Posts Tagged ‘st. lawrence valley’

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A jump on Spring

March 12th, 2012 by Martha Foley

Amy Ivy and I talk today about satisfying that itch to rush the gardening season. It's always there, as the days get longer and the snow clears. There are mornings you walk outside and smell earth and water in a mix that is unmistakeably spring.

Usually it's pure fantasy until we get farther along on the calendar. But as this winter was a puzzlement of mild temperatures and little snow, this shoulder season is proving to be more of the same.

Snow drops in Potsdam. (Photo: Mimi Van Deusen)

Things are early. We've heard reports on bluebirds, in West Potsdam and on my road outside Canton. Waves of robins are passing through. And then there are these snowdrops, from this morning in Potsdam. Leroy St. according to our alert photographer, Mimi Van Deusen.

And the forecast this week is for more mild weather, and more sun after tomorrow. Amy has great ideas for "low tunnels" to make out of ABS pipe or sturdy wire and row cover fabric available at hardware stores and gardening centers. They're good for experiments with early spinach and lettuce seeds. And why not? Live it up!

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A safe Seaway?

March 31st, 2011 by David Sommerstein

This morning on The 8 O'Clock Hour, I reported on the balance between economic and environmental concerns on the St. Lawrence Seaway.  After all, what's known as the "Seaway" is our St. Lawrence River and Great Lakes, the world's largest store of fresh water.

There's another element to the Seaway story.  Is it safe?

At this hour, a freighter is grounded in the channel right by the Montreal waterfront.  It's carrying mechanical parts.  According to the Seaway's release:

At approximately 3:13 a.m. on Thursday, March 31, the BBC Steinhoelft veered off course and became grounded in the South Shore Canal between the St. Lambert Lock and the Jacques Cartier Bridge.  No pollution has been reported as a consequence of the grounding.

A grounding 9 days into the Seaway's 53rd season isn't exactly what the shipping industry was hoping for.

There were at least a couple groundings in the narrow channel along the St. Lawrence River last year.  (Not to mention this horrific story when gas leaked into the living quarters on a ship.)  And we all know about the devastation of the Slick of '76 (and many of us remember it firsthand).

Seaway officials say GPS and other new technological advancements have made navigation safer than ever.  Ships with potentially hazardous cargo are double-hulled and must submit special safety plans.  The Seaway has orchestrated emergency response trainings.

But watchdog groups like Save the River insist it's still too dangerous.  Another oil spill, or a leak of toxic chemicals, could destroy the River for years, if not decades.  And green groups – and native tribes – across the Great Lakes are protesting the planned shipment of radioactive waste through the Seaway to Sweden.

What do you think?  Is the Seaway critical enough infrastructure to justify the risk?  Is the risk adequately managed?  Or is the ecosystem too delicate to justify the risk?

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Morning Read: Obama, Owens want $173 million for border project

March 10th, 2011 by Brian Mann

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting that Rep. Bill Owens and the White House are partnering to push for a new border crossing station onWellesly Island in the Thousand Islands region of the North Country.

Officials at the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority have been pushing for the project, which they say will cut down on travel time for commercial and passenger traffic and make the crossing more attractive for trucks. They say the project has been needed since staffing increased dramatically following the 9-11 attacks.

"This is good news for both tourism to the region and for truck traffic over the bridge," W. Howard Kelly, director of the Capital Corridor Trade and Tourism Initiative of the TIBA, said in an e-mail.

According to the Times, the fact that President Barack Obama has included the project in his funding request makes it far more likely to survive the budget process in Washington.

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IJC still hammering out water levels plan

February 18th, 2011 by David Sommerstein

Remember the water levels study?  It was an historic effort to reframe the way water flows are managed on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.

Sounds wonky.  But the effects could be profound, affecting Thousand Islands boaters, endangered Lake Ontario wetlands, waterfront homeowners, shippers in Montreal, you name it.  People packed public meetings to advocate for their side.  People in the Thousand Islands even made T-shirts.

Here's a good summary of all the NCPR coverage for a refresher.

It's been almost three years since the International Joint Commission, the binational commission which controls the water flows, backed away from the study results and went back to the drawing board.

Yesterday, the IJC announced it's been pecking away at a new plan.  In a press release, the IJC said that new plan would push toward:

…a new regulation plan that moves toward more natural flows to provide environmental improvements, particularly for Lake Ontario wetlands, while continuing to protect other interests.

Basically, that's very good news for people along the St. Lawrence River, because it's also likely that plan would keep river levels higher in August and September when boaters want to keep their crafts in the water.

The IJC also said it was trying to incorporate "adjustments for significant climatic changes."

Another meeting is scheduled for April in Quebec City.  Still no word on when a new plan may be released.  But the IJC does promise opportunity for public comment once that happens.

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Another local cooking event casualty

February 9th, 2011 by David Sommerstein

The Watertown Daily Times is reporting this morning that Canton is canceling its 18th annual chili cook-off because it couldn't comply with state health department regulations.  Organizer Paul Mitchell told the paper:

I told her all the chili was made off-site and brought in to the VFW, and I was told they had a problem with that," said Mr. Mitchell, who is editor of the St. Lawrence Plaindealer. "In the early years of the cook-off we never worried about interference from the state Health Department. I know DOH is doing their job, but I think this is going a little too far.

Read the complete article here.

Add the chili cook-off to TAUNY's pea-soup-and-johnnycake event and a chamber of commerce chicken BBQ to the list of events in canton alone that had to be canceled because they couldn't comply with state health department regulations.

In this story I did about the issue in 2009, the department of health said it's willing to work with local groups to help them abide by regulations.  But those regs sometimes make the event almost impossible or impractical to hold.

We have a greater understanding about food contamination than ever before, and one poorly cooked dish can make a lot of people very sick.

