Friday, March 22, 7:30 p.m. A Sense of Wonder one-woman play about the life and work of Rachel Carson “A Sense of Wonder,”is a one-woman play about the life and work of Rachel Carson, will be performed at RPI’s Chapel and Cultural Center (2125 Burdett Avenue, Troy). Rachel Carson was a marine biologist and zoologist whose book Silent Spring (1962) alerted the world to the dangers of chemical pesticides. She has been called “the patron saint of the environmental movement.”…
2020s 🦋 2010s 🦋 2000s 🦋 1990s Search Newsletter Archives: 2009 🦋 2008 🦋 2007 🦋 2006 🦋 2005 🦋 2004 🦋 2003 🦋 2002 🦋 2001 🦋 2000 2009 October/November 2009 – Download printable PDF version Bringing Back Sustainable Karner Blue Populations, October/November, 2009 September Biogas Talk, October/November, 2009 Buckmoth Monitoring, October/November, 2009 Neither a Borrower or a Lender Be, October/November, 2009 Pesticide Reductions Won at Albany Common Council – We can fight City Hall and Win!, October/November, 2009…
2020s 🦋 2010s 🦋 2000s 🦋 1990s Search Newsletter Archives: 1999 🦋 1998 🦋 1997 🦋 1996 🦋 1995 🦋 1994 1999 December 1999, January 2000 Garbage in the Pine Bush – City Proposes Landfill Expansion SPB Files Most Unpopular Suit Yet – Sues the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission The Thruway Authority Comes Across Royally Thank You to All Who Responded to the Emergency Appeal 1st Annual Pine Bush Walk-a-Thon a Sucess! October/November, 1999 Save the Pine Bush Sues…
by Tom Ellis ALBANY, NY: Scott Kellogg and Justina Thompson spoke at the September 19th SPB dinner. Scott is the executive director of the Radix Center at 153 Grand Street in the South End of Albany. Justina is a 19-year-old student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute majoring in sustainability studies. Both are highly enthusiastic about their work and are accomplished experts in environmental education. Before they began, Grace Nichols spoke briefly saying insect populations are rapidly declining for multiple reasons. These…
ALBANY: Worried about the tax base? Concerned that the City will lose money if we don’t get a hotel in the Pine Bush? Don’t worry, the hotel is eligible for a property tax deduction!!! 485b is a state tax incentive program — a program that promotes sprawl. To be eligible, any business “involved in the production of goods or services’’ that spends at least $10,000 on new construction or real estate improvements is eligible for reduced taxes on the increased…
ALBANY — Tucked in among suburban sprawl at the border of Albany, Colonie and Guilderland, 3,000 acres of pine barrens are becoming a kind of avian rest stop for an increasing number of birds that need a very special kind of landscape — one that’s disappearing elsewhere in New York. The Albany Pine Bush Preserve is an emerging example of a so-called “shrubland” that certain bird species need to breed and thrive, said Neil Gifford, the preserve’s conservation director. Dominated by stunted…
by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: Ward Stone, NYS Wildlife Pathologist, ate lasagna with Save the Pine Bush at the First Presbyterian Church this past March and spoke about changes in the environment over the past few years. He noted that in the past 30 years, there is some good news. We have shut-down the source of PCBs. We have banned a lot of pesticides such as dialdrin and chlordane. We have recognized the problems of lead, and taken steps to…
The Deer Crisis – No Easy Answers The Deer Crisis No Easy Answers By Daniel Van Riper The Pine Bush ecosystem is in great danger from many enemies, particularly greedy developers and ignorant politicians. Invasive plant species, pesticides, runoff from the dump and highways, fire suppression and general abuse by humans have all hurt the Pine Bush. There is one more enemy, white-tailed deer, which may in the end completely destroy the Pine Bush and make all of our…
Michael Breslin Speaks Michael Breslin Speaks by Ehren Evans Albany County Executive Breslin spoke at August’s lasagna dinner. It was an exciting opportunity for members of Save the Pine Bush to learn more about county government and the county executive. Mr. Breslin said his stint as county executive is the best job he ever had. He set up a program where parking places could be turned in for free bus passes and if you didn’t have a parking space,…
Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission Begins an Updated Plan for Pine Bush Preservation Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission Begins an Updated Plan for Pine Bush Preservation Colonie, NY &emdash; The Town of Colonie Community Center was the site of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission’s Scoping Session Hearing on the Commission’s updated plan for Pine Bush Preservation. By law, the Commission must update its management plan every five years. The first step in the process is a “scoping session” where…
