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 In the News This Week -- Nov. 17, 2006 |
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TODDSVILLE Oaks Creek bubbles quietly along Route 26 between tree-lined banks, hardly a setting for controversy. But controversy, indeed, has arrived on the shores of Oaks Creek, in the form of an apparently lopsided community struggle over whether a one-lane 19th-century Pratt-truss iron bridge should be demolished, or preserved for the pleasure of walkers, joggers and bicyclists. Lopsided, because Jean Finch, who regularly walks a two-mile loop with her husband, John, circulated a petition seeking to have the bridge preserved, and 65 people signed it in a community of three dozen homes. “It’s beautiful,” said Brenda Berstler of WEGO (Walking Example Group/Otsego, an affiliate of Walk America), who has put the support of her organization behind the Finches’ effort. “It could be a charming, wonderful asset to Toddsville and Otsego County.” “I can’t see that there would be much maintenance,” said Mrs. Finch. She and her husband have lived near the bridge for 30 years and no maintenance – not even replanking – has been done in that time. The bridge connects Otsego and Hartwick, but both towns abandoned the span around 1990, so it reverted to the county. Last summer, neighbors say, young vandals tore up the planking, leaving the bridge almost impassable and dangerous to anyone who might try. One neighbor - she couldn’t be reached - complained, and county Highway Superintendent Ron Tiderencel decided to have his crew remove the span in the next few months. “Is it really cost-effective to rehabilitate?” he asked. Jean Finch took the petition to the Hartwick Town Board on Monday, Nov. 13, but failed to get the town board’s endorsement prior to meeting Thursday, Nov. 16, with the county board’s Public Works Committee, Tiderencel’s bosses. She had also sent a copy to Otsego Town Supervisor Tom Breiten and County Rep. Nancy Iversen, who represents the Town of Otsego. “As well as the historical aspect of the bridge,” she told the Hartwick board, “it would be important to connect residents on both sides, especially with the interest in health, which includes walking and cycling.” She said there is grant money available to repair the bridge. Duncan S. Davie, state Sen. Jim Seward’s chief of staff, confirmed that’s possible, although the state transportation bond issue under consideration when he and Mrs. Finch first spoke two years ago is no longer in play. First, Davie said, “it’s up to the county to decide what to do with it.” County Rep. Steve Fournier, who represents the Hartwick side of the bridge, was at the Hartwick Town Board meeting, and while sympathetic to Tiderencel’s concerns, he added, “if feasible, I’d certainly support” preserving the span. He invited Mrs. Finch to speak to the committee. Said Iverson, “I don’t think I have an opinion one way or another as long as its done correctly.” She said the neighbor who originally called to complain about the bridge said it was being vandalized, a bike had been thrown off it into the creek, and it was becoming a magnet for mischief. “It’s a done deal,” Iversen said Fournier told her. But if there’s money available through Seward, she said, “it could be a truly lovely thing.” As with covered bridges, iron bridges of Toddsville’s vintage have fans, including David Simmons, editor of Time Lines, a publication of the Ohio Historical Society and an expert, who said there’s no reason such surviving bridges couldn’t continue to bear traffic, much less the weight of pedestrians and bicyclists. The bridge, built sometime before 1884 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Co. of Canton, Ohio, is an example of “pin-connected trusses,” which - more than covered bridges - “defined American bridge engineering.” “The easiest thing to replace is the deck,” he said; white oak - not red oak - is the preferred wood for that purpose. Wrought iron, he added, is actually less corrosive than steel. The company that made the Toddsville bridge - it’s name is encrusted on a fancy panel - was absorbed by Andrew Carnegie’s American Bridge Co. when Carnegie was seeking to consolidate his grip on all things steel-related around 1900, Simmons said. For his part, Tiderencel said, if this bridge goes, it will be the first demolished in his tenure as county roads’ chief. One bridge at Milford was scheduled to go, but the state took over the property. Another, on Leonard Road in Maryland, is a candidate. “County bridges are in decent shape,” he said. But it’s bridges like this one, which end up in county hands when towns abandon them, that are problematic. He suggested any resolution to the Finches’ crusade should be decided in the Hartwick and Otsego town halls. WEGO leader Berstler sees this issue in the larger context of Americans’ health. “We’ve engineered activity out of our lives so well,” she said. “We’ve also increased edibles production; we routinely have twice as many calories a day available to us than we need” - American agriculture produces 3,800 calories per person per day; people are supposed to stay in the 2,000-2,200 range. Berstler became radicalized in this area after her brother contracted diabetes; he died two years ago at age 49 from a stroke. The Finches, she said, cross over the bridge and walk a couple of miles a day, often with trashbags to pick up roadside litter. Preserving the bridge, Berstler said, would encourage that kind of healthful activity. Instead, we put obstacles in the way: She cited the new Cherry Valley-Springfield Central School, where - due to the narrowness of access roads - kids can’t walk to school. She paraphrased Margaret Mead: “The village that doesn’t have sidewalks hates its children.”  