Search Results for: Western Ave

Town of Guilderland Wants to Build Soccer Fields

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At the same Town Board meeting where the Board passed a zoning amendment prohibiting commercial soccer fields in residentially zoned areas, the Town Board heard a presentation by its director of parks about the townÕs own proposed soccer fields in the Pine Bush. The zoning amendment passed by the Town Board specifically prohibits commercial soccer fields, but allows town facilities in residentially zoned areas. The town proposes to build 10 outdoor soccer fields on the 100-acre site which the town…

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Researcher: Coyote is Part Wolf

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by Stephen Williams, The Daily Gazette It’s one of the great animal kingdom migrations of the last century — the arrival and flourishing of the coyote in the eastern United States. The thick-furred canine and its high-pitched, ethereal yips and howls have become commonplace across the Capital Region over the last 30 years. Even suburbanites hear them. The eastern coyote is a bigger and more aggressive beast than its western counterpart — capable of taking down deer, rather than living…

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Ecology and history can walk side-by-side on Pine Bush roads

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Reprinted from the Altamont Enterprisel Thursday, May 17, 2018 Before there were cars and trucks, before there were carriages and wagons, before there were wheels, people have always made pathways. The routes they traveled linked hunting grounds with dwelling places, became a means of trade and commerce, linked one community to another or allowed one to fight another. Few of us give much thought to ancient roads in our midst. We didn’t until we got a letter from Steven Rider,…

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Devil Eats Developer – Massive Coverup Alleged

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Devil Eats Developer – Massive Coverup Alleged Devil Eats Developer Massive Coverup Alleged By Daniel Van Riper The endangered Albany Pine Bush Devil, making it’s first reported appearance since last April Fools, has attacked and eaten developer Charlie Touhey, thus dramatically ending his stubborn and irrational plans to destroy Pine Bush acreage at 300 Washington Ave. Extension. The Albany Pine Bush Devil is a rare subspecies of the equally rare Jersey Devil found in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey….

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1st Annual Pine Bush Walk-a-Thon a Sucess!

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1st Annual Pine Bush Walk-a-Thon a Sucess! 1st Annual Pine Bush Walk-a-Thon a Sucess! Save the Pine Bush’s First Annual Walk-A-Thon was a wild success! The weather was perfect for a 10K stroll through the Pine Bush, cool, not too hot, with sunshine. Many hikers could not believe that hike organizer Tim Kostoroski found 10K (six miles) of trails in the western part of the Pine Bush, but he did! The Pine Bush was spectacular that day, with leaves turned…

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Carnivores in the Pine

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ALBANY: Dr. Roland Kays, Mammalogist with the New York State Museum, explained to a large, appreciative Save the Pine Bush audience, why carnivores are important to ecosystems. Carnivores have a Òtop downÓ effect on ecosystems. For example, wolves eat moose, who eat plants. A change in the number of wolves will affect a change in the number of moose, which changes the vegetation in the ecosystem. Or, coyotes are known to eat cats. The population of coyotes has an effect…

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Pushing and Pulling West: Pending Extensions of the Boundaries of the Pine Bush Preserve

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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…

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Proposed Housing Development in Guilderland Woodsfield Estate

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GUILDERLAND: Traditional Builders is proposing to construct 46 houses on a 106 acre lot in the western Pine Bush. 5This proposed site is on Lydius Street, adjacent to and west of the Dicaprio Farm (The Dicaprio Farm was acquired by the Town of Guilderland and made into soccer fields). The houses will be built on 24 acres of land as a “clustered” development; the remaining land is proposed to be preserved in some manner yet to be determined. Some people…

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Pyramid Submits the Draft Environmental Impact Statement

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GUILDERLAND, NY: On Christmas Eve, Pyramid Crossgates submitted the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for their project, “Rapp Road Residential /Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment Projects.” When first brought before the Town of Guilderland Planning Board in late 2018, the project consisted of building 222-unit apartment complex on Rapp Road. The project has morphed into 312-unit apartment complex on Rapp Road, a CostCo complete with a gas station plus other commercial development. According to the NY State Environmental Quality Review…

