Lawmakers to oppose model forest plan

By MICHAEL RISINIT
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: December 31, 2003)

KENT — The state should abandon its plan to log the slopes of Kent's Mount Nimham and take its plans for a working model forest elsewhere, the area's state legislators said.

"We're hopeful that, based upon what the Town Board said, they will cease and desist," state Sen. Vincent Leibell, R-Patterson, said this week. "We want (the state) to stop."

Leibell was referring to the Town Board's unanimous passage of a resolution this month opposing the controversial proposal by the Department of Environmental Conservation. Leibell and Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining, sent DEC Commissioner Erin M. Crotty a letter three days before Christmas, asking her to take into account the "strong opposition" generated by the proposal.

"We request that you give serious consideration to re-evaluating this project in view of the position of the Kent Town Board," the letter stated.

In October, the state unveiled its plan to log and artificially manage 415 of the 1,100 state-owned acres near New York City's West Branch Reservoir. The proposal involves cutting down up to 60 percent of the trees in some areas and the possible use of fire and herbicides to control the underbrush. If successful, the model would be used to promote forestry as an economic plan for private lands surrounding New York City's reservoirs. Well-managed forests, rather than shopping centers and parking lots, are the city's preferred land use for protecting water quality.

The model forest is a collaborative effort led by the DEC and involves the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the nonprofit Watershed Agricultural Council and the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. Its goal is water quality protection, but the proposal has been criticized by dozens of residents and local officials. They fear herbicides and clear-cutting will foul the reservoir and wells, and the project will degrade the land's recreational opportunities.

Formerly farmland and pasture, the land attracts hunters, hikers and mountain bikers and includes a World War II-era fire tower undergoing restoration.

"There has been nobody who has come forward to give a reason why this project is good for the town of Kent," resident Tai Aguirre said.

A DEC spokesman yesterday said any decision on the proposed model forest wouldn't come until the department had reviewed all the public comments it received on the matter. The comment period closes today.

"The commissioner received the letter," DEC spokesman Matt Burns said. "We've reached out to schedule a meeting (with Leibell and Galef.) That will be done in the near future."

Residents have also written letters to Crotty and Gov. George Pataki lamenting the proposal. Kent resident Jeff Green has dedicated a large portion of a Web site he runs, www.planputnam.org, to supporting a grass-roots campaign against the project. Outgoing Supervisor Annmarie Baisley said the town has heard nothing from the DEC since agency representatives attended a Dec. 8 board meeting where the resolution opposing the model forest plan was passed. The county Legislature on Monday passed its own resolution supporting Kent's measure.

"We're just going along and getting more and more people in our corner," Baisley said.

The Kent model forest would be the fourth of its kind, joining three others in the city's upstate watershed. The others are on county, city and private land in the Catskills. Leibell and Galef both suggested the DEC move the Nimham project to private property and allow the public lands to remain untouched.

"It just seems to me that they can have some kind of arrangement, an easement or something, and do something on private land," Galef said yesterday.