Forests of the Catskills: An Overview

Maple-dominated forests are predominant in the Catskill region, but that beech and birch-dominated forests become more important at higher elevations. Oak-dominated forests are very important along the eastern side of the Catskills, and conifer-dominated forests are largely restricted to mountaintops and stream bottoms. The largely forested Catskill Mountains of southeastern New York are subject to high rates of atmospheric deposition of pollutants and nutrients due to their high elevation and proximity to sources of urban and industrial pollution in the Midwest and Eastern Seaboard

The Catskill Mountains occupy a large area in southeastern New York State that includes significant portions of Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Schoharie, Sullivan, and Ulster counties. The boundary of the Catskill Park, a preserve occupying 2817 km that is embedded in four of these counties. About 40% of the land within the Catskill Park is part of the New York State Forest Preserve and the rest is privately owned. Forest Preserve lands are protected from logging, road-building, and other kinds of local human disturbance, but most of the Catskill area has been altered by logging, agriculture, and fire since the time of human settlement in the region). Despite these disturbances, some significant tracts of first-growth forest remain.

The climate of the Catskills includes cool summers and cold winters, both of which contribute to the popularity of the area for resorts and tourism. Elevations in the park range from 51 to 1219m, reflecting the rugged character of the Catskills that produces a range of climate conditions across the area. The Slide Mountain weather station (808 m elevation) in the central Catskills reports a mean annual temperature of 4.3 °C, and annual precipitation of 153 cm with about 20% falling as winter snow. Both temperature and precipitation vary substantially with elevation in the Catskills.

Forests in the Catskills are dominated by mixed oaks at lower elevations ( 1 100 m), balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) Miller) or red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.), sometimes mixed with paper birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.), often dominate.. While the forest types described above are typical, other mixtures of deciduous tree species are not uncommon.

Catskills vegetation is dominated by deciduous tree species, although non-forest and conifer species are a significant component of the landscape. Specifically, non-forest types (including open water) collectively occupy 12.7% of the Catskill Park. Deciduous cover types occupy 71.6% and include maple-dominated types (43.5%), beech-dominated types (10.4%), oak-dominated types (9.4%), and other types (3.6%). Evergreen-dominated types occur in 4.3% of the area and include hemlock (3.6%) and spruce-fir dominated types (0.7%). Mixtures of conifers and deciduous species cover 11.5% of the area.

In general, maple species dominate over much of the Catskills Park. Oak species occupy significant areas in the east, and beech types are prevalent in the south-central portion of the park west of Slide Mountain. Evergreen coniferous trees occur in scattered patches throughout the Catskills, particularly along riparian corridors and at high elevations.

*** ALL INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS DIRECTLY SOURCED FROM: ***

A Vegetation Map for the Catskill Park, NY, Derived from Multi-temporal Landsat Imagery and GIS Data

Northeastern Naturalist,  2004 by Driese, Kenneth L,  Reiners, William A,  Lovett, Gary M,  Simkin, Samuel M

***

Our Towns: Gas Drillers in Rush for Hearts and Land, New York Times, June 30, 2008

Our Towns

Gas Drillers in Race for Hearts and Land

Gas Drillers in Race for Hearts and Land

Development pressures, land prices and activity by oil and gas firms have increased exponentially across a broad expanse of New York from Lake Erie to the Catskills

By PETER APPLEBOME

Published: June 29, 2008

WALTON, N.Y.

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Marcellus Shale Formation

You could have taken a nostalgic drive through the past on Thursday night, through the dreamy green landscape at the outer edges of the Catskills, past sleepy fishing towns like Roscoe and Downsville, to the lovingly restored Walton Theater, built in 1914 for vaudeville acts, honored guests like Theodore Roosevelt and community events of all shapes and sizes.