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SPB and Town Agree – Colonie Signs Settlement

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SPB and Town Agree – Colonie Signs Settlement SPB and Town Agree Colonie Signs Settlement By Daniel Van Riper Attorney Lew Oliver, representing Save the Pine Bush, successfully negotiated an agreement with the Town of Colonie over the future of the town’s Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), thus avoiding a costly court case. The agreement, signed April 3rd by State Supreme Court Judge Harold Hughes, allows Colonie to have a GEIS as long as it doesn’t include those parts of…

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Draft Environmental Impact Statement

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Draft Environmental Impact Statement DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT for Avila House Independent Senior Campus Lead Agency:   City of Albany Planning Board 21 Lodge Street, Albany, New York 12207 Contact: Nicholas Dilello (518) 434-2532 ext. 28   Project Sponsor:   First Colun1bia, LLC 26 Century Hill Drive Latham, New York 12110-2128, (518) 213-1000   Report Contributors:   Hershberg and Hershberg 40 Colvin Avenue Albany, New York 12206 Responsible for "Pine Bush" Contact: Daniel Hershherg (518) 459-3096 Transportation Concepts, LLP 152…

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Garage Sale Sucess!

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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…

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Woodsfields Estates – Houses that Should Not Be Built

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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…

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Town of Guilderland Wants to Build Soccer Fields

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At the same Town Board meeting where the Board passed a zoning amendment prohibiting commercial soccer fields in residentially zoned areas, the Town Board heard a presentation by its director of parks about the town’s own proposed soccer fields in the Pine Bush. The zoning amendment passed by the Town Board specifically prohibits commercial soccer fields, but allows town facilities in residentially zoned areas. The town proposes to build 10 outdoor soccer fields on the 100-acre site which the town…

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Son of Mountains – Virtual Book Signing

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by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: A virtual book signing for Son of Mountains by Yassin Aref was the topic for the May Save the Pine Bush vegetarian/vegan lasagna dinner. Yassin, along with Mohammed Hossain, were subject of an FBI sting operation and were sent to prison for 15 years each. During the five months Yassin was awaiting sentencing, he wrote Son of Mountains in the Rensselaer County Jail. Carl Strock, Daily Gazette columnist said “Incredibly, Yassin Aref has written a book,…

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Blues Connection

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by John Wolcott Click on map to see larger image Now: you can see it at a glance. The top topo map displayed here, is of the Karner Dune Field, the Type Locality of the Karner Blue Butterfy, in the Pine Bush, as it was way before Rte. 155 appeared. A unified field, fully connected west to east. This dune field is a grouping of sand dunes within the much larger Schenectady-Albany “Dune Belt.” All. of the cultural information has,…

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Touhey’s Obsession And Other News

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Touhey’s Obsession And Other News Touhey’s Obsession And Other News By Daniel Van Riper 300 Washington Ave. Extension! Again! Charlie Touhey is having legislation introduced into the City of Albany Common Council, probably to be sponsored by 15th Ward Alderman Nick Collucio, to rezone that piece of land next to the Dunes development. Charlie seems to be trying by force of will to destroy this parcel and make bucks on his speculation at all costs to his reputation. Certainly, his…

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The Environmental Picture of the Capital District

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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…

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Moratoriums

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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…

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Houses Proposed in Colonie

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A public hearing was held before the Town Board of the Town of Colonie on a housing development proposed for 8 Lupe Way. This 35 acre site is located in the northwestern section of the Pine Bush and is a link to the Pine Bush ecosystem in Schenectady County. The land is currently zoned industrial, and the developer is seeking a zoning change to residential. About 40 houses or so are proposed, though no plat plans have been completed by…

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The Crude Oil Threat to New York State: The Capital Region as the Focus of Oil-by-RailThe Crude Oil Threat to New York State: The Capital Region as the Focus of Oil-by-RailThe Crude Oil Threat to New York State: The Capital Region as the Focus of Oil-by-Rail

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By Oily Bakken and Rude Crude In recent months, the media has carried stories about huge quantities of crude oil being brought into the Port of Albany from the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota by CP Rail, where it is stored and transloaded onto barges or tanker ships to be moved on to distant refineries. This petroleum is highly flammable, even explosive. There were 11 derailments of crude oil trains in the U.S. and Canada during 2013. Three of…

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Woodsfield Estate – Proposal is Back!