But community events like these are the bread and butter – pun intended! – of small communities.

What do you think?  When you walk into a local chili cook-off, should you be able to accept responsibility that the food is cooked by amateurs in their own homes and accept the consequences?  Or is the department of health doing a vital public service by protecting people from potentially contaminated food?

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CSX still cleaning up derailment in Canton

February 9th, 2011 by David Sommerstein

CSX is still doing work on the rail line in the village of Canton after 8 box cars derailed last night around 6.  Park Street, the main road between the village downtown and St. Lawrence University, is closed as rail workers continue their repairs.

According to CSX spokesman Bob Sullivan, there was no spill and no injuries.  None of the 75 cars on the train were carrying hazardous materials.  The train was going from Massena to Selkirk, near Albany.

Sullivan says he expects service to be restored by tomorrow morning.

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Massena going nuclear?

January 15th, 2011 by David Sommerstein

The big buzz around St. Lawrence County this weekend is Massena officials have broached the idea of attracting a nuclear plant to town.

At a press conference yesterday, town supervisor, Joe Gray, and village mayor, Jim Hidy, said they've been "kicking around" the idea for some time.  Hidy said it could bring "a generational change" to a town hammered by closures,  jobs cuts and attrition at the General Motors, Alcoa, and Reynolds plants over decades.

The pair said they'd set up an exploratory committee to start looking into details and soliciting opinion from local residents.

Let's remember this: this is the basic area that's tried to lure a major aquarium, a massive NASCAR racetrack, and a 20,000 cow feedlot-meets-ethanol plant.  Oh, and did I mention the underground atomic supercollider?

Obviously, none of those happened.

Gray and Hidy acknowledged the process of attracting a nuclear plant would take at least a decade, if it happened at all.  And they deserve credit for raising the proposal as a topic of public conversation at the very earliest stages.

It's definitely created a buzz.  Supporters are salivating about hundreds of jobs.  Opponents (I've seen a flurry of e-mails on a local environmental activist listserv I monitor) are already kicking into high gear to fight the idea.

What would you think about having a nuclear reactor in your backyard?  (Aside from getting to live out your "I'm Homer Simpson" fantasies…)

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Alcoa East to reopen, rehire 100

January 6th, 2011 by David Sommerstein

Much needed good news for Massena this evening. Alcoa East announced it's holding a press conference tomorrow morning. According to the Watertown Daily Times, the aluminum will reopen the plant after a two year layoff:

David W. LaClair Jr., president of United Steelworkers Local 450, is meeting with Alcoa representatives this afternoon to confirm the news.

Mr. LaClair said he understands that approximately 100 employees laid off when the plant was idled in March 2009 will be returning back to work…

"Of course we'd be very thrilled an excited," Mr. LaClair said. "It's great news for Massena and the surrounding communities. It's something that Massena needs."

Read the full article here.

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Hacketts shutters last store

December 14th, 2010 by David Sommerstein

It's been a long, slow, painful death for the once-thriving Hacketts chain. The company filed for bankruptcy protection last year. Its stores have been closing one by one for a few years.

Last week, Hacketts closed its last remaining store, an outlet center in Ogdensburg. According to the Watertown Daily Times, that came after the federal bankruptcy judge converted the case from Chapter 11 protection – the kind of bankruptcy companies reorganize and emerge from – to Chapter 7, where the company is prepared to be liquidated.

The case is a thicket of debt and creditors, but it seems to come down to the plan to emerge from bankruptcy put forth by Thomas Scozzafava, the CEO of Hacketts parent company, Seaway Valley. In a nutshell, the creditors don't buy it. Here's the Times treatment:

KeyBank, to which Hacketts owes $423,000 on a consolidated promissory note, counters that it is too late in the bankruptcy process for Hacketts to shift its strategy away from "speculative" funding and offer a plan that will be funded solely from operations and the sale of assets.

KeyBank claims, among other things, that the first rejected statement showed Hacketts would operate at a loss for at least six months out of every year of its proposed plan.

Mr. Scozzafava had a different opinion.

"After numerous complaints, we tried to keep the company bigger, but that depended on monies coming into the company, and the biggest complaint literally was the source of our funding is speculative, and not a sure thing," he said. "I said, 'OK, then let's take the speculation out of it, and we'll just show you what we can do without that coming in,' because they were attacking the feasibility of the plan."

The "speculative" funding referred to seems to be Seaway Valley's pile of complex debt instruments that have amassed over three years.  Check out my 2009 report on Seaway Valley for the details.

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Should good behavior count in school?

November 30th, 2010 by David Sommerstein

Potsdam high school showed up in a New York Times article this weekend. It's about revising grading formulas to measure actual knowledge rather than the ability to pay attention in class, hand in homework on time, and bring your pencil to class.

The superintendent in Potsdam, Patrick Brady, who has been rolling out a revamped grading system this fall in his 1,450-student district, said it would allow teachers to recognize academic strengths where they often are not discovered — among minority students, or students from poorer families, or boys — subgroups whose members may be unable or unwilling to fit in easily to the culture of school.

“We are getting rid of grade fog,” Mr. Brady said. “We need to stop overlooking kids who can do the work and falsely inflate grades of kids who can’t but who look good. We think this will be good for everyone.”

Potsdam parent and literacy professor at SUNY Potsdam was also quoted in the story, saying the new system punishes the so-called good kids:

“Does the old system reward compliance? Yes,” she said. “Do those who fit in the box of school do better? Yes. But to revamp the policy in a way that could be of detriment to the kids who do well is not the answer.” In the real world, she points out, attitude counts.

I remember at several points in my schooling we actually got graded on how neat our folders were kept.

Do you think organization, preparation, behavior matter in school?  Or is it just the final result – at the end of the day, what did my child actually learn?

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