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Monday news roundup: NYS wine, 911, PCBs

May 13th, 2013 by Nora Flaherty
Photo: Everjean, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Photo: Everjean, Creative Commons, some rights reserved

Happy Monday! Sure, it’s cold and grey (at least here in Canton), but perhaps a lovely glass of North Country wine would help? David Sommerstein reports today on the growing industry (hearty grapes, people!), centered in Clinton County.

We went to John Brown day this weekend and asked people there what freedom means to them.

And in the Adirondack Park, the APA has voted to host a series of public meetings on what to do with the former Finch, Pruyn, and Co. timberlands the state’s acquired. That could range from mostly wilderness (no motorized vehicles) to wild forest, which is more accessible for people and recreation.

Up in Massena, the Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Alcoa is planning on storing 109,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment at a landfill on the Alcoa West plant site. That’s the sediment it’s dredging from the banks of the Grasse River as part of a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved plan to clean up the Grasse River Superfund Site.

Some, in particular residents of the very nearby Akwesasne Mohawk Nation Territory, have expressed concerns that storing the contaminated sediment so close by could compromise the effectiveness of the cleanup — the paper reported they raised the former GM site (also a Superfund site) as an example of what can happen when contaminated materials are disposed of “carelessly” in an area that’s already suffered from PCB exposure as have both of those. But tribal environmental division Director Ken Jock said this facility is much safer, and is “basically the state-of-the-art, best way of dealing with PCBs at the moment.” He said there’s a big difference between the two sites. So we’ll see what happens there.

And on a less sediment-y note, the WDT is also reporting today that Jefferson and Lewis Counties will get a combined $1.1 million to cover costs associated with emergency call centers (that’s 911 to you and me.) Jefferson County’s getting $295,523; Lewis, $808,615. The grants, which come through the state Division of Homeland Security (huh!), is part of a plan to improve the state’s emergency communication network, and help local governments work together on said communications.

 

 

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Great Blue Herons, live, up close and personal

April 10th, 2013 by Martha Foley

One of the gang at Sapsucker Woods. A still image from the webcam last spring.

Newsflash for bird lovers: the Great Blue Herons are back on the nest at the Cornell webcam site.

You can see the lovely big birds, hear the sounds of early spring at the Ornithology Lab (including the occasional heron honk and squawk) and follow the live conversation among the pro-am group of birders who camp out online to follow the action moment by moment.

I found having the site up  at work, just to hear the sounds as the pond there returned to life, was a terrific stress-reliever. Last year, over the weeks, we saw the herons tidying and decorating the nest,then  tending the eggs as they appeared day by day. There was a dramatic nighttime owl attack, great sibling interaction once the eggs had hatched, and of course, the young herons fledging.

Herons are back in my bit of the North Country, too. And there’s a rookery just a nice walk from my house. But the up close view from the webcam is just irresistible. Check it out.

In other signs of spring news: osprey are back, too, in lots of locales. Sunday at Lake Ozonia they got a chilly reception, literally. Lots and lots of ice left there, with only a very little open water. I’m sure the lake, and others in the Adirondacks, are opening up as I write. But in the meantime, what do they osprey do for a living?

What are you seeing in your neighborhood?

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Boat show news: Kingston April 5-6

April 4th, 2013 by Lucy Martin

It’s been a bit cold this week, but warmer days are on the horizon. Which means it’s time for things that herald summer, like boat shows.

Here’s an article from the March issue of on-line magazine Thousand Islands Life about an event in Kingston, Ontario this Friday and Saturday (April 5-6). According to the write-up by John Peach:

A first class educational line up will be the key feature of the symposium and will include a stream of Canadian and St. Lawrence River themed presentations focused on the history of the region’s legendary watercraft. The wooden boats of Canada and the Thousand Islands have been known for more than one hundred years for the fine craftsmanship, unique styling, design and construction that made them superior in the eyes of their buyers and owners of the early 1900s.

