Category: Environment & Preservation

Fellow OONA members: This is our first shot at an environmentally-focused short newsletter. We hope to publish future editions as a newsletter. In this inaugural edition, we take on only three topics: 1) the Genesee County STAMP industrial site; 2) info on a nasty invasive weed in our area; and 3) some good news from Rochester about Lake Ontario. Our plan is for future editions covering a wide variety of environmental issues relevant to OONA. Comments, suggestions, questions, and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Dave Giacherio, Frank Panczyszyn, Environment and Preservation Committee

STAMP UPDATE

Below is a link to a LONG and extraordinarily detailed article on the STAMP project by W. Dale Shoemaker in the Investigative Post, a Buffalo-based “watchdog” publication. It clearly has a point of view – with which you are free to disagree – but it is factually very rich, and it provides a great overview of the STAMP issue (and related political machinations). We are sharing this with OONA membership because STAMP has been a topic of interest to many of us concerned with the long-term health of the Oak Orchard River.

https://www.investigativepost.org/2024/06/27/hochul-schumer-pressured-regulators-over-stamp/utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=headline

Below is a link to a second article from the Investigative Post that looks at the issue from the perspective of the residents of the Tonawanda-Seneca Nation.

https://www.investigativepost.org/2024/06/28/stamp-is-but-the-latest-offense-to-tonawanda-sene cas/?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=headline

INVASIVE SPECIES: JAPANESE KNOTWEED

Below are two links that address a particularly nasty invasive weed in our area. It’s called Japanese Knotweed, and it was introduced in the US as an ornamental plant. It spreads quickly and it is very difficult to eradicate. LO shore residents: It is particularly important to remove this weed from any rocks protecting your shoreline. Its amazing root/rhizome system can change the inter-rock spacing and lessen your overall level of protection. On our near-daily walk to Point Breeze, Cheryl and I pass a couple of “forests” of knotweed, which seem to be spreading quickly. The NYIS-INFO post below mentions glyphosate (tradename Roundup) as an effective herbicide for knotweed. If you choose to go this route, please use great care to minimize your contact with the chemical solution. While Roundup is certainly not an acute poison to humans, there is some data that show a correlation between exposure to Roundup and longer-term health effects. So be careful. The second link addresses some non-chemical means to eradicate the weed. None are easy.

Click to access Japanese%20knotweed%20factsheet_NYIS-INFO.pdf

https://www.housedigest.com/1605076/how-to-kill-japanese-knotweed-yard/

GOOD NEWS: ROCHESTER EMBAYMENT IS SET FOR “DELISTING”

This is great news for our neighbors to the east. The Rochester Embayment – the area of Lake Ontario around Rochester – for decades has been listed as an “Area of Concern” (i.e., a badly polluted area) by the EPA. After literally decades of hard work by the US EPA, the NYS DEC, and the Monroe County Dept of Public Health, the area is ready to be delisted, or removed from the list of problem areas. It took a long time, and the problem was complex and multifaceted, but people and the government working together ultimately accomplished something quite significant. See the link below.

https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-starts-process-take-rochester-embayment-list-badly-poll uted-areas-great-lakes

OONA attendance at the event held in Carlton was 20% of the total, with about 10-12 OONs.  Orleans County together with the Towns of Carlton, Kendall and Yates have begun the process to update the 20-year old plan by soliciting community input and conducting a study to identify priority projects for waterfront development.  The comprehensive land and water use plan for the Towns’ natural, public, and developed waterfront resources along Lake Ontario, Johnson Creek, Oak Orchard River, Marsh Creek, and Sandy Creek.

The benefit to our area is that grants are available, and could be made available easier if the projects are identified and well defined.  Examples projects identified 20 years ago are:  improvements to the Marine Park, installation of the docks at the Marine Park and Point Breeze, and improvements to boat launches on east and west sides of the River at point breeze.  OONs and others had opportunity to input ideas verbally, as well as in writing.  Surveys are available to input more ideas.  We think this to be a worthy cause, and OONA should continue to stay aware and support it.  A second meeting is planned for Fall 2018, and a plan for potential projects will be finalized by the end of 2019.

A copy of this survey is available at:  LWRP Towns of Kendall, Yates, and Carlton Survey

A meeting held on June 27 was attended by 4 OONA members and 4 other interested residents.  The study group surveyed local members (Orleans County Planning, County Legislature, Towns of Carlton and Kendall, DOT, NYS Parks, Genesee Transportation Counsel) to prioritize ideas for potential future uses for the Orleans County portion of the Parkway.  The top three items were better maintenance, reduce some sections to 2 lanes, and reduce cost.  The next three items were access to natural habitat, alternative funding, and reduce the number of bridges.  And the last group of items included maintaining 4 lanes.  In a final public survey of committee members, most supported reduced lanes (north side/west bound lanes), 2 supported maintaining 4 lanes, all supported shutting down the Parkway at west of Rte 98, possibly converting this section to entrance/exit lanes to Lakeside Beach State Park.

OONA members and other residents were strong in feedback to the committee as to why the results of the community survey conducted last year was not taken into consideration.  The committee will review these results over the next few months, and create 50 (or 75) year life cycle estimates for various options, with a baseline plan of maintaining 4 lanes; this would also include continuing the paving at least to Rte 98.  A public hearing on their findings should occur no later than the end of October, 2018.  Members of the committee advised those in attendance that the purpose of the committee is to create options, that funding for any changes will be difficult, and that changes, if economically justified, would not be coming any time soon.