And, if you got there, you would have received a distinctly less dreamy glimpse of the future. You would have heard an overheated mix of fear and greed, caution and paranoia, of million-dollar gas leases that could enrich struggling farmers, of polluted wells, pastures turned to industrial sites and ozone pollution at urban levels. You would have heard anguished landowners from Wyoming and Colorado, facing issues now improbably appropriate to the Catskills, present their cautionary view of an environment dominated by huge energy companies where some will get rich while their neighbors might just see a hundredfold increase in truck traffic without much else to show for it.

Such gatherings are being repeated throughout a swath of upstate New York, from Walton to Liberty to New Berlin, as thousands of landowners, many of whom have already signed leases with landmen fanning out across the state, contemplate a new era of gas production now hovering almost inevitably over New York’s horizon.

It’s a development born of new technology, rising energy prices and insatiable demand that is turning the Marcellus Shale formation, which reaches from Ohio to Virginia to New York, into a potential trillion-dollar resource in the gut of the nation’s most populous and energy-hungry region.

Development of the Marcellus has been most advanced in Pennsylvania, but since the beginning of the year, development pressures, land prices and activity by oil and gas firms have increased exponentially across a broad expanse of New York from Lake Erie to the Catskills. “It’s kind of a frenzy here,” said David Hutchison, a retired geology professor who attended the meeting.

Experts say the development will have enormous, barely glimpsed consequences for the upstate economy, the state’s finances and the way of life in quiet rural communities like this one, many of them now heavily influenced by the second-home market. There will be questions about the environmental consequences, especially the potential effect on the upstate reservoirs and watershed that provide New York City’s drinking water.

“This is happening, it’s unstoppable,” said Chris Denton, a lawyer in Elmira who is assembling big blocks of landowners to negotiate with gas companies. “And the question is whether we do it in a way that makes sense or a way that’s irrational and irresponsible.”

The Marcellus Shale has been known to be a potential energy source for a century. But advances in horizontal drilling and soaring energy prices have made it attractive to energy firms. A few years back, farmers could lease their mineral rights for a dollar an acre. This year alone prices in many places have soared to $2,500 an acre from about $200.

So, for example, when Henry Constable, 77, a retired dairy farmer who owns 140 acres outside Walton, left the theater on Thursday night, his head was swimming with alternating visions of financial gain and environmental hazard. He did not quite know what he thought. Would he lease his land?

“It’s definitely a two-sided deal,” he said. “I can’t give you an honest answer. I’ll probably sign something, but I don’t know.”

A stranger listening in offered him a business card and started giving him advice.

“Let me give you fair warning,” he began. “I’m a financial adviser and a landowner, so I’m on both sides of this play. First thing, you need to have a good lawyer, to make sure you have a good lease that gives the right to sue or defend yourself if you’re sued in local court. What these companies want to do is sue you in Minnesota or someplace. And you don’t want to sign a walk-down-the-street lease. You need to be working with an oil and gas attorney.”

The man, who declined to identify himself to a reporter, started adding up how much Mr. Constable’s land could be worth at $2,500 an acre and a minimum of 12.5 percent royalties. “That could be $1.2 million per year for every 40 acres,” he said. “Do the math. Assuming you’re just signing a lease and not some other monkey deal, you’re suddenly J. R. Ewing. You have an estate tax problem. You have an income tax problem. You’ve got to talk to somebody soon.”

Most of the meetings have focused on just such issues of what landowners can do to maximize their return and control. This one, sponsored by the Catskill Mountainkeeper environmental group, featured presentations by landowners and environmental and citizens’ advocates like Jill Morrison of the Powder River Basin Resource Council in Sheridan, Wyo., and Peggy Utesch of the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance in New Castle, Colo.

They said those royalty checks came at a huge cost: polluted air and water, industrial noise, well blowouts, toxic chemicals leaching into groundwater and wells and a fracturing of communities. Of paramount importance, many said, would be protecting the New York City watershed, an issue that could touch off regulatory and environmental disputes.

The first wells in New York, which have the required state permits, are already being drilled, and the process could play out over 40 years.

