Save the Pine Bush filed suit in New York Supreme court against the Town Board and the Planning Board of the Town of Colonie over their acceptance of a Generic Environmental Impact Statement for the Lishakill-Kings Road study area.

This Generic Envrionmental Impact Statement (GEIS), if approved, would have a devastating impact on the Pine Bush located in the Town of Colonie.

Save the Pine Bush sued for several reasons. First, the Planning Board failed to take a hard look at the cummulative impacts of 17 proposed residential and commercial developments within the GEIS study area. Next, the GEIS did not take a hard look at the effects of development on or near Karner Blue butterfly sites which are located within the study area. In addition, the GEIS did not address one of the most important issues currently facing the Pine Bush: how a 2000 acre fire-managable preserve will be created if all of the projected development in the study area takes place.

Another disturbing part of this GEIS is that the Town of Colonie failed to take a hard look at the envrionmental impacts casued by the proposed building of roads, which the GEIS mistakenly labels “mitigation.” Building of roads in the Pine Bush is never “mitigation,” it is simply a desvastating method to destroy more of the ecosystem.

By filing this suit, Save the Pine Bush hopes to have this Town of Colonie GEIS tossed out. Save the Pine Bush has a history of winning cases like this; the City of Albany was never able to adequately prepare a GEIS for its section of the Pine Bush.

Printed December, 1996,/January, 1997