Highlands Current Audio Stories

Cold Spring Declares Water Emergency

Village drawing water from storage tanks The Cold Spring board on Wednesday (July 8) declared a water emergency for the village. The village said that, following heavy rains, "there is excessive turbidity in our surface source water reservoirs. This has created difficulty in establishing appropriate levels of purifying chemicals to allow release of new potable water. This is not a mechanical issue at the plant — it is storm-related overload." The village said it is drawing drinking water from a treated supply in storage tanks. "The tanks are being back-filled by trucked-in, purified water until our plant can return to normal potable water production from the reservoir," it said. To avoid paying for trucked-in water, the Village Board declared a State 2 emergency. Village water system users are required to identify and stop all leaks, cease washing vehicles, building exteriors or outside areas; refrain from watering lawns, ornamental shrubs, plants, trees or gardens; irrigate vegetables or fruits for human consumption from hand-held containers only; and refrain from filling and/or maintaining levels in swimming pools, hot tubs and similar recreational pools. Bars, bed & breakfasts, coffee shops, hotels and restaurants, including those within hotels and bed & breakfasts, shall only provide drinking water upon request. Hotels, bed & breakfasts and short-term rentals shall wash linens during guests' stays only upon request. The water superintendent, code enforcement officer and Cold Spring Police Department will enforce the order, the village said.

Coast Guard Expels Clearwater from July 4th Flotilla

Environmental group says advocacy led to dismissal A highlight of America's bicentennial in 1976 was Operation Sail, a parade of tall ships around New York City that featured the sloop Clearwater, representing the environmental organization of the same name created by folk icons Pete and Toshi Seeger of Beacon. The parade returned to New York City on Saturday (July 4), this time as Sail4th 250 in honor of the nation's 250th birthday. But it sailed with one notable absence. Around 11 a.m., shortly after the parade began, the Clearwater was approached on both sides by Coast Guard boats and told to exit immediately. The sloop had been scheduled to escort the NRP Sagres, a Portuguese Navy ship. Instead, it was escorted from the parade route by the U.S. Coast Guard and Navy, and the NYPD, and had to wait until the parade was over to return to its current port at the Atlantic Basin in Red Hook, Brooklyn. "I was shouting at them, 'Folks, we're part of this parade,' " said Clearwater Executive Director David Toman from the deck of the sloop. "We're part of this all." Toman said crew members were not immediately told why they were being removed from the parade, and a quick call to organizers provided little clarity. "They told us they were unaware of this and that the decision was being made above their heads," said Toman. It was only later that someone from one of the Coast Guard vessels told Clearwater Capt. Rory Kane that it was because of the ship's banners, Toman said. One side of the ship's sail carried a banner that read "Save the Clean Water Act," with a drawing of Pete Seeger's banjo. From the other side hung a second banner: "Indigenous Rights, Racial Justice, Climate Solutions." A Coast Guard representative told The Current: "As part of the parade of sail, participants agreed to conditions established by Sail4th. One of those conditions was to not display political or politically charged messages/statements. The owner of the sloop Clearwater was contacted and requested to remove the message being displayed or be removed from the parade of sail. They declined to remove it. So, the Coast Guard enforced the agreement on behalf of Sail4th removing the vessel from the parade." But Jen Benson of Clearwater, who was on the sloop, said there was no communication from either Sail250 or the Coast Guard regarding the banners. "We were not given an option to remove the banners and continue in the parade," she said. Toman said that no such restrictions existed, only that ships were instructed not to carry banners that could be considered "promotional." "We've been part of the coordination of Sail250 from the very beginning," he said. "We signed a contract last year, went to every meeting." While Toman acknowledged that Sail250 did not specifically approve or disapprove the sloop's banners, he said he saw other ships in the parade also flying banners. "We're known as America's environmental flagship," he said. "We've been known to fly banners from our sails, as they know. And besides, Sail250 did not tell us to leave the parade." The sloop has a long history of advocacy, dating to Pete Seeger's vision in 1966 to "build a boat to save the river" when it was plagued by industrial pollution. The Clearwater first set sail three years later, and was credited as an instrumental force in the river's rebirth and the eventual passage of the Clean Water Act. The Trump administration has proposed weakening the measure by changing which waterways and wetlands fall under its protection. Toman noted that Clearwater's expulsion was especially disturbing in light of what the event commemorates. "We feel strongly that we're representing the ideals our forefathers narrated in the Declaration of Independence — speaking freely, without offense, on important issues that we believe people care about," he said. "There was nothing offensive in the wording of that banner. What we did was very American." Despite the events of the day, the 19 Clearwater crew ...