The supplement to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the 68-turbine Jordanville Wind Project – “a fantastic project in a fantastic place,” according to a Community Energy spokesman – is complete. And the way may be clear for the developer to seek building permits before Christmas, according to project foes, or February at the latest, according to Warren Supervisor Richard Jack. Either way, unless Otsego 2000 goes through with a court challenge, groundbreaking on the 7.5-mile swatch of wind turbines in the southern Herkimer County towns of Warren and Stark would be possible by spring. On Wednesday, Nov. 15, the DEIS supplement was posted on Community Energy’s web site – follow the link from www.thefreemansjournal.com – starting the clock on what could be the final stage of the State Environmental Quality Review process. A public-comment period will continue until Dec. 15, and Community Energy then has 45 days to address any further concerns. But Sue Brander of Advocates for Stark, an anti-turbine group, said the company plans to complete that process in just seven days, meaning the SEQR lead agency – the Warren town board – could approve the final EIS on Friday, Dec. 22. Supervisor Jack said he anticipates the company will return with its comments “sometimes after the holidays” and that the Warren town board – the “lead agency” under SEQR – will act on it. Asked what he’s hearing in the community, the supervisor replied, “Everyone, from what I can tell, is for it.” While there are foes and some people are neutral, he said, “percentage-wise, it’s got to be at least 80 percent for.” Otsego 2000 Executive Director Martha Frey said the Cooperstown-based environmental group’s experts will review the supplement to see if it sufficient addresses concerns raised, not just by Otsego 2000, but by the state Department of Environmental Conservation and other state entities, “we’ll seek legal means if necessary.” The supplement acknowledges many potential negative impacts, from soil erosion, to loss of habitat, to possible ice-shedding concerns, to noise during construction and afterwards to “project components catching fire,” it balances them with what it perceives as positive ones. In Climate and Air Quality, it cites “dust during construction,” it balances it with “reduced air pollutants and greenhouse gases.” It balances “road wear” with “road system improvements/upgrades.” And it claims “adverse and beneficial impacts on farming.” Community Energy spokesman Skip Brennan – he called the project “fantastic,” and said that, in lessening air pollution and greenhouse gases, the project will help protect Otsego Lake – asked that Community’s beneficial claims be included: $6.3 million in wages during construction, $800,000 in annual revenues to local governments and schools, and providing 51,000 homes to “clean, homegrown power.” Asked to comment, Frey said “I don’t know” to the jobs. To the revenues to localities, she said, “The PILOT agreement has not been negotiated.” Of the 51,000 homes, she said, “They’ll be lucky if it runs at 30 percent capacity.” In the area of mitigation, the supplement talks about newsletters, presentations to town boards and open houses, and of “developing and implementing various plans to minimize adverse impacts to air, soil and water resources.” Brennan said these will be developed in advance of problems arising. Frey said, “It sounds like a lot of that work will be done after the fact.” The smell was still strong in the past few days, but Clark Sports Center and state environmental officials say oil leaking into the Susquehanna River has been stemmed, but not before 50-100 gallons leaked out of a pipe leading from an underground fuel tank. “The cause of the leak has been discovered, and the spill has been contained,” Brad Feik, Clark Sports Center director, said Wednesday, Nov. 15. “Apparently, one of our underground tanks had a faulty valve.” First discovered on Monday, Nov. 6, by Cooperstown resident Mary Fines while walking her chow-mix dog Chai, it took two days for her to convince village police and state Department of Environmental Conservation officers that a problem existed. That day, at least five gallons of fuel oil was found in a manhole near the sports center, said DEC spill specialist Tom Lane. The good news is that the ongoing wet weather identified the source of the leak that first day. “The spill has been contained,” said CleanHarbors’ Kris Goodman. “Right now we’re removing two 10,000 gallon oil tanks and replacing them