“There are problems and challenges that people haven’t even conceived of,” Ms. Morrison said. “And I can tell you that those of us who have gone through it know it has consumed the last 10 or 15 years of people’s lives. I can’t express enough the profound impacts this will have on people’s lives, on land, water, air, wildlife. You need to do an enormous amount of planning to get out in front of it, because this is the richest industry in the world, and they’re going to come whether you want them or not.”

E-mail: peappl@nytimes.com

link to full article is here

Marcellus Shale - Natural Gas Drilling Forums

Two Educational Forums Co-Sponsored by
Catskill Mountainkeeper

with experts from the Sullivan County Division of Planning and Environmental Management, Oil and Gas Accountability Project as well as experts on law and community organizing

June 26, 2008
7:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
Walton Theatre, Walton, New York

June 27, 2008
7:00 p.m.-9:30 p.m.
CVI Building, Liberty, New York

The pace of gas drilling in New York State and its potential in the Upper Delaware Region has many property owners and municipal officials asking questions about the impacts of drilling on the environment, how gas leases should be written to protect the interests of property owners, and what regulations and land use approaches are available to protect the health and safety of local residents. The purpose of this educational forum is to cover these issues and offer case examples. To view the panelists, please click here.

Click here for a detailed overview on natural gas drilling in the Catskills

Oil & Gas Accountability Project releases new report on drilling for natural gas in NY & PA “Shale Gas: Focus on the Marcellus Shale”

Hydro projects sought at reservoir dams in the Catskills

By Patricia Breakey
Delhi News Bureau

Published: June 06, 2008 04:00 am

The Delaware County Electric Cooperative is seeking to harness water spilling from four New York City reservoirs to produce enough electricity to power 20,000 typical homes.

Greg Starheim, DCEC chief executive officer, said an application for a preliminary permit and a pre-application document were submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month.

Starheim said the proposed Western Catskills Hydro Project would involve installing modular design independent intake structures at New York City’s Schoharie, Pepacton, Cannonsville and Neversink reservoirs.

“I am very excited about this project,” Starheim said Thursday. “We started evaluating the potential to produce electricity at the Gilboa Dam a year and a half ago.” The New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s $600 million renovation project for the Gilboa Dam was the impetus for the idea, Starheim said.

“The timing seemed appropriate and we began discussing the preliminary engineering with DEP engineers, which led to the decision to formerly approach the DEP about submitting an application to the FERC,” Starheim said.

“DCEC has reached out to DEP with an interesting proposal; we look forward to reviewing it and to further discussing it,” Michael Saucier, DEP public affairs director, said Thursday.

Starheim said there are no generating facilities at the four dams included in the project.

“There is a tremendous loss of potential energy and the DCEC board is very interested in capturing it,” Starheim said. “This has been a missed opportunity for hydro electric generation and in today’s energy world, we can’t afford to miss opportunities.”

The decision to move ahead with the application process came about when DCEC officials became aware that two private international developers were interested in generating projects at two of the reservoirs.

“The way the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission works is that whoever applies first has an opportunity to pursue the project,” Starheim said. “We were concerned about local projects being operated by outside companies.”

Starheim said obtaining a federal license is a long process that involves numerous studies and structure milestones, but the Co-op is hopeful that the license will be issued as early as 2011. He said construction and operation would take a year or two after that.

“This is the single largest non-developed hydro project in New York and it would help the state achieve its renewable energy quota,” Starheim said.

The amount of electricity generated at the dams would be seasonal and dependent on the amount of water being released.

Starheim said there would be different numbers of modular generating devices at each of the reservoirs, with the greatest potential at the Gilboa Dam. The total design potential would be to general 65 megawatts during peak water time in the spring.

The devices would be installed over the top of the dam and would run all the way to the bottom where the water is released into the rivers. Starheim said the Co-op is only interested in using available water and will not be involved in decisions about how much water is released.

The project is part of the Delaware County Electric Cooperative’s effort to explore ways to secure its entire electricity supply using renewable local energy sources.