 

Cruising the 1000 Islands aboard “Chipanog,” a classic Gar Wood design. Photo: , CC some rights reserved.

Peach divides his time between Huckleberry Island and Princeton NJ. He’s active with Save the River and is no stranger to wooden boats, as detailed in this article for TI Life from 2010: “The Restoration of a Que’Sara, a 1932 18′ Gar Wood“.

The line up for the Wooden Boat Expo and Seminar includes a showing by Denny O’Neil of his feature film “Dreamboats of the Muskoka” and presentations by notable speakers. The event is staged with hosting help from two Kingston destinations, the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston and the Pump House Steam Museum.

It’s the heavier-than-usual Canadian content at this weekend’s boat show that caught my eye. But all sorts of boat events are a regular part of life in this region. You might also want to mark your calendar for another worthy symposium May 17-19 in Clayton, NY,  co-hosted by the Antique and Classic Boat Society and the Antique Boat Museum. As described on their website:

This spring the Museum and the Antique and Classic Boat Society (ACBS) will be co-hosting their second in-depth, hands-on weekend restoration symposium on May 17-19.

The symposium is for people who love boating, building boats, restoring boats, boat owners, and everyone in-between.  For 2013 we are adding a half day to the schedule as well as an hour to each workshop session.  This allows more time for questions enabling participants to have more time for practicing the techniques under the guidance of an instructor. Classes include surveying a boat for purchase, basic systems work, wood repair, lofting, refinishing techniques, varnishing techniques, and vintage marine engine repair. You are able to choose between a variety of options to fill your weekend full of interesting classes.

(I should mention that both events – Kingston in April and Clayton in May – are in-depth presentations which require registration and fees.)

An Internet search to research this post turned up another version of the advance publicity for the April’s Kingston show on something called The Woody Boater – which claims to be located in the rustic town of Woodyboaterville on the shores of Lake Cyberspace. (The physical mail address goes to Falls Church, Virginia.)

For some good chuckles read the Woody Boater’s contact page with their terms of use and service.

Scrolling down the same page turns up a special dictionary and some key concepts, like this:

20. Every boat I see, I want. It’s that simple. If I could have a barn full of boats i would… Wait, I do.. Like that show, Boat Horders.. No I need that old pile of worm infested hull boards.. Someday they might be usefull.. …

Does any of that sound familiar?

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Rideau Canal Skateway closes for the season

March 1st, 2013 by Lucy Martin

The Rideau Canal Skateway, closed now until next year. Photo courtesy C. Miller

The National Capital Commission has called a halt to skating the canal, until next winter, of course. According to this NCC press release on Thursday:

The heavy wet snow of the past 24 hours has weakened the ice and with the continuing mild weather forecast it is unrealistic to expect the ice to rebuild to safe conditions and to resume the skating season.

 THE SEASON — The 43rd skating season on the world’s largest skating rink started on January 18, 2013 and lasted 42 days. Over that period, 38 skating days, (including a stretch of 26 consecutive days that overlapped with all three weekends of Winterlude) welcome more than 835 000 visits on the Skateway.

As seasons go, this one was fairly modest. According to the NCC “The average skating season is 50 days long, but the record (set during the 1971–72 season) is 95 days.”

Hopefully you were able to get out and enjoy some time on outdoor ice, while it lasted.

And for everyone who is sick of winter, perhaps we’ll be looking at an early, mild spring?

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Rideau Canal Skateway scheduled to open on Friday, Jan 18

January 17th, 2013 by Lucy Martin

2.2 Km of Skateway opens Fri morning. Longer sections of the canal will be added as conditions permit. (photo by L. Martin)

Hey, skate fans! The National Capital Commission just emailed a press release stating a 2.2 kilometer section of the Rideau Canal Skateway will open Friday, January 18th at 7 am. (From Bank Street Bridge to Pretoria Bridge.)