Pushing and Pulling West: Pending Extensions of the Boundaries of the Pine Bush Preserve Pushing and Pulling West: Pending Extensions of the Boundaries of the Pine Bush Preserve By John Wolcott A Little Background When I first started mulling over the notion of a Pine Bush Preserve in 1971, it was with the thought of the opportunity to set aside a large, more or less, continuous bi-city forest for the benefit of car-free city dwellers, stretching between Schenectady and…
Is There a ‘Y’ in Guilderland? Is There a ‘Y’ in Guilderland? Guest Article By Jamie and Mary Malcolm While Save the Pine Bush (SPB) is hard at work preserving any remaining Pine Bush in the Town of Guilderland, a series of projects including a new YMCA facility, are threatening to take protected land from the Preserve for the mere purposes of aligning driveways and easing traffic congestion. To propose further development in this area as a means to solve…
Gotta Watch’em Like Hawks – Can’t Trust Nobody Gotta Watch’em Like Hawks Can’t Trust Nobody By Daniel W. Van Riper Y Is This Happening One of the selling points for the ongoing YMCA project that is destroying eight acres of Pine Bush off Western Avenue in Guilderland was that it would cost the taxpayers nothing. Suprise! What a crock! Back in May the town board voted three to two to subsidize the developers with $33,000 for “road improvements.” Now,…
Thanks to anthrax, our new national hobgoblin, the federal Centers for Disease Control have been in the news a lot these days. Yet a report released by the CDC late in 2001 on a very different public health menaceÑurban sprawlÑhas gone largely unnoticed. According to the striking findings of the report, ÒCreating a Healthy Environment: The Impact of the Built Environment on Public Health,Ó unless you are U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, sprawl almost certainly poses a far greater…
Upscale Tammybrook, a newish Cresskill, NJ., neighborhood, offers a pleasing glimpse of modern suburban living: imposing million-dollar homes, designer landscaping, sweeping vistas across northern New Jersey. What it fails to offer resident John McCann is a sidewalk to anywhere. So instead of hoofing it, the Cresskill councilman drives the 1.1 miles to the post office. ThatÕs after he has dropped his laundry at a drive-through dry cleaner and motored across town to deliver his daughter to a play dateÑafter picking…
The word that springs to mind for the University at Albany’s greasy plan to level 25 acres of classic pine bush on campus in order to build its own version of suburban sprawl isn’t printable. So I’ll settle for a distant second choice: pandering. “We’re told garden apartments are what today’s students want,” said a spokesman for the university. And parking for their cars, too. A marketing survey says do education this way. Give them what they want or they’ll…
A snow-covered field near Crossgates Mall may become a battleground over the effect of building in the Pine Bush and on that ecologically fragile area’s bellwether symbol, the Karner blue butterfly. Environmentalists are trying to fend off the nation’s largest independent hotel developer, which wants about four acres west of the mall’s movie theaters for a 124-room project. A fight is brewing because that site along Washington Avenue Extension is next to a protected preserve — surrounded by the mall…
Save the Pine Bush has a new web site address, http://www.savethepinebush.org. Our original website is no longer available on the web, and no forwarding link is available. Wizvax Communications, a local internet service provider, went out of business in February leaving Save the Pine Bush without a way to tell web users how to find our new site. The Save the Pine Bush website has hundreds of articles about the Pine Bush. All of the SPB newsletters since 1994 are…
Pyramid Goes To Court – Sprawl Malls Need Lawyers, Too Pyramid Goes To Court Sprawl Malls Need Lawyers, Too By Daniel W. Van Riper Economic Racism When the Pyramid Corporation built the Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga, a suburb of Buffalo, NY, they told prospective tenants “you’ll never see an inner city bus stop here,” meaning, of course, that they would never see any low income black people in their clean white sprawl mall. As a result, busses from downtown…
The Pine Bush Wins! – State Buys Site of Proposed Office Complex The Pine Bush Wins! State Buys Site of Proposed Office Complex by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: As a result of a Save the Pine Bush lawsuit, Governor Pataki and Mayor Jennings announced the addition of 46 acres of land to the Pine Bush Preserve. The Rapp Road site of the proposed office complex, Drumlin Fields, is now forever wild. Lewis Oliver filed the lawsuit for Save the Pine…
by Lynne Jackson Seventy- five houses are proposed for this 100 acre site in the western most part of the remaining Pine Bush in Guilderland, the last parcel of the largest roadless area in the Pine bush. This proposal, named Woodsfields Estates after what it will destroy, is part of the largest roadless area remaining in the Pine Bush in Guilderland. The Planning Board of the Town of Guilderland is the Lead Agency for the Woodsfields Estates proposal and will…