Data Centers Face Backlash

East Fishkill approves moratorium When Debra Pagano heard that a developer was proposing a 1-gigawatt AI data center in East Fishkill, she asked her son in Texas what he thought of the controversial facilities. With 466 currently operating or planned data centers, Texas has more than any other state except Virginia, according to the Pew Research Center. "I asked his opinion — if it was to their advantage or not," said Pagano. "He said, 'If you can put the brakes [on] in any way to stop it from coming, especially to this area, do it.'" East Fishkill's Town Board applied those brakes on June 25. After a nearly two-hour public hearing during which Pagano and other residents aired emotions ranging from concern to fear, the board approved a three-year moratorium on data centers, which are facing a nationwide backlash as their construction accelerates to meet the large energy demands of AI. New York's Legislature approved a one-year moratorium that needs Gov. Kathy Hochul's signature to take effect. Several upstate towns have also hit pause on any new projects, and Orangetown officials in Rockland County are weighing a moratorium for their town, which has several existing centers. East Fishkill's moratorium, lasting until July 1, 2029, prohibits permitting or consideration of any data center "until the completion of federal and state studies" of their power and water usage, noise and heat emissions. The town allows an exception for projects "ancillary to an existing or permitted use" and less than 20 megawatts, or ones eligible for an economic-development special permit. It passed amid protests from residents who learned that Treetop Companies had asked the New York Independent System Operator, which operates the state's electric grid, to study the impact of an AI-processing and cloud-computing center at its property off of Donovan Drive. While the center would connect to ConEd's grid, the study will also look at its effect on Central Hudson and NYSEG's systems. Nick D'Alessandro, East Fishkill's supervisor, has emphasized that Treetop does not have a formal application with the town, but he said before the public hearing that "the people speak, the government listens and the government acts responsibly." He also said a "significant use" like a data center requires "impactful thought" by professionals and the public. "A moratorium gives us time," said D'Alessandro. "Time to study the infrastructure impacts and the environmental impacts. Time to hear from the experts." With its timeout, East Fishkill joins a movement that has led to more than 100 active moratoriums nationwide and permanent bans by eight municipalities and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Data Center Moratorium Tracker. The warehouse-sized centers house rows of servers that are the repositories and waystations for the documents, images and video stored and shared by Americans through their smartphones and computers. Their construction has accelerated in recent years, driven first by cloud computing and cryptocurrency mining, and now by the processing needs of AI. Behind the backlash are economic and environmental concerns: the effect of the power-hungry facilities on household electricity rates; their thirst for large amounts of water to cool equipment and the impact on wells; and other issues such as noise and traffic. A proposal to build a 200-megawatt data facility at Indian Point is also being studied by NYISO. Tanya Radford, an East Fishkill resident, who gets her electricity through Central Hudson, said any project should be subject to a "robust environmental review" that assesses "air, water, noise and light pollution." She also said that developers should pay for any new energy infrastructure they need. "Ratepayers and communities should not have to pay for new infrastructure that supports new industry," said Radford. "Large commercial industrial users should pay premium prices rather than get sweetheart deals at...

