Gardiner

Upcoming Events in Gardiner

No events yet -- add an upcoming event by clicking "Post an Event" on the right side of this page.

Community Announcements

Have a community announcement you'd like to share? Registered and logged-in users can post personal and non-profit announcements for free. Click "Post>Announcements" under the "Manage My Account" menu, or click here.

All announcements are moderated, so it make take a few days for us to review your submission.

A year since Irene: The Faces of the Flood Project

By Julia Reischel
8/28/12 - 10:43 am

Today is August 28, the one-year anniversary of Tropical Storm Irene's arrival in the Catskills. To commemorate the anniversary of the flooding, we are publishing the Faces of the Flood Portrait Project, which tells stories of the flood through cinematic portraiture and journalism. See the twelve portraits and stories by clicking here.

Catskills, meet your new slogan

By Lissa Harris
8/27/12 - 10:39 am

"The Catskills: Always In Season."

Get ready to see it on bumper stickers, billboards, ad campaigns, and anything else a bunch of marketers can think of. That's the slogan that got Arkville's Jenn Nolan $1,500 from the Catskill Park Resource Foundation on Saturday, in a contest to come up with a new brand for the Catskills region.

According to a press release picked up by the Daily Freeman and the Daily Star, 733 people cast votes online in the contest -- which, if you figure that there were 3,714 slogans entered, probably means that not everybody who entered bothered to vote. But Nolan's emerged as the clear winner, with just over 44 percent of the vote.

The four runners-up:

"The Catskills: Time For An Altitude Adjustment"

"Find Yourself In The Catskills"

"The Catskills: So Near, Yet So Far Out"

"The Catskills: Peaks Of Perfection." Read more

Hein signs Ulster County ban on the spread of fracking brine

By Lissa Harris
8/23/12 - 4:28 pm

Above: Ulster County executive Mike Hein at the county Department of Public Works substation in New Paltz, flanked by county legislators Ken Wishnick and Hector Rodriguez. Photo courtesy of Hein's office.

Today, Ulster County Executive Mike Hein signed into law a bill by the Ulster County Legislature banning the use of "frac brine" -- the wastewater that is a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing -- as a de-icer on county roads.

The bill was passed by the county legislature in July. Earlier in the year, Hein also issued an executive order banning the use of frac brine on county roads.

In addition to banning the use of brine on county roads, the law requires bidders on relevant county projects state that fracking brine is not used, and imposes both civil and criminal penalties on violations of the ban. If convicted under the law, contractors that spread brine on county roads could face fines of $25,000 per incident and up to 15 days in jail. Read more

Shale gas drilling before Labor Day?

By Lissa Harris
8/7/12 - 12:39 pm

This week's must-read story for upstate New York: An editorial by Times Union columnist Fred LeBrun, titled "End of the anti-frack world is near." In it, LeBrun claims that a gubernatorial plan to greenlight hydraulic fracturing by the time the leaves start turning is a done deal:

For those desperately hoping against hope that high volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing for natural gas will be blocked from coming into New York state, sorry. For you, the end of the world arrives before Labor Day.

Top state officials are in the process of briefing selected environmental groups on a plan to be publicly released in a couple of weeks. It's a plan that unsurprisingly endorses hydrofracking, initially on a limited basis, supposedly under the tightest regulatory and permitting requirements in the country. Read more

Ends tonight: The “Catskills Great Outdoor Experience” Photo Contest, sponsored by Peekamoose Restaurant

By Julia Reischel
8/7/12 - 11:32 am

Above: “The Huckleberry Brook Dancing Bear,” by David Barry, winner of the 2011 Watershed Post’s “Best-Kept Secret in the Catskills” photo contest. Submit your photo to the 2012 "Great Outdoors Experience" photo contest and win a dinner at Peekamoose.

To celebrate the Central Catskills Great Outdoors Experience Festival (coming on August 25), we're having a photo contest, sponsored by Peekamoose Restaurant & Tap Room. The deadline to submit your photo is tonight, August 7, at midnight. Read more

125th Ulster County Fair kicks off today

By Andrew Wyrich
7/31/12 - 10:52 am

Starting today at 4 p.m., Ulster County will be buzzing with humming motors, fried food, and live music as the 125^th annual Ulster County Fair begins.

This year, over 45,000 people are expected to wander through the lines of rides and vendors at the Ulster County Fairgrounds in New Paltz by the time the gates close on Aug. 5.

The fair, which is managed and promoted by the Ulster County Agricultural Society is aimed at informing the public in the fields of agriculture, horticulture, and animal husbandry, according to the Ulster County Fair website.

For more information on admission pricing, special offers and a schedule, see the fair's website, or a story in today's Daily Freeman.