___

Patricia Breakey can be reached at 746-2894 or at stardelhi@stny.rr.com.

link to article is here:

http://www.thedailystar.com/local/local_story_158040031.html

Camping conscientiously

 

VOLUME XXXIV No. 22 Narrowsburg, NY May 29 - June 4, 2008
THE RIVER REPORTER CLIMATE CHALLENGE Business carbon impact worksheet   Household carbon impact worksheet
Sections   News   Editorial   Columns   Feature   Arts & Leisure   Outdoors   Sports   Obituaries <!–   Forum –>   Photo Gallery   Classifieds Directories   Government   Calendar   Links TRR   About us   Supplements   Archives   Advertising   Photo Reprints   Subscribe   Newsstands   Contact us Submission   Press release   Event   Classified ad Amphibian   Amphibian     online	Camping conscientiously Outdoor ethics minimize environmental impacts By SANDY LONG UPPER DELAWARE RIVER REGION — In 2007, Wes Gillingham, a resident of Sullivan County, NY led a group of students on a three-week trek that traced the 100-mile course of New York City’s water supply from Highmount, NY to lower Manhattan. The group employed low-impact camping practices during the backcountry stretches of their trip to minimize disturbances along the trek. Gillingham spent a decade honing his outdoors skills as a ranger for the National Park Service, Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River, and has served as acting director of field programs with the National Audubon Society Expedition Institute (AEI), leading backpacking trips all over the country. The well-schooled outdoor educator and organic farmer believes that a low-impact attitude is key to enjoying the outdoors sustainably. “It’s a mindset, more than just a set of practices,” said Gillingham. “You become cognizant of your impact as an individual.” A set of principles referred to as “Leave No Trace” (see sidebar) has been developed to guide outdoor recreationists to employ more mindful practices while backpacking in the wilds, enjoying a family camping outing at a state park or hiking one of the region’s many trails. Many state parks actively encourage LNT principles and have begun offering programs that show how to put them into action (see sidebar). The guiding principle is to foster an understanding that our enjoyment of natural settings can be accomplished without inflicting harm upon the very resources we seek. For example, vegetation or artifacts such as stones should never be altered or removed. “In the Catskills, once you get above 3,500 feet, the fragility of the environment increases. It’s important to be aware of your impact on the vegetation in such places,” noted Gillingham. “Stay on trails to avoid contributing to erosion problems, set up camp away from trails and out of sight of other campers. And use compact backpacking stoves, rather than open fires, to cook food.” The main objective of conscientious recreation is to participate in such a way that your activities have no altering effect on the setting. “You’re there to enjoy the place and to leave it as you found it,” said Gillingham. “It’s a reciprocal relationship.” Gillingham is also a founder of the non-profit Catskill Mountain Keeper, which works to protect the ecological integrity of the Catskill Mountain range while promoting sustainable growth. He plans to lead another expedition of students in 2008. For more information, visit stroudcenter.org/nytrek2007/. Leave No Trace principles • Be prepared: Poor planning can result in unforeseen events leading to solutions that cause environmental degradation. Select gear and make plans by thinking about how it will impact the environment. • Camp and travel on durable surfaces: Stick to worn trails and campsites to minimize damage to untrammeled areas and avoid increasing soil erosion. • Pack out what you pack in: Take trash home with you. Don’t bury or leave it behind. • Properly dispose of what you can’t pack out: Empty dishwater far away from springs, streams and lakes. Eliminate soaps and detergents. Bury human waste in “catholes” that are six to eight inches deep and 200 feet from water. • Leave what you find: Don’t disturb natural features such as rocks and plants, nor alter campsites by digging, chopping or hammering. • Minimize use of fire: Lightweight camp stoves minimize the demand for firewood at campsites and produce faster food results. If a fire must be constructed, keep it small, use established fire rings and avoid leaving any sign that it has occurred. Never burn plastics. • Practice “Negative Trace:” Go beyond LNT and clean up trash left behind by others. Undo damage by dismantling cairns or firepits constructed in otherwise wild areas. Resources for conscientious outdoor recreation • The Pocono Environmental Education Center ( www.PEEC.org ) in Dingmans Ferry, PA is offering a series of programs about environmentally friendly outdoor recreation activities. On June 14, “Summer Outdoors” will teach how to prepare for overnight camping, hydration and Leave No Trace (LNT) practices. August 22-24 is the “Catskills Backpacking Trip,” which includes a backcountry overnight outing. September 12-14 concludes the series with “Canoe Trip,” meant to teach LNT practices for canoe travel and basic paddling skills. Call 570/828-2319 for more information. • Promised Land State Park in Greentown, PA will offer a LNT program, focused on preserving natural settings as they are found, at 7:00 p.m. on June 28. • Learn what’s happening in your area through the Leave No Trace State Advocate Program, which assists LNT educators and volunteers with local efforts to promote and teach minimum impact outdoor ethics. (Visit lnt.org/training/stateadvocate.php for more information.) • Visit nols.edu/ for information on improving outdoor skills through the National Outdoor Leadership School. • Visit outwardbound.org/ for programs that improve resilience and problem-solving skills through interactive outdoor education. • Visit dec.ny.gov/outdoor/camping.html for information on New York State camping. • Visit dcnr.state.pa.us/outdooradventures.aspx for information on Pennsylvania camping. • Visit kta-hike.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 for low-impact hiking and trail opportunities with PA Keystone Trails Association. • Though based in Washington state, Wilderness Awareness School offers a home study outdoor skills course that helps students refine knowledge of their local natural resources. Visit wildernessawareness.org/.	TRR photo by Sandy Long   Campfires should be avoided or minimized. Utilize existing firepits or, better yet, a compact camping stove. Don’t leave evidence of burning behind. (Click for larger version) TRR photo by Sandy Long   The smallest tent that will meet your needs will also minimize the footprint it leaves at your campsite. Select sites that are already established. Avoid removing vegetation to create a site. (Click for larger version)
Problems? Comments? Contact the Webmaster. Entire contents © 2008 by the author(s) and Stuart Communications, Inc.