An official opening event for this 43rd season will take place Friday at 10:30 am in front of the Canal Ritz Restaurant (near Queen Elizabeth Driveway and Fifth Avenue).

Skating the canal is weather dependent so it’s always wise to check on current conditions at the NCC website.

Happy skating Ottawa!

And hopefully to you as well, where ever you enjoy your ice and snow.

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Parks Canada fee proposals include steep hikes for historic canals

January 15th, 2013 by Lucy Martin

Locking through Smiths Falls, Ontario on the Rideau Canal in June 2007. (photo by Lucy Martin)

How important is boat traffic to the Rideau Canal and the communities along that corridor? And what effect might higher fees have on canal usage?

From Jan 11 until Feb 18, Parks Canada is seeking public comment on a variety of user fees, most of which have been fixed for the last 5 years. (Some current fee schedules can be found here.)

Proposed changes include steep hikes to use locks on historic canals, including the Kingston to Ottawa Rideau Canal. Parks Canada has this FAQ on proposed canal fee changes.

The current payment system includes single passes that permit boaters to use as many or as few locks as they chose, in spans ranging from single-day to full season.  The new proposal would consist of buying tickets for each lock used. According to a detailed article by Don Butler in the Ottawa Citizen:

The new fee structure would raise the cost of travelling the full length of the canal by 287 per cent. The owner of a 20-foot boat now pays $93 in lockage fees for the Ottawa-to-Kingston trip, but would pay $360 under Parks Canada’s proposal. For owners of 40-foot boats, the cost of a one-way trip would soar from the current $186 to $720.

The percentage increase would be even larger — more than 340 per cent — for boaters who now buy a season’s pass. The owner of a 25-foot boat can buy a season’s pass for $220. But the same boater would pay $975 for 130 tickets under the new system.

The fee increases apply to canoes and kayaks, as well, though they would need one fewer ticket to pass through a lock station than a power boat. Under the current system, those who want to paddle the full length of the canal can buy a transit pass for $74.40. If Parks Canada’s proposed fees are adopted, the cost would rise to $182.40 in 2014.

Monday’s Ottawa Citizen included an editorial that criticized the proposed fees for the negative impact they could have on the “culture and economy of eastern Ontario”.

Private citizen Ken Watson hosts a website dedicated to the Rideau Canal. That site now has a “save our Rideau” page which argues these hikes (and other policy decisions) are short-sighted and will prove detrimental to boating and the region’s economy.

There are several Facebook page on the issue as well, “Save the Rideau and the St. Lawrence” and “Historic Canals Historique: Behind the Scenes/En Coulisses“.

Of course, there are arguments to be made in favor of higher fees for boaters, and for a per-lock ticket system. But so far the general reaction seems largely critical.

 

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Snowboarder’s rescue sparks billing debate in Canada

December 21st, 2012 by Lucy Martin

Snowboarding in the backcountry. Photo: Ham Hock, CC some rights reserved

It’s not a new question: If people take unnecessary risks in the wilderness, should they be billed to recover costs of search and rescue efforts?

The discussion came up in Canada recently after a 33-year-old snowboarder got lost for over two days at a resort in British Columbia. (Though now living in B.C. Sébastien Boucher is originally from Gatineau, which made this a story with local connections in Ottawa.)

It ended well – Boucher was found, exhausted and cold, but otherwise uninjured. But Cypress Mountain Resort says they will send a bill for $10,000 – to partially cover expenses and lost revenue. (The resort states it diverted employees and shut down a ski run to conduct the search.) If the proposed bill recovers money from Boucher, Cypress Mountain says that will be donated to the rescue organization.

The specifics in this individual story have an element of “he said, she said”. It has been alleged that Boucher intentionally ignored signs and safety barriers to go his own way – into danger, as it turned out. Boucher and his friends say no, he was distracted after learning about the sudden death of a close friend.