Save the Pine Bush Sues Albany Common Council Over Illegal Office Complex The Portland Plan – A Better Way To Grow By Daniel Van Riper Back in 1979, the City of Portland, Oregon and some nearby municipalities drew a line around their developed areas. They mandated that all new construction must take place inside this line and all undeveloped land outside must remain farmland, greenspace or preserve. Twenty years later, planners Martin Hull and Marian Hull traveled all the…
Montreal Eco-tourism Montreal Eco-tourism by Gregg Bell Editor’s Note: Gregg Bell is a founder of Save the Pine Bush, who is now on the Planning Board of Ithaca, NY. In addition to all of the great cultural, eating, shopping, architectural and general joie de vivre reasons to visit Montréal, there is another – the environment. That’s right. Anyone interested in the environment of the Pine Bush would enjoy three environmental attractions in the center of the French metropolis to our…
by Rezsin Adams ALBANY, NY Ñ The SPB September veggie lasagna dinner welcomed Steve Breyman, Director, Ecological, Economic, Values & Policy Program in the Department of Science & Technology Studies at RPI as he spoke about ÒGreening Your World.Ó “ Most people running institutions today have very few or no Õgreen bonesÕ.” Steve Breyman opened his remarks on greening institutions by pointing out that greening is beneficial in at least two ways: in itself it benefits the institution and the…
At the March dinner, SPB welcomed Aaron Mair of the Arbor Hill Environmental Justice Corp., to speak about environmental justice. We learn something every day. We learn how dynamically we are all linked, our species, all human beings are linked to each other. We are also learning about unfortunate tradeoffs as well. Like sprawl. Sprawl is the unorganized growth, the unplanned growth of human settlements. Smart growth is organizing space. Accelerators of sprawl include new roads and widening old roads,…
The 1914 Pine Bush Preserve – What became of it? The 1914 Pine Bush Preserve What became of it? by John Wolcott In 1914, Albany almost benefitted immensely from the City Beautiful movement. This was part of the Progressive movement, then afoot around the country with its strong public spirit, open, honest better government and conservation bent. This, temporarily, influenced even traditionally conservative Albany. Albany in 1912, commissioned an architect, Arnold W. Brunner, and a landscape architect, Charles Downing Lay,…
by Tom Ellis ALBANY, NY: Albany Mayor-Elect Kathy Sheehan spoke at the November 20 SPB dinner. Kathy said she is from a big Irish Catholic family, Albany residents “are desperate for change,” and residents told her “Albany is like an incredible stallion that someone keeps pulling on the reins.” She said she plans considerable community involvement in the decision-making processes of Albany. When others make decisions for us, we get the Empire State Plaza that cuts Center Square off from downtown…
by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: Are you sick and tired of reading about the proposed hotel in the Pine Bush? Are you tired of sprawl in the Pine Bush? Are you disgusted that the largest hotel corporation in the US wants to pave occupied Karner Blue habitat for parking lots and a building? Time to do something! Contact Governor Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Gerald Jennings and propose a win-win solution. How can the site be saved? The State of New York…
ALBANY: Shawn Morris, candidate for Common Council President spoke at the July Save the Pine Bush dinner at the First Presbyterian Church. Four candidates are running in the Democratic Primary for Common Council President; all were invited to speak, but only Shawn Morris attended the dinner. Shawn began by describing the Common Council President’s roll in city government. The President has three functions: 1) to preside at the Common Council meetings, 2) sit on various City Boards and 3) to…
by Rezsin Adams ALBANY: The April vegetarian lasagna dinner at the First Presbyterian Church was the location for our annual round-up of the state of the environment. Speakers from five organizations told us what was happening: Judy Enck, Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer’s Office. The Attorney-General has initiated numerous court cases to save the Clean Air Act from the Bush Administration’s attacks. And it has been quite successful. The office, in addition to many lawyers, has it’s own scientists and it is well-prepared…
by ROB STEIN Washington Post WASHINGTON — People who live in neighborhoods where they must drive to get anywhere are significantly more likely to be obese than those who can easily walk to their destinations, according to the first study to directly demonstrate that long-suspected link. The study of nearly 11,000 people in the Atlanta area found that people living in highly residential areas tend to weigh significantly more than those in places where homes and businesses are close together….