The Wild And Free Fishkill Creek

Volunteers open paddling routes The Fishkill Creek runs behind Sergei Krasikov's house and it wasn't long after he moved to Beacon that he began to wonder: How much of this is navigable? A quick scan of Google Maps revealed the numerous dams which make canoeing and kayaking the entire 33.5-mile creek from Pray Pond in Unionvale to Madam Brett Park in Beacon impossible, and by late summer some sections are too shallow to paddle. But a few segments seemed open enough to encourage exploring. "That first year or two we paddled from Long Dock into Madam Brett Park, and from Van Pelt Park upstream to the Walmart in Fishkill," said Krasikov, who was elected to the Beacon City Council last year. Then came the macroburst storm of 2018, and much of the creek became jammed with downed trees. Further paddling was out of the question. Krasikov then learned about a defunct group called the Fishkill Creek Watershed Association, which had done everything from developing a natural resource management plan to dragging discarded Christmas trees to the banks of the creek to slow erosion. In 2023, Krasikov founded a new group called the Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance to carry on the association's work. "They produced great reports," he said. "We're still using them." Since its inception, the Alliance has regularly tested for water quality in the creek and looked at the effects that industry and invasive species are having on its watershed. Through his work with the Alliance, Krasikov met Russel Faller from the Mid-Hudson chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club and a former member of the Fishkill Creek Watershed Association. Faller mentioned that he used to lead work parties on the creek to keep it clear for paddling, but since the Association's disbanding there was no one to help him. And so last weekend Krasikov, Faller and almost a dozen volunteers in kayaks, surf kayaks, canoes and inflatable standup paddleboards met at Doug Phillips Park in Fishkill. They hailed from all over the Hudson Valley; some were already Alliance members, while others were curious paddlers looking for an excuse to explore someplace new. Armed with hacksaws and ropes, they paddled a little over 2 miles upstream, removing downed trees and logjams, some of which looked like they had been in place since the macroburst. Much of this stretch of the creek is flanked by tall grasses, thickly wooded forests and very few houses. Just a few minutes into the paddle it's easy to get the impression that one is deep in the remote wilderness despite being a few hundred feet away from a bowling alley. One of the only signs of human civilization was a dog chasing a blue heron into the creek. Even litter was sparse, and the one or two beer cans the group did find were, judging from their design, several decades old. Deer and raccoon tracks could be found along the shore. Without chainsaws, much of the work was slow going. Sawing through one particularly large red oak took four people about half an hour. And a logjam just downstream of the junction with Sprout Creek was so dense that it originally looked like Fishkill Creek simply ended there. But after another few hours of sawing and pulling, the water flow was restored and the section was navigable once again. The Fishkill Creek Watershed Alliance's website now has a page dedicated to paddling the creek, with maps to three cleared and navigable sections along with safety tips and other pointers. The most dangerous thing the group encountered last weekend was low-hanging poison ivy, but during a few sections paddlers had to get out and pull their crafts around shallow sections with surprisingly quick rapids. Even the deeper sections are shallow enough that standup paddleboarders should remain seated, bring along a kayak paddle and, if possible, remove the tail fin. It'll take regular maintenance to keep the creek open for paddling, but Krasikov is already thinking ahead. Riverkeeper has had success removing several defunct dams i...

House of Heroes

Mandeville hosted a revolution Last month at Mandeville House in Garrison, attendees ate French fromage and drank Perrier and Champagne. Dressed in Revolutionary War garb, Mark Forlow wielded a scabbard to slice open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot with a clean cut through the glass instead of popping the cork. "You have to suspend the neck in ice for an hour or so," he says. "I've seen people do this with a butter knife." The French-themed fete on June 13 paid homage to the Marquis de Lafayette and the pivotal assistance from France during the Revolutionary War. Julien Icher, founder of the Lafayette Trail, a Maryland-based nonprofit, installed a marker a half-mile south from the intersection of Route 9D and Route 403 at the former site of loyalist Beverley Robinson's home. (It burned down in 1892.) George Washington, Lafayette and a who's who of big names stayed and strategized there and at Mandeville House, built in 1737. Gen. Israel Putnam used Mandeville as his headquarters during the entire war, says new steward Sarajane Brittis. People thought that the general's wife, Deborah Lathrop, died in the house after the fall of Forts Clinton and Montgomery in 1777, but she may have been buried alive, says Brittis. Tours are available today and tomorrow (July 4); dates are also planned in October. Owned by the Perry Gething Foundation, Mandeville held regular open houses in the spring and fall, except during the pandemic, says Brittis, who helped the former stewards, Katherine Perry and Robert Perry, her aunt and uncle. They died recently and Brittis took over in 2023. The foundation derives from interior designer Margaret Allan Gething, who worked on Lyndhurst, Constitution Island and the White House. In the 1920s, she reverted Mandeville House to its colonial glory after architect Richard Upjohn bought the place in 1852 and altered the exterior. It remained a private home until Gething died in 1975. She never married and left the house in a charitable trust managed by Robert Perry. Brittis has already reached out to Boscobel, the Putnam History Museum and the Desmond-Fish Library across the road. Beyond providing public access and serving bubbly, Brittis, who dresses in period costume when giving tours, seeks to expand educational programs. In May, she thanked parents for bringing their children along: "It's important to inspire young people and others to keep history alive." Just like 100 years ago, when Gething updated the house, stages of renovations are in store as an architectural firm prepares recommendations incorporating information gleaned by lasers and drones. During a recent tour, Brittis noted that the home reveals layers of history as the structure transformed from a colonial outpost to a modernized building. "The house is a living museum that embodies domestic changes from candles to electricity and pewter to glass," says Brittis. "The community takes a lot of pride in its history, which will continue." The interior confines also reveal the trajectory of human evolution since colonial days. Standing at 6-foot-4, and playing the role of George Washington at a recent event, architectural consultant James Barry continued bumping his head on the staircases. "One time, I bit my gums," he said.