The rescue was complicated by Boucher’s decision to keep moving and not sleep. While that may have kept him alive, it made searcher’s work more difficult.

It’s worth noting the area’s rescue service is not planning to bill Boucher. It fact they say it’s a bad idea, according to this report by CTV British Columbia:

North Shore Rescue team leader Tim Jones said he advises members not to get tangled up in debates about forcing people to pay for their rescues, but noted that fines can actually do more harm than good.

“We can’t be put in a position that we’re chasing people because they don’t want to get caught, or get found,” Jones said.

“Most people who get lost or injured it’s because they make a mistake or something happens that’s out of their control,”

Having said that, Jones was not impressed by Boucher’s behavior:

“…he intentionally went out of bounds. No bones about it. He’ll probably do it again.”

Taking a look at “Who should pay for rescuing wayward adventures?” CBC found opposition to billing for rescue, as articulated by Dwight Yochim, with Coquitlam Search and Rescue:

“What concerns us is the media and the public look at it as though the person has done a bad thing and should be charged for it. That causes us no end of grief,” Yochim said by phone.

“People who hear about the threat of getting charged — we’re afraid that if something like that comes in it may cause family and friends to launch a search, which could be fatal,” because of the dangers involved, he said.

So, there are good arguments for and against fines.

How do you see this?

Is it worth looking at motive to sort out who gets lost through mishap, verses those who (some say) “were asking for it”?

If you go that route, though, then the question of competence also arises. Should people who are too ignorant to safety engage in wilderness activities be fined if they get into trouble? (Of course, the ignorant are often unlikely to know what they don’t know!)

It does seem to come down to behaving responsibility and using common sense, though goodness knows both of those qualities can be in short supply.

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NY state biologists throws water on bigfoot

November 29th, 2012 by Brian Mann

I was a kid during what I think was the first really big Bigfoot craze in the 1960s and 70s.

I lived in those years in the Midwest and I remember walking anxiously through fields of corn stubble, scrutinizing distant windbreaks in fear of seeing a big, lumbering figure haunting the forest.

Since arriving here in the Adirondacks, I’ve heard occasionally from Sasquatch believers.  One guy very kindly sent me a photograph of a lumpy chunk of stuff that he claimed was the mold of a footprint — a really big footprint, as you might imagine.

The issue surfaced again earlier this month, when state Conservation biologist Gordon Batcheller dispatched a letter to folks organizing a bigfoot convention in New York.  (A convention for believers, obviously, not actual critters…)

“The mythical animal does not exist in nature or otherwise,” Batcheller wrote, in a letter which you can read here in full.

“I understand, however, that some well organized hoaxes or pranks have occurred, leading some people to believe that such an animal does live. However, the simple truth of the matter is that there is no such animal anywhere in the world. I am sorry to disappoint you. However, no program or action in relation to mythical animals is warranted.”

There is actually a really fun video of a purported bigfoot sighting in the Adirondacks on Youtube.  Check it out.


This comes as a woman is making headlines, including in Time magazine, for her claim that she has sequenced the DNA of sasquatch.

So let me acknowledge a clear bias:  I side firmly with the bigfoot deniers.

The idea that some kind of shaggy man-like critter still haunts the wilds of North America — let alone the Adirondacks — is fun but fanciful.  It’s flat earth stuff.

That said, I think the lingering power of this story speaks to its enduring elements.

We humans are drawn for some weird, Jungian reason to the idea of “wild men” haunting the untamed spaces at the edge of our world.

Source: Wikipedia

Perhaps it’s a hard-wired legacy of that long-ago time when Homo sapiens really did co-exist nervously with more primitive and powerful Neanderthal cousins.

Even now, when “wilderness” is confined to scraps of dwindling park land, we are thrilled by the notion that bogeymen still lurk at the edge of our towns and suburbs.

As stories, I think these figments are useful and cool.

There is real mystery and power to the idea of wildness, to the notion that something important exists in the vast non-human realm that surrounds us.