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GUILDERLAND: The largest roadless area in the Pine Bush is under attack again. The proposed Woodsfield Estates would be built on 106 acres of Pine Bush along the Hungerkill. The developers propose 46 houses to be built on 26 acres of this parcel. The Planning Board of the Town of Guilderland is the Lead Agency for the Woodsfield Estates proposal and will hold a hearing on this proposed project on Wednesday, April 13 at 7:30 pm at the Guilderland Town Hall….

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Roads in the Pine Bush – John Poorman Speaks about the CDTC

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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…

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Willow Street Again

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Willow Street Again   The Devil In Skaneateles Wealthy Developer Deplores Development By Daniel Van Riper There is an unconfirmed report that the Albany Pine Bush Devil has received approval from the planning board of the picturesque town of Skaneateles in western New York to build a ten million square foot shopping plaza, hotel, parking garage and casino. Skaneateles, which up until now has not allowed strip malls and fast food emporiums, is home to Robert Congel, owner and director…

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Solid Waste Issues in the City of Albany, the Town of Colonie and the Proposed Changes in the NYS Solid Waste Regulations

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by Tom Ellis ALBANY. NY: There is much to report on issues regarding solid wastes. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC or En Con)) DEC held a public hearing in Albany to receive comments on proposed revisions to its Part 360 regulations, DEC is assisting the Town of Colonie with its landfill expansion application,” and the City of Albany recently held a short public comment period on its proposals to (1) mechanize the collection of household wastes and recyclables,…

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Kim Fraczek Speaks about the Sane Energy Project and Mapping PipelinesKim Fraczek Speaks about the Sane Energy Project and Mapping Pipeliness

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by Tom Ellis Albany, NY: Kim Fraczek, Co-Director of the Sane Energy Project spoke on “Gas Infrastructure — The Big Picture” at the January 18 SPB dinner. She is very enthusiastic opinionated, and optimistic about blocking construction of many of the proposed natural gas pipelines in New York. She displayed an interactive, online map of all the gas infrastructure of New York created by Mary Finneran, and said it has now extended to include New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The map…

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Ecosystem Commonalities and the Albany Pine Bush

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by Grace Nichols Recently visiting the West Coast after nearly two decades away, I was reacquainted with the familiar San Francisco Bay and introduced to the Sierra Nevada habitat. I found amazing correspondences between our ecosystems here and some west coast territory. For example, our beloved Pine Bush ecosystem is highly fire dependent. Forest fires help open the pitch pine seeds, though they will open on a very hot day as well. The fire is also needed to prepare the…

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Say ‘No’ to proposed pipeline

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  In 1996, the Iroquois Pipeline Co. pleaded guilty to four felony counts and paid multimillion dollar fines for overseeing hundreds of criminal violations of the Clean Water Act during the construction of a 375 milelong gas pipeline across New York state. A decade later, the construction of the Millennium Pipeline resulted in the same catastrophic erosion events and negligent destruction of aquatic habitats. State regulators once again levied fines and hundreds of enforcement actions as they sought to repair…

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Crossing paths: Area farmers fear risks from 2 gas pipeline proposals

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By Brian Nearing — Published in the Times Union, Saturday, June 27, 2015   It’s a long way from a sea of natural gas wells scattered through Pennsylvania’s Bradford County to Libby Reilly’s organic farm off Clarks Chapel Road in Nassau. And it is even longer from her farm, where about two dozen beef cows graze in grassy fields, to remote cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. But these far-flung places share something in common —…

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Bakken Crude Oil Rail Shipments in Decline, But Surplus Tank Cars a Problem

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by Tim Truscott   As most people in the Capital Region know, Albany became a hub for crude oil shipments by rail when the Bakken crude oil began flowing from North Dakota. It was perhaps the third largest Bakken crude oil hub in North America and was dubbed by some as “Houston on the Hudson”. But rail shipments of Bakken crude seem to have fallen off in recent months, as East Coast refiners are now not taking in as much…