by John Wolcott Guilderland just enacted six-month moratorium on development in the western part of town. The Town of Colonie is considering a moratorium in certain segments of town. As both Guilderland and Colonie contain Pine Bush, one would have expected the Pine Bush to have been included in the moratoriums as both town supervisors are on the Pine Bush Commission, but the Pine Bush was left out. Colonie, at least, has some conscientious citizens and an environmentally responsible board…
by Emily Corcione ALBANY: “Being green isn’t good enough anymore.” That was the message of Mr. James Howard Kunstler, who spoke at the Save the Pine Bush dinner on February 18, 2004. His speech focused on how we can best honor the public realm in America. The public realm, which functions as “the physical manifestation of the common good and the actual physical container to our civic life,” primarily takes the form of the street in America. Mr. Kunstler believes…
by Lynne Jackson SCHENECTADY, NY: The Schenectady Public Library was the site of an organizational meeting of people interested in permanently preserving the Woodlawn Preserve and Pine Bush in Niskayuna and the Town of Colonie. More than fifteen people attended. A presentation was made about what is happening at the moment with Woodlawn and the Town of Colonie. After the public hearing on the proposal by the City of Schenectady to sell Woodlawn to a developer to build houses, nothing…
by Rezsin Adams ALBANY, NY: Helen Desfosses, President of the Albany City Council, and professor at the University at Albany in Public Administration, spoke about SEMETECH at Save the Pine Bush’s July vegetarian/vegan lasagna dinner. The University at Albany is the new home of SEMETECH North. This is a very important development for the University and the region. How did this come about? Helen Desfosses gave us some answers. The University built the buildings, IBM invested hundreds of millions of…
by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: The First Presbyterian Church was the location of the March Save the Pine Bush vegetarian dinner which featured the excellent presentation on biodiversity and Lyme Disease by Kathleen LoGiudice, PhD. Dr. LoGiudice opened her remarks by saying that the battle over Crossgates Mall made a big impression on her in high school. She was pleased that Save the Pine Bush was still fighting after all of these years. In the beginning of her presentation, she…
by Lynne Jackson OK, Crossgates has been in the news a lot recently. Actually, they made it into the international news. Save the Pine Bush has received emails from out raged people as far away as Sydney Australia, and California. People are mad. To recap: On Monday evening, March 3, Stephen Downs and his son Roger, were stopped by a security guard at Crossgates Maul. They were wearing T-shirts which they had just purchased at the mall. Stephen’s T-shirt said…
by John Wolcott Have you seen the ads in the newspaper for Avila House? They say, “The reasons for moving to Avila House keep piling up!” Well! The only thing piling up is their hypocrisy. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany is acting disgracefully. It is devastating what had been one of the most beautiful spots in the entire Pine Bush – a place where thousands of butterflies once lived. And to top it off, the logo for the Avila…
The Schenectady City Council has called for a public hearing on rescinding the 1969 ordinance which established the Woodlawn Preserve on Monday, July 14 at 7:30 at Schenectady City Hall, Jay Street, Schenectady. Members of the public are allowed three minutes each to speak at the public hearing. Speakers are carefully timed by the Council, to ensure that everyone gets their fair chance to speak. City Council members have expressed interest in hearing from residents of Schenectady on this issue….