New York, Pennsylvania, share common concern over gas drilling

	Thursday May 22, 2008
Copyright © 2008 Mid-Hudson News Network, a division of Statewide News Network, Inc. This story may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent.
New York, Pennsylvania, share common concern over gas drilling
Gillingham: “… make them do it that way” HONESDALE PA – Catskill Mountainkeeper is taking its latest environmental battle across the river. The rapidly growing concern over the rapid influx of natural gas prospectors threatens the Delaware River, from both sides, says Mountainkeeper Program Director Wes Gillingham. Speaking before a crowd of more than 500 in Honesdale, about 20 miles inside Pennsylvania from the Delaware River, Gillingham said there is little, now, that would stop gas wells from being drilled practically on the banks of the river. He adds there is little that restricts potentially devastating mining practices, anywhere the wells go. If wells are to be a part of the scene, the concern is to make sure it is done in the least invasive way. “They’re not going to do it if don’t make them do it that way. We have to … when I say ‘we’, I’m not just talking about Catskill Mountainkeeper, I’m talking about every individual landowner and resident of this region, really have to take control of this issue, and force best management practices. Landowners, too, can band together and choose not to sign leases, because it’s not worth the risk.” Attorney Harry Weiss, of Philadelphia, representing a group of Wayne County property owners, agreed the National Park Service authority is generally restricted to the river itself, not adjacent properties. That point also conceded by Upper Delaware Council Executive Director William Douglas. But Weiss does not see gas prospecting as all bad. “It has potential, if things are done right”, Weiss said. He urged partnerships between property owners contemplating signing leases with drilling companies. Many of the people attending the more than two-hour session wanted little to do with unchecked natural gas extraction. Among the concerns voiced during a question and answer session were what happens if one property owner is harmed by drilling on a neighbor’s property, what kind of chemicals are used in the extraction process and what recourses do anyone have, if there is damage by drilling companies. One well is already being drilled in Wayne County, just across the Delaware from Sullivan County. Several people on both sides of the river have been approached by drilling companies. The forum in Honesdale was organized by the Upper Delaware Council and National Park Service. For more on gas leasing forum, visit PoconoNews.Net