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Karner blue to get habitat in Saratoga Spa State Park

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By Stephen Williams   Reporters who devote more than a semicolon and three dashes to environmental coverage find their inboxes full on Earth Day. The delete button and recycling bin are wonderful things, but a few items seem worth passing on. First, the state Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is creating new Karner blue butterfly habitat at Saratoga Spa State Park. That’s nice. The dime-size blue butterflies are pretty, and outside of a handful of places in the…

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Archaeology in the Pine Bush

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by Tom Ellis   ALBANY: Derrick Marcucci of Landmark Archeology was the featured speaker at the November 16 SPB dinner at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. He said most of his firm’s Pine Bush work involves development proposals, the number of which have dropped off quite a bit in the past three years. The Pine Bush he said, has been a natural corridor between the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, was once 40 square miles, and is a unique ecosystem. Developers,…

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History Mauled Again – City Did Dirty Deal Selling Historic Site History Mauled Again City Did Dirty Deal Selling Historic Site Feb./Mar. 95 by Lynne Jackson I have been reading this book, The Fifth Discipline in which the author, Peter M. Senge, says that it is often the structure of the situation that makes people behave in certain ways. In a given situation, according to his theory, widely different people will do the same thing. This is obviously what happened…

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COUNTING FORESTS’ SENIOR CITIZENS

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by DINA CAPPIELLO, Staff writer They are the trees that have survived it all — the bouts of disease, the axes of loggers, the lightning storms that uproot a forest like a gardener’s hand pulls weeds. Most would be older than your great-great-great-great grandfather, if he were still alive. But until this Saturday, there was no systematic search under way for eastern New York’s stands of old-growth forest. Most were discovered during the course of other research, or by chance…

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Surveys seek to define status of night birds

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ALBANY – On a warm, moonlit night in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, a group of biologists listened at the foot of a grassy dune for the lilting, three-note song of a once-common nightbird that has now become rare. “We were pretty excited to hear the whippoorwill here again,” said Neil Gifford, conservation director of the preserve. “It had been 13 years since it was last heard around here.” Gifford believes intensive work in recent years to restore the rare…

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Overview of Climate Crisis and NY Renews

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by Tom Ellis ALBANY, NY Mark Schaeffer of 350.org and Conor Bambrick of Environmental Advocates (EA) spoke at the September 21 SPB dinner about the climate crises and the need for a political climate change. Mark led off saying pre-industrial age atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations were 280 part per million (ppm) and today are 400+ ppm, in part the result of years of inaction resulting from decades of disinformation by the fossil fuel industry, including Exxon. He said we…

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Town of Colonie to Adopt Comprehensive Plan

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by Lynne Jackson COLONIE: The Town of Colonie held a public hearing on July 14 for its “Town of Colonie Final Draft Comprehensive Plan.” The Town began the comprehensive planning process in 2003 with a town-wide survey, and had held dozens of public meetings about the plan. The Town is expected to adopt the plan at its August 11 meeting. There is still time for the public to comment about the plan. A copy of the plan can be downloaded…

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Yes, the King’s Royal Yorkers are Coming!

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Yes, the King’s Royal Yorkers are Coming! Stanford Home Hearing Information Hearing Notes January 23 Hearing Canadians are Coming! Archeological Information Photos – Outdoor Photos – Indoor Bonding Editorial Preservation   Donate Contact   Yes, the King’s Royal Yorkers are Coming! Well, one man is representing the Captain Richard Duncan Company. Background: In the 1777 and 1783, Captain Richard Duncan commanded a company in the 1st Battalion of the King’s Royal Regiment of New York, under Sir John Johnson. Richard…

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Roads in the Pine Bush – John Poorman Speaks about the CDTC

