Above: An underground natural gas pipeline right-of-way after completion. Photo courtesy of FERC.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is holding public hearings on whether or not to issue a permit to the Constitution Pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that seeks to break ground through Delaware, Schoharie, Broome and Chenango counties this year. The agency has also extended its public comment period on the pipeline until Feb. 27, 2015. 

The pipeline cleared its main federal hurdle, approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), on Dec. 2. 

Since then, it has been moving aggressively to force reluctant landowners along the 124-mile route to cooperate. The pipeline has filed 121 eminent domain lawsuits against property owners along the route who don't want the pipeline to cross their land.

The state commission that disciplines judges found that Judge Richard L. Gumo, the acting judge in the village of Walton, committed misconduct during a case in which he sentenced a Walton woman to 15 days in jail for swearing in public.

Gumo demonstrated “insensitivity to his ethical obligations” during and after the case, according to a determination of admonition issued by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct on Dec. 30, 2014 and released to the public on Jan. 8, 2015.

Carl F. Becker, a Delaware County Court judge who received an “inappropriate” letter from Gumo about the case, filed the complaint with the commission. The letter contained “self-serving advocacy” and “sarcasm" and was written “in a fit of pique,” according to the commission.

Reached by phone, Gumo told the Watershed Post that he was “not permitted by law to make a comment” about the case.

Above: Raw honey made by bees at Westwind Orchard in Accord. Photo via the Westwind Orchard website. 

Westwind Orchard, an organic farm in the Ulster County hamlet of Accord, has won a 2015 Good Food Award for its raw unpasteurized honey.

Farmers Fabio Chizzola and Laura Ferrara, city transplants who have spent twelve years turning their derelict apple orchard into a popular U-Pick apple attraction, should be proud.

Bees and apple blossoms go together well, according to Chizzola on the Westwind Orchard website: 

Above: Forecasted windchill temperatures for Thursday, Jan. 8, from the National Weather Service's Binghamton office.

Several Catskills school districts have announced delays for Thursday, Jan. 7 because of frigid temperatures expected on Wednesday night and Thursday morning.

In Greene County, the Greene, Catskill and Cairo-Durham schools have all announced two-hour delays, according to CBS 6's StormWatch page.

In Sullivan County, Sullivan County West is also on a two-hour delay, according to the school's website. 

For four years, the name of a priest found responsible for sexually abusing minors has adorned the front of his parish's community center in the Delaware County village of Margaretville. Even after the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany removed Robert H. Purcell from the ministry and forbade him from using the title “Reverend,” the imposing metal letters that spelled out “Very Rev. Robert H. Purcell” remained set in stone.

Until Sunday, Jan. 4, six months after Purcell’s death, when church officials announced the sign would be removed. Steven Scarmozzino, the current priest, made the announcement at Mass on Sunday morning at the Sacred Heart Parish in Margaretville. By the end of the day, the letters were pried off, leaving only a rusty shadow on a blank stone behind.

Church officials did not give a specific reason for the sign’s removal, and have not linked it directly with Purcell’s stained legacy.

Six years, two sex abuse scandals