The October Save the Pine Bush veggie/vegan lasagna dinner was the location of the presentation Mary Ann Johnson of Scenic Hudson made about sprawl. She began by describing how Scenic Hudson formed by citizens who opposed the destruction of Storm King Mountain (along the Hudson River) for an electric plant. It took 17 years, and a trip to the Supreme Court, but the citizens won. Storm King Mountain is now protected. Scenic Hudson has expanded its interest to all of…
For Immediate Release: December 10, 2002 For Further Information: Contact Lynne Jackson at 434-1954 or 366-7324 ALBANY, NY: Save the Pine Bush volunteers demonstrated today over the destruction of the Pine Bush for the building of Avila House. Avila House is proposed to be built in the rare Pine Bush ecosystem. The Pine Bush is home to the Karner Blue butterfly, a federally-listed endangered species. The Federal Government has stated that the decline in the population of Karner Blues is…
At SPB’s April lasagna dinner at the First Presbyterian Church, SPB welcomed Helen Desfosses, President of the Albany Common Council to speak about Forces for Change in Albany’s Future. Ms Desfosses opened her presentation by noting that “we are always running after a moving bulldozer.” Albany has an incredible archeological and historical heritage. But look at Savannah: almost a thousand homes built before the Civil War have been preserved. People are surprised at the beauty of Albany and at how…
City Strangles Downtown Growth City Strangles Downtown Growth Yet Council Encourages Suburban Sprawl By Daniel Van Riper As far as Save the Pine Bush can determine, the City of Albany Common Council has not denied a single application by any large corporate entity that has wanted to erect buildings in the Pine Bush for more than 20 years. At the same time, both the Council and the Board of Zoning Appeals routinely turn down applications by small businesses that want…
by Rezsin Adams ALBANY: According to Daniel Bogan, who spoke at the Save the Pine Bush dinner on November 10, the challenge today to wildlife is urban sprawl, which results in habitat loss and increased interaction between animals and humans. New York State was originally covered with forests but in the 1800’s the forests were cut down. Although regeneration has occurred, wolves and mountain lions were a threat to farming and were driven out of the state. Coyotes exploited this…
Roman Catholic Diocese Proposes Senior Housing in the Pine Bush Karner Blue in Serious Trouble It is with great sadness that Save the Pine Bush reports that the Roman Catholic Diocese has proposed Avila House Independent Senior Campus in the Pine Bush. This proposed housing would be located behind the Teresian House on Washington Avenue Extension, on an ideal spot for Karner Blue habitat. It is not too late to oppose the development Ñ no approvals have been given yet….
The University at Albany (SUNYA) has decided that building sprawl-type dormitories surrounded by asphalt parking lots is more important than Pine Bush preservation. In July, SUNYA began bull-dozing 29 acres of Pine Bush located on the campus to make-way for thoroughly modern sprawl. Save the Pine Bush is horrified that the University would treat the Pine Bush in such an arbitrary manner. The public was not invited to comment on SUNYAÕs plans, and getting copies of the proposed plan took…
by Lynne Jackson ALBANY, NY: The July SPB veggie lasagna dinner at the First Presbyterian Church was a forum for a bevy of politicians. Everyone came out to support Pine Bush preservation, a welcome change from previous elections. Candidates from Albany, most facing primaries in September attended as well as Ken Runion, candidate for Guilderland Town Supervisor who faces his challengers in the general election. First to speak was Marggie Skinner, Democrat, running for Common Council in the 9th ward…
Council Sacrifices Pine Bush – Nitido, Hershberg Win Council Sacrifices Pine Bush Nitido, Hershberg Win By Daniel Van Riper Showing a marked lack of common sense, the Albany Common Council voted 9-6 in favor of rezoning 400 and 495 Rapp Road to build an office park called Drumlin Fields in the shadow of the Albany Dump. If this useless boondoggle gets built, it will have to be heavily subsidised by Albany taxpayers, and will directly cause a property tax…
Willow Street Again Letters The following excellent letter appeared March 21,1999 in the Hearst-owned Times Union under the title, “Improve Downtown and Preserve Pine Bush”: To the Editor: Why is the Albany Common Council approving Pine Bush development (Drumlin Fields office building) when there are plenty of vacant parcels in downtown and on Henry Johnson Boulevard that are screaming for development? I thought the goal of Mayor Jennings was to rebuild and improve downtown and Arbor Hill, making…
by Tom Ellis ALBANY, NY: Scott Kellogg and Justina Thompson spoke at the September 19th SPB dinner. Scott is the executive director of the Radix Center at 153 Grand Street in the South End of Albany. Justina is a 19-year-old student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute majoring in sustainability studies. Both are highly enthusiastic about their work and are accomplished experts in environmental education. Before they began, Grace Nichols spoke briefly saying insect populations are rapidly declining for multiple reasons. These…