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by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: John Poorman, Executive Director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission spoke at the July SPB vegetarian/vegan lasagna dinner. Mr. Poorman began by describing what the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDTC) is. The CDTC is the designated “Metropolitan Planning Organization” (MPO) for four counties, Albany, Rensselaer, Saratoga and Schenectady. Under federal law, the CDTC’s responsibilities are to provide a forum to discuss transportation needs and develop transportation plans in the context of social, economic and…

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The City is Selling 363 Acres of Land in Coeymans

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by Tom Ellis About 25 years back, Albany politicians made a foolish decision to purchase a large property in Coeymans (ten miles south of Albany), hoping to site a regional landfill there to replace the Rapp Road Landfill that DEC was then threatening to soon close. Albany took many years purchasing the property, eventually spending more than $5 million for 363 acres. During that decade city officials apparently never carefully examined the site to see if it was suitable for…

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A Tribute To Lew Oliver

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by Steve Downs On September 1, 1976, a new law, the State Environmental Quality Review Act, SEQRA, came into effect which required comprehensive environmental planning at the beginning of every environmentally significant project – the problem was that nobody was sure just how the new law worked. Just two years later the first published law suit by Save The Pine Bush was filed against the City of Albany by a young lawyer, Lew Oliver, eager to see if this new…

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Archaeology in the Pine Bush

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by Tom Ellis ALBANY: Derrick Marcucci of Landmark Archeology was the featured speaker at the November 16 SPB dinner at the Westminster Presbyterian Church. He said most of his firm’s Pine Bush work involves development proposals, the number of which have dropped off quite a bit in the past three years. The Pine Bush he said, has been a natural corridor between the Hudson and Mohawk River valleys, was once 40 square miles, and is a unique ecosystem. Developers, he…

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The Residents and the Pine Bush Win Against Pyramid Justice Prevails

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by Lynne Jackson ALBANY: In an astonishing, detailed, and carefully written decision, Judge Peter Lynch handed a victory to Westmere Terrace residents and a gas-station owner, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed against the Town of Guilderland Planing Board and Pyramid Management Group. The decision makes null and void all of the approvals the Planning Board gave to Pyramid for its proposed development project known as the “Rapp Road Residential/Western Avenue Mixed Use Redevelopment Projects. This is a significant victory…

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Proposed Crossgates Development

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by Lynne Jackson GUILDERLAND, NY: Rapp Road Development, a corporate entity of Pyramid/Crossgates, is proposing to build on about 46 acres of land. Originally, the proposal was to build 222 apartments on 20 acres of land adjacent to the Pine Bush preserve. After the Town Planning Board appointed themselves the lead agency, the project was exapanded to include a proposed Costco and an undefined commercial/residential development on an additional 26 acres of land. The proposal is huge. To put this…

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Introduction

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What is the Pine Bush? The Pine Bush is the only sizable inland pine barrens sand dunes in the United States, and is recognized world-wide as a unique pine barrens ecosystem. It contains over 300 species of vertebrate animals, over 1,500 species of plants, and over 10,000 species of insects and other invertebrate animals. Many of them are rare and restricted to the Pine Bush habitat. Its most famous occupant, the Karner Blue Butterfly, is on New York State’s endangered…

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Virtual Exhibit

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What is the Pine Bush? The Pine Bush is the only sizable inland pine barrens sand dunes in the United States, and is recognized world&endash;wide as a unique pine barrens ecosystem. It contains over 300 species of vertebrate animals, over 1,500 species of plants, and over 10,000 species of insects and other invertebrate animals. Many of them are rare and restricted to the Pine Bush habitat. Its most famous occupant, the Karner Blue Butterfly, is on the Federal and State’s…

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Newsletters Articles Ordered by Subject

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Search Newsletter Archives: What is Full Protection, Partial Protection and who is the Pine Bush? – By Lynne Jackson – June / July 2022 Newsletter A Tribute To Lew Oliver, our wonderful lawyer The Pine Bush’s Most Famous Resident – The Karner Blue Butterfly Save the Pine Bush Victories and Fights The Thruway Authority Comes Across Royally, Dec 99/Jan 00Save the Pine Bush is 25!, Mar/Apr 03 Legislation regarding standing in court We Need the Environmental Access to Justice Act,…

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