Eight-Foot trout arrives in Roscoe

Mid Hudson News, May 17, 2008

ROSCOE - Trout Town USA greeted the 2008 fly-fishing season by catching an eight-foot trout. The creature is a carved-wood, chainsaw sculpture by Fred Avila of Walton, which will grace the front of Verona’s Sunoco and Country Store on Old Route 17. It is part of Roscoe’s downtown gateway improvements, led by the Roscoe-Rockland Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by Sullivan Renaissance and the Gerry Foundation.

The Chamber’s Business District Enhancement Committee is coordinating Roscoe’s involvement in the Sullivan Renaissance Program. This program, aimed “Beyond Beautification,” commits three-years of funding and technical support to communities that have successfully completed beautification projects in the past and now seek to address longer-term community development goals.

The project title “Roscoe Gateways” celebrates Roscoe’s place as a gateway to the Catskills Mountains and to the region, while welcoming visitors and residents into downtown. This effort builds on past projects around the hamlet that garnered recognition and prize money from Sullivan Renaissance. These include landscaped borders and beds, seasonal flowers, directional and business signs, and an information gazebo oriented to visitors exiting Route 17 westbound at Exit 94.

The Chamber is collaborating with the Roscoe-Rockland Garden Club, local volunteers and youth groups to accomplish an ambitious schedule of spruce-ups and maintenance on past project sites, while adding new design elements that tie them together within a unified sense of place.

The initiatives for 2008-2010 emerged from a Visioning Workshops sponsored by Sullivan Renaissance and conducted by Community Planner Helen Budrock in 2007. Budrock continues to support Roscoe’s efforts through the Category C Program. The Business District Enhancement Committee emerged during these workshops, and members remained together to continue the work that had begun for downtown.

link is here:

http://www.midhudsonnews.com/News/May08/17/Roscoe_trout-17May08.html

Places to Go, but Dreading the Fill-Up

By M. P. DUNLEAVEY

Published: May 17, 2008
link is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/business/yourmoney/17cost.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

SOMETIME in the last couple of months, the price of gasoline crossed a line. It’s not just that gas is now hovering around the dreaded $4 a gallon. It’s that an unconscious expense has become a painfully conscious one.

A year ago, the cost of gas was still a small enough portion of overall expenses that it didn’t provoke constant comparisons to everything else in life.

Now gas prices have become the elephant in the middle of countless conversations. A tank costs roughly as much as the phone bill — or a pair of shoes. For what you spend on gas each month, you could buy a new dishwasher or get a cheap weekend package to the Caribbean. Some day, the gas legends of ’08 will live on like the myths of Paul Bunyan. “I remember when gas got so high, you could have built a 17-room mansion from the ground up!”

Actually, where I live in Delaware County, a rural area overlapping the Catskills that lies about three hours from New York City, the mood is anything but light. We are dependent on our cars here. Most of the county’s 42,000-odd residents are scattered among a few dozen tiny towns and villages, with at least 10 or 15 miles between them.

Until recently, most people thought nothing of zipping 45 minutes down the road to take advantage of better shopping opportunities in the bigger towns. Now those basic routines are stretching people’s budgets. For us to go to the nearest mall costs $16 round trip.

“You don’t just get in the car anymore,” said Laura O’Connor, who works in a kitchen goods store in Margaretville, but lives about 20 miles from there in Andes. “If I have errands to run, I try to make a giant loop and do everything in one day,” she said. “Most of us are carpooling, too.”

But with prices rising so rapidly, the usual ways of economizing aren’t enough to keep gas costs down. In the Catskills, you can’t just switch to mass transit.

Steve Yaekel, who owns the Margaretville Liquor Store (yes, in Margaretville), said he was driving home to Roxbury, about 20 miles away, one night recently. When he passed a local gas station, he was too tired to refill his tank. “I saw that it was about $3.74, and I decided I’d fill up in the morning,” he said.

