlowski said the study was the first such exploration in the area in over 100 years and is part of several similar studies ongoing throughout the state. Noting that the state museum is a part of the New York State Education Department, he emphasized that his work is non-regulatory, has no relationship to any kind of natural gas drilling and concentrates on research and educational outreach.

The work is partially funded by federal matching funds for state salaries, and the results will be married to earlier research completed on the Pennsylvania side of the river, he said.

National Park Service (NPS) Superintendent Kris Heister said the data gathered by Kozlowski is one of a dozen kinds of data sets that each NPS unit is required to keep.

Kozlowski said this year’s work is phase one of the pro-ject, which he expects to continue downriver of Narrowsburg in 2017.

In other business, the council approved housekeeping resolutions involving banking and auditing and two letters.

The first was addressed to the Decree Parties to the 1954 Supreme Court decision providing New York City and the four adjoining states control of flows in the Delaware River and establishing water releases, measurements and flow levels. Those protocols have been revised twice since then, and environmental activists and river-related business interests have repeatedly asked for additional changes to moderate water temperatures for fishery health during hot weather. The letter calls on the Decree Parties to resume “good faith” negotiations to address “inevitable future thermal events,” and protect the ecosystem and the regional economy partially based upon it.

The second letter, to the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) offers the UDC’s assistance in facilitating tabletop exercises for Delaware, Sullivan, Orange and Wayne and Pike counties for implementing New York City’s “recently developed multi-year training and exercise program for the DEP’s dam Emergency Action Plans below the reservoirs.”