A great example of this is Kingston’s Farm to Table cooperative processing plant.

http://www.greengurunetwork.com/land-use.html

This sentence was one of the best I heard at the Hyde Park presentation.
Thank you for re-circulating it. I wholeheartedly share this vision. That is what we are working towards at Strawtown Studio. It was a great surprise to hear this said by John Haworth and team as the lead phrase for their goal setting mission. ‘No child without wet feet’, also says clean running streams and rivers. I love it.

Laurie Seeman

Director, Lead Educator
Strawtown Studio / Outdoor Nature, Art & Science Programming
West Nyack, NY

Member, Rockland Coalition for Sustainable Water

At the core of this issue is that of the need for local notification, review and input for TVMP activity. A mandatory SEQRA process would ensure that ecological impacts, health impacts, property value impacts (and the like) would be fully considered, and that proper and appropriate mitigation would be planned.

We, as a community of Hudson Valley residents – whether homeowners, businesses or energy providers, need to work together to ensure smart, responsible solutions for our region. Solutions which balance energy needs with environmental concerns. The time to say that ‘anything goes’ in the name of electricity and growth has long past – we must focus on solutions which embody understanding of global warming, ecosystem services and restoration, value view sheds, riparian buffers and wetlands, protect both endangered and not-so-unique local flora and fauna.

For more background information on the Transmission Line Vegetation Management issue and on PSC Case 10-E-0155, please visit the Greenburgh Environmental Forum’s LORAX working group’s website: loraxwg.blogspot.com

The Lyme disease epidemic in the Hudson Valley, in particular Columbia, Rensalaer and Dutchess counties?

How can business owners and residents press for a vaccine for Lyme disease? It has afflicted everyone I know in the area including myself. This is a deterrent and presents a burden to living here. It must be addressed for this region to be viable in the long term.

This is shameful in this age of fossil fuel abuse and lip service to “green jobs” etc. It would be awesome for there to be a fleet of biodiesel shuttle busses that serves people throughout the region. I know someone who provides biodiesel in the TriState area. I would be happy to pass along information.

Ten years ago a group of marine and travel professionals prepared a business plan for a renewed and profitable Hudson River Line for daily liner transport from NYC to Troy and 12 ports between. Alas, the proposal was dismissed by NY State officials and naysayed by NY financial circles busy with their own vanishing schemes.
The economic letdown after 9/11 shelved the enterprise.

I recently returned to my joint venture company in China for the launch of the world’s largest river liner – the Victoria Jenna – carrying 450 passenger with full cruise services on the Yangzi River.
There the river towns are thriving along the busy waterways drawing communities together.

When will NY State have some initiative for this basic river service?
When will the restored waters be used for more than fishing and paddling
while the highways roar and sprawl spread on and on?

Philip Ehrensaft
Metro Countryside Research
Pine Bush, NY

One gaping and surprising hole in Our Hudson’s excellent Agriculture Task Report is the absence of any discussion of what is now arguably both the Hudson Valley’s leading agricultural activity and one of the most effective available tools for keeping farm land from being paved over for suburbs and malls: the equine sector. I’ll pull out a couple of my sentences from a recent article for the Shawangunk Journal, “New York’s Under-the-Radar Big Business: Horse Farming,” to make this clear.

“When asked to name New York State’s leading economic sectors, the words “horse farming” would not instinctively roll off most tongues. They should. Horse farming is not only very big business in this state: it is big business on the upswing, and also a sector that is especially good at generating local jobs and economic spinoffs………The Hudson Valley and adjacent Catskill Mountain counties have become the leading horse-farming region in the state. Beyond its major impacts on our regional economy, horse farming is one of the best tools around for preserving green space. It’s one of the few agricultural sectors where profits per acre can be inherently more promising than turning farmland into suburbs.”

“The counties lining both sides of the Hudson River between New York City and Albany, plus Sullivan and Delaware Counties, have displaced Western New York as the leading region for the equine economy. Our region holds 21 percent of the state’s equine inventory, as opposed to 19 percent for the rural Western part of the state.” We’re talking 21 percent of an agricultural sector that had assets valued at $10.9 billion at the end of 2005, as indicated in the most recent survey of the equine sector.

There’s also a political dimension to the role that the equine sector can play in advancing the farm economy and keeping space green in the Valley: the most important use of New York State’s horses is not racing, horse show competitions, or breeding horses for these two big money-makers. Forty-four percent of the states horses live among humans who ride them for pleasure, and many of these are not around the fancy houses in choice corners of Putnam county and the like. They’re located on houses with a bit of acreage, room and budget for a few horses, and families who are devoted to their steeds.

Politically, this adds up to quite a potential coalition in favor of keeping land in farms if alliances can be built. On the one hand, a thriving commercial equine sector that generates a lot of sales, buys a lot of supplies and services, and represented by well-organized trade associations. On the other hand, a large number of families of one or several horses, also buying a lot of supplies and services, but also spread throughout the Valley, and potentially ready to talk to a whole lot of neighbors and municipal officials about why farming must be promoted as an integral part of Hudson Valley life and landscape.