The next morning, he said, the price had spiked to $3.82. “With prices going up this fast, how are you supposed to adjust the family budget?” he asked, noting that it now costs $50 for just half a tank of gas for his truck.

Many small-business men here depend on trucks or vans that get very low gas mileage. Allen Taylor, an appliance repairman based in Delhi, travels as much as 170 miles a day for work and says that he spends about $800 a month on gas.

Mr. Taylor says he was appalled when his accountant told him, “I had to increase my basic service charge from $60 to $65 just to break even,” Mr. Taylor said. That was in 2007. With gas costs pinching his customers so much, Mr. Taylor says he is reluctant to raise his prices. “I’m worried with the way the gas is going now, it’s going to put small-business owners like me out of business,” he said. “There’s only so much we can charge, only so much people will pay.”

GAS has become a preoccupation for many people who own second homes in the region, a large number of whom live in New York City. Michael and Lily Idov said their old car consumed about 15 gallons to travel 300 miles round trip from their home in Brooklyn to their house in Andes. They recently bought a Mini Cooper, which gets about 40 miles per gallon, Mr. Idov said. Fuel economy was their chief concern. “Now we go both ways on just two-thirds of a 10-gallon tank.”

In the category of unintended but happier consequences, the backlash against driving may bolster some parts of the local economy.

“We can’t believe how much business we’re getting,” said Helen Voultepsis, who works at Ace Hardware in Delhi and believes that people are less inclined to drive 40 miles to the nearest Lowe’s or Home Depot. “Local businesses are definitely benefiting.”

M. P. Dunleavey is the author of “Money Can Buy Happiness” (Broadway Books, 2007).

Catskill Mountainkeeper Presentation on Gas Drilling

Speakers are announced for May 21 natural gas forum
The Upper Delaware Council, Inc. and National Park Service Upper Delaware Scenic & Recreational River will co-sponsor a free public information forum on natural gas issues on Wednesday, May 21, from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Wayne Highlands Middle School gymnasium on Grove Street in Honesdale.

The objective of this Pennsylvania-focused forum is to present factual information on natural gas and its exploration methodologies, extraction techniques, the state Department of Environmental Protection’s regulatory authority, potential environmental impacts and the execution of mineral rights leases by property owners.

Speakers will include:

• Patrick O’Dell, a petroleum engineer with the National Park Service Geologic Resources Division.

• Ron Gilius, director of DEP’s Bureau of Oil and Gas Management.

• Wes Gillingham, program director of the Catskill Mountainkeeper non-profit organization.

• Attorney Lester Greevy, of Williamsport, a specialist in mineral rights.

Following their remarks, the panel will participate in a question-and-answer session with the audience.

No reservations are required. For more information, contact the UDC at 845-252-3022 or the NPS at 570-729-7842.

Kilowatt Ours Blogs on the Catskills

Kilowatt Ours Blog

Keeping you up to date on the Plan to Re-Energize America

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In the Catskill Mountains with Larry Gibson, Homestead School and Green Power Alliance

I am inspired.

As I write my first blog post @ KilowattOurs.org, I am resting in the gorgeous Catskill Mountains of New York/Pennsylvania/New Jersey. I was invited to speak here by the Homestead School, an amazing Montessori program for grades pre-K through 6. A student group calling themselves the Green Power Alliance organized this event, “Your Coal Connection,” to raise money and awareness for the the effort to stop mountain top removal coal mining. Larry Gibson from Kayford Mountain, West Virginia is also here to speak. I am so inspired by these enthusiastic, motivated and caring kids and their passion for making a difference. They are a delight and I feel blessed to meet them and their parents. These students recently took a field trip to Larry’s mountain and one of the students wrote the short essay about it. These kids also handed some mountain top removal literature to former President Clinton during a recent campaign visit to their community. The kids urged Bill and Hillary to help the cause.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT THE KILOWATT OURS BLOG