with at least one 12,000 gallon tank at this time.” On Thursday, Nov. 9 CleanHarbors Environmental Services, Albany, and Scott R. Ubner Excavating, Fly Creek, broke ground at the Sports Center and soon discovered the source of the leak. “The spill has been contained,” said CleanHarbors’ Kris Goodman. “Right now we’re removing two 10,000 gallon oil tanks and replacing them with at least one 12,000 gallon tanks at this time,” which should take about a month. Meanwhile, the two 10,000 gallon tanks will be removed and inspected for fractures. “At this time we’re working very closely with the DEC to make sure that everything is done correctly,” said Feik, adding, “The Clark Sports Center and the Clark Foundation have a strong commitment to the environment.” Feik went on to explain that the sports center’s two 10,000 gallon tanks were recently pressure tested and that test results had indicated everything was fine. As of Wednesday, Nov. 15, representatives of Op-Tech Environmental Services, Albany, were still at the site soaking up excess oil in the Susquehanna River with absorbent booms. “It’s a good thing (Fines) found it when she did,” said Lane. “It could have been a lot worse.” Feik said the accident did not disrupt programming at the sports center and he does not expect it will. COOPERSTOWN It’s one of those facts that’s a conversation stopper: Every year, 18 million pounds of mud flow into Otesgo Lake from the hills surrounding it. Paul Lord, president of the Otsego Lake Association, had an attentive audience when he spoke to Cooperstown Rotary the other day, but he was trying to grab the club’s attention as he made this announcement: The OLA, the Lake and Valley Garden Club and Otsego Northern Catskills BOCES have begun a fundraising push to redesign the waterfront at Cooperstown’s Lake Front Park to slow the pace of water pouring into the lake and, thus, the dirt and nutrients carried with it. “Soaking into the ground is the best way to clean water,” he said. The $27,000 effort involves lining the seawall with rip-rap, and building a raised boardwalk and placing benches on it. All along the strip will be local sedges and grasses, acclimated to local weather conditions, and selected to prevent erosion and slow water en route to the lake.A key element of the buffer strip, said Suzanne Kingsley, the Lake and Garden Club’s past president, will be a low hedge of weeping willows, which will be kept clipped, above ground, but the roots will go deep into the lakefront, holding the earth in place. “Willow has a growth hormone,” she explained, that stimulates root systems. “You can take willow water and us it to root roses,” she said. The buffer strip has been designed in such a way that, if it flourishes, it can be duplicated around the lake, thus multiply the benefits the OLA and its partners hope to prove can result from the project. It is an expansion of an earlier pilot project at the foot of Pioneer Street, next to the park. “We’re happy that all the people who live around the lake can benefit,” said Kingsley. “If all of us would do a little bit of that, it would help amazingly.” The plan has undergone regulatory review by various village boards and committees, Lord said, and work is scheduled to begin in April 2007. BOCES will be providing student labor to implement plans developed by the garden club. Additional partners are being sought to ensure the plans approved are implemented. Lord said speakers are available to speak with groups, large and small, interested in providing financial or gardening contributions. Just call him at 435-4989 or e-mail him at lordp@usa.net. Design plans can be viewed at the Village of Cooperstown Library. By JIM KEVLIN COOPERSTOWN Ted Peters was always drawn to water. As a boy in Chambersburg, Pa., he built a replica of the local water works in his backyard. In World War II he joined the Navy as a submariner, making it as far as Pearl Harbor after the war on the USS Cabezon (SS334) before hostilities ended. He still remembers the moment he first saw Glimmerglass, in 1955 while in town on an interview for a research position at what’s now Bassett Healthcare. “I thought it was gorgeous,” he said. “I loved it. I loved the setting.” From that point on, his selection as 2006 Conservationist of the Year – he was honored Thursday, Nov. 8, at the Otsego County Conservation Association’s annual meeting at the Otesaga – seems inevitable. By the way, he got the job in 1955: The Clark family had established a $2 million endowment – a lot of money at the time – for medically allied research, and Peters was among the first hires, along with Dr. E. Donnall Thomas, who later won the Nobel Prize for performing the first human-organ transplant in 1956, and Dr. Charles Ashley. Why would he go anywhere else? The research position allowed him to pursue his other lifetime interest – albumin, the protein that helps maintain the volume of blood in the circulatory system. “A big beneficial protein,” he calls it. He and Ashley collaborated in research that, among other things, identified a variant known as Albumin Cooperstown. And the keen local interest in Otsego Lake occupied his