Embodying that mystery in a shaggy, shadowy, half-glimpsed figure at the edge of a field is an understandable human impulse, a kind of shorthand or symbol.

The great failing here — again, this is my bias — is literalism.

People who want Sasquatch to be “true” and “real” in the same way that, say, a cross-town bus is real, or a DMV clerk is real, are sure to be disappointed.

Bigfoot’s power is that he is a myth, a story.   You won’t capture him on film.  You won’t find a scrap of his DNA, or a clear print of his foot.  You’ll never put him in a cage at a zoo.

Whenever you reach the treeline where you think he’s hiding, the shadowy figure will have crept away to the next treeline, or the far ridge of hills.  Which is exactly where Sasquatch belongs.

 

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Rideau Canal season update

October 21st, 2012 by Lucy Martin

The historic Rideau Canal: popular for tourism and recreational use. (photo by Lucy Martin)

Boaters and communities that benefit from Ontario’s Rideau Canal were alarmed earlier this year when cuts to the operational season came up for discussion.

According to media reports, Environment Minister Peter Kent announced on Thursday the length of the 2013 boating season for the Rideau Canal (and Parks Canada’s other historic canals) will remain unchanged.

Locks will operate from Victoria Day Weekend (the Monday before May 25) until Canadian Thanksgiving (2nd Monday in October). According to the Ottawa Citizen daily hours of operation are set to decrease (1 hour reduction in Spring and Fall; 2 hour reduction during summer) and fees may rise.

As reported by the Citizen, the news came as a huge relief to marina owner Peter Hurst:

Hurst wasn’t worried about the plan to shorten hours. “People can live with the shorter hours,” he said. “They just can’t live with them not being able to reopen at all.”

Nor was he concerned about higher lockage and dockage fees. “If you can afford a boat, you can afford a lock fee.”

Businesses and communities along the historic recreational corridor had protested possible reductions to the season. Minister Kent recognized those voices in his press release comments in the official press release of Oct 18.

“With this decision, the canals and the surrounding communities will continue flourishing as a vibrant centre of our regions,” added Minister Kent. “The government appreciated the constructive feedback we received from the public, and was pleased to work with the local Members of Parliament, Mayors, business leaders, and stakeholders, to determine a workable schedule going forward that is affordable while minimizing the impact on the local economies and visitors.”

Coming in mid-October when most boaters are packing things up for winter, this announcement may seem off-topic. But it’s important news for those involved in regional tourism and economic development. And, by next Spring, it’ll matter to boaters again too!

 

 

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State police say Hudson rafting guide intoxicated when passenger died

September 28th, 2012 by Brian Mann

State police say a licensed river guide was legally intoxicated yesterday when a passenger was lost in whitewater on the Hudson River.

Rory Fay, 37, from North Creek, has been accused of criminally negligent homicide following the incident.

According to a statement released by state police, Fay was leading a trip down the river on Thursday when two passengers were “ejected from the raft in whitewater conditions.”

One passenger made it safely to shore but 53-year-old Tamara Blake, from Columbus, Ohio, was swept away.

“New York State Police Aviation was utilized to search the river and Blake’s body was discovered approximately five miles down stream in the Hudson River,” according to state police.

An autopsy was scheduled for today in Saranac Lake.

According to officials, it was “determined that Rory Fay was intoxicated while transporting Clar and Blake on the rafting trip.”

State Police consulted with Hamilton County District Attorney Marsha Purdue and Fay was arrested for Criminally Negligent Homicide regarding the death of Blake. Fay was subsequently arraigned before Indian Lake Town Justice Judy Durken and remanded to the Hamilton County Jail in lieu of $50,000 bail or $100,000 bond.On September 27, 2012, at approximately 12:00 p.m.

Fay was employed by the Hudson River Rafting Company, which faced accusations last year of endangering customers.  The charges against him are only allegations.  He is innocent until proven guilty.

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