non-albumin hours, not to mention raising a family of four with his wife, Margaret. Dr. Theodore Phillips Jr., as noted, was born in that farming center west of Gettysburg, where his father was a country doctor, called out at all hours of the night, summer or winter. “Sometimes they’d meet him with a sleigh,” the son recalled, “because he couldn’t get up the lane.” He went to Lehigh – the anthracite region’s Harvard – as a chemical engineer. After completing Lehigh in 1943, he spent eight months studying chemical engineering at MIT until he finally passed the physical and was inducted into the submarine corps. In the course of his studies, Peters discovered his real interest was biochemistry. So after the war he earned a Ph.D. in that subject at Harvard. After a year at Penn, teaching at the medical school, he was called back to duty in the Korean War, returning to Harvard in 1953. Cooperstown was a perfect next step. “I walked to work” – he still is an avid walker, and can often be seen strolling along village sidewalks in his tie and signature blue blazer; in winter, he wears a tan overcoat. He appears to be in thought, but with a half-smile on his face. “It was a beautiful situation: I had freedom of endeavor.” He joined the OCCA at the outset in 1968, and fondly remembers the early leaders: Felix “Meckie” von Mecklenburg; “brilliant” Irene Mozelewski, newspaper reporter (and Ph.D.); Lou Hager Sr., Tom Goodyear and Sam Smith. The SUNY Oneonta Biological Experiment Station, operated since the outset by Peters’ friend Bill Harman, was founded in 1969, and the two entities worked side by side. Peters spent 1971-72 in Washington D.C. on a sabbatical at the National Institutes of Health, researching albumin with Christian B. Anfinsen, one of his former Harvard professors, who won the Nobel Prize the following year. On his return, Peters was drawn into the OCCA’s newly formed Lake Otsego Committee, a “very active group,” which founded such mainstays as Lake Cleanup Day and the boat census. His first official appointment – many would follow – was to the village’s Water and Sewer Board, (which he served on until last fall): The circle begun in his backyard in Chambersburg was complete. It was about this time that Ted came up with the famed SOLO bumper sticker: “Save Our Lake Otsego.” (One of the runners-up, it was noted at the OCCA banquet, was “Stink or Swim.”) The committee quickly concluded land-use planning was essential to the lake’s health, and he remembers the door-to-door efforts of the Town of Otsego’s then-supervisor, Alton Dunn, to make it happen. Regulatory pressure, Peters remembers, was gradually brought to bear, for the lake’s benefit, including: • Prohibition of any new construction within 100 feet of the lake in the towns of Otsego and Springfield. • Prohibition of any new septic fields within 100 feet of the lake. • Inspection of all septic fields at the time of property sales. Since 2001, when it formed, he has served on the Water Quality Committee, which began inspections of all lakeside septic systems in 2005. The latest report found septic systems at 169 of the 337 lakeside camps have been inspected, with a 59 percent found to be leaking. The good news, said Peters, is “all but 35 are in the process of being updated.” “There’s not only been progress in water quality,” he said, “but in awareness: That’s what I like to see.” Meanwhile, his studies in albumin – his thesis established it was produced by the liver – continued, and gained him friends, contacts and colleagues all over the world, in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Italy. After his retirement in 1988, he wrote the reference book, “All About Albumin: Biochemistry, Genetics and Medical Applications.” His interest continues, evident from a recently downloaded paper on his kitchen table the other day, “Decreased Hepatic Triglyceride Accumulation.” So does his interest in water. A calendar of historic submarines hangs on a wall. In the livingroom is a sketch of the Cabezon, done by his daughter. Along the way, his family grew. His oldest son, also Ted, is a Ph.D. at Merrimack College; Jim is a physician, head of radiology at Bassett; daughter Melissa Barry is married and living in Hopkinton, N.H., and William is a banker in Townsend, Md. He and Margaret have seven grandchildren. Through the biological experiment station and OCCA efforts, among others, Glimmerglass is “probably the most studied lake in the world.” The invasive alewives are in retreat. Zebra mussels, found in Goodyear and Canadarago lakes, have been kept at bay -- so far. Peters leans over and knocks on the top of a wooden chair. Sources of phosphates have been identified and are being systematically eradicated. “All lakes are born to die,” he said. “But let’s put it off a little bit.”  As Tough Wind Ordinance Nears, Writer To Examine Cherry Valley
CHERRY VALLEY Writer and novelist Michael Blaine of Davenport, Delaware County, is drawn to “complexity,” so is it any surprise he’s intrigued by the overlapping and multi-layered motivations and opinions surrounding the efforts to erect 3,200 wind turbines in Upstate New York? “Everybody’s struggling to do the right thing,” said Blaine, who has drafted a proposal to write a non-fiction work. He planned to attend the noon, Thursday, Nov. 9, meeting of Advocates for Cherry Valley in search of compelling local stories surrounding what has now been a four-year process. First, Global Winds Harvest sought to erect wind turbines at Cape Wyckoff; now Reunion Power is pursuing a 24-turbine wind farm on East Hill. That evening, the Cherry Valley town board was scheduled to meet, primarly to approve the town budget, but also to approve revisions to a proposed wind ordinance that would enact setbacks Reunion Power has said puts its project in jeopardy. Supervisor Tom Garretson said he, Town Councilmen Fabian Bressett III and Jim Johnson, and Town Attorney Lynn Green reviewed the proposed ordinance line by line and made what he called “clerical changes”; however, they require another public hearing, which he expects later this month, with final approval in December. Meanwhile, Garretson said, he expects the board will extend a 90-day moratorium, due to expire shortly, for another 45 days. Blaine, a former CUNY English professor who’s latest novel is “The Midnight Band of Mercy,” a “neo-Victorian thriller” published in 2005 by Soho Press – the New York Times called it “absorbing;” the San Francisco Chronicle, “gritty and fascinating” – said he is approaching the wind-power debate “without any preconceptions or particular ax to grind. I find both sides highly sympathetic. I think this is a very human story.” Twenty years ago, Blaine and his wife, painter and photographer Rose Mackiewicz, were living in a six-story walkup in New York City when the landlord decided to take the building co-op. The couple decided it might be a good time to move. “We drove blindly north,” said Blaine, “until we found a place that we really were attracted to: That turned out to be Delaware County.” The writer, who has also published a non-fiction book, “The King of Swings,” about amateur golfer Johnny Goodman, became interested in the issue wind-power developers began seeking options in Meredith and Bovina; both those Delaware County towns have since adopted development moratoriums. Goodman, poverty stricken, hopped a cattle car to Pebble Beach, where he beat Bobby Jones, the best golfer of the time. He went on to win the 1933 U.S. Open. His other novel, “The Desperate Season,” loosely based on a Delaware County murder, was written from multiple points of view. That novel “bears obliquely on the way I’m viewing Cherry Valley,” he said. “I’m fascinated about how people of integrity can deal with problems so radically different.” So far, Blaine said, he has visited Fenner and has attended a few of Cherry Valley’s meeting on the wind issue. Tug Hill, where the Maple Ridge Wind Farm is expanding to 195 turbines, is another must stop, he said. The author has also arranged to interview Assemblyman Paul Tonko, energy committee chairman, after the election. Meanwhile, his wife has two exhibits in the offiing on the topic, “Portraits From the Windpower Projects,” one opening Dec. 1 at the Siano Gallery in Philadelphia, the second at the Ch’i Gallery in New York’s Williamsburg Section. The couple has a daughter, Anna Tasha Blaine of New York City, who is also a writer; her husband, Michael Rothfeld, is a Newsday reporter. | Jan. 04, 2008 | Local Honor Roll | Pages From The Paper | july 6th 2007 | Hall of Fame Friday | Hall of Fame Saturday | Hall of Fame Sunday | Hall of Fame Monday | July282006 Archive | Aug042006 Archive | Aug112006 Archive | Aug182006 Archive | Sept012006 Archive | Sept082006 Archive | Sept152006 Archive | Sept222006 Archive | Sept292006 Archive | Oct062006 Archive | Oct132006 Archive | Oct202006 Archive | Oct272006 Archive | Nov032006 Archive | Nov172006 Archive | Nov242006 Archive | Dec012006 Archive | Dec082006 Archive | Dec152006 Archive | Dec222006 Archive | Dec292006 Archive | Jan052007 Archive | Jan192007 Archive | Jan262007 Archive | February092007 Archive | February162007 Archive | February232007 Archive | March162007 Archive | March232007 Archive | March302007 Archive | March302007 Archive | April132007 News Archive | Chris Gentile | Obituary | April272007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May112007 Archive | May252007 Archive | June 22, 2007 | July 13 2007 | Sept05 2007 | Sept 7th 2007 | Aug 31st 2007 | Local Law Parking | October 26, 2007 | Nov. 2 2007 | Nov. 16, 2007 | Glimmerglass Oct 5,2007 | Nov 16., 2007 | November 30 2007 | Nov. 30, 2007 | Dec. 07, 2007 | Dec. 14, 2007 | Dec. 21, 2007 | Dec. 28, 2007 | Jan. 11, 2008 | Jan. 18, 2008 | Jan. 25, 2008 | Feb 1, 2008 | Feb. 8, 2008 | Feb. 22, 2008 | GlimmerGlass Feb. 15, 2008 | Sports Feb. 15, 2008 | Feb.28, 2008 | March 7, 2008 | March 14, 2008 | GlimmerGlass March 14, 2008 | March 21, 2008 | March 28, 2008 | April 4, 2008 | April 11, 2008 | April 18, 2008 | April 25, 2008 | May 9, 2008 | May 2, 2008 | May 23, 2008 | | Our Services | Contact Us | Great Links | Return Home | Classified Ads | News Archive | Cooperstown Homes | Calendar -Best Bets | Letters to the Editor | |
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