Below: Live blog coverage of the NYPA's public meeting in Schoharie to discuss the power authority's response to flooding during the Irene floods, August 28, 2011. Feel free to join in the conversation, or if you're on Twitter, we're using the hashtag #nypa.
Today, the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a division of the US Department of Agriculture, announced that it is setting aside $31.5 million in disaster aid for projects sponsored by local town, city, county or tribal governments in New York State.
From a press release from the NRCS:
In New York, the Emergency Watershed Protection (EWP) program has $31.5 million available to local units of government for addressing public safety and restoration efforts on public, private and Tribal lands. When funding is allocated to a project, NRCS works with a project sponsor to contract the heavy construction work, spurring creation of jobs. Typical projects funded under EWP include the protection of threatened infrastructure from continued streambank erosion and stream down-cutting.
At 1pm, the Daily Freeman will be livestreaming video of Congressman Maurice Hinchey's announcement that he will not seek reelection in 2012. Click here to watch in real time.
This morning, the Times-Union broke the news that the Congressman's wife, Allison Lee Hinchey, was arrested last night for drunk driving after a minor car accident. This is Hinchey's second DUI arrest in eight months.
A tragic accident claimed the life of a Hunter Mountain employee on the mountain yesterday morning: 41-year-old Brian Mattice of Gilboa.
Police say Mattice slipped on ice and fell down a steep slope while working with snow-making equipment, and died on the scene.
From the New York State Police:
Above: A Flickr slideshow of photos from Catskills FarmLink landowners and farmers. The first photo is of Michelle Premura, a landowner who has listed 13 acres between Delhi and Stamford on the FarmLink website. Click on individual photos to see the captions.
After graduating from West Point Academy and serving in the army for five years, Julie Zavage pursued a degree in organic agriculture from Colorado State University. Two internships and an apprenticeship later, the 30-year-old is ready to start her own vegetable farm. But Zavage doesn't own land, nor does she have the money to buy it. Leasing land is her only option.
So she turned to Catskills FarmLink, a new local website aimed at connecting would-be farmers with landowners, for help.
“I'm typical of many farmers of my generation,” she said. “We have the desire and ability to do the work and do it sustainably, but we don't have the money to buy the land we need.”
Last weekend, musicians, artists, and performers gathered in venues around Shandaken to perform during the Shandaken Pan Arts Festival. Here are a few highlights from the week-long artistic bacchanalia.
First, above, 7-year-old Noel Fletcher performs at The Arts Upstairs Gallery in Phoenicia on January 14, 2012. The song, "I'm From the Sun," is by Gustafer Yellowgold. Video shot by Karen Charman.
Below: Dave Channon, the coordinator of the Shandaken Pan Arts Festival, plays the kazoo at the feet of the Steam Punk altar as Mary Herrmann looks on during the Vaudeville Comes to Pine Hill event on January 15, 2012. Photo by Rusty Mae Moore.
A breaking-news tweet from DC news blog Politico a few minutes ago:
Wonder what @MikeHeinForExec thinks of this. Though he did have a few words on the topic for Hudson Valley Magazine, in this month's issue:
And although [Mike Hein] has been approached about higher office — he was rumored to be on the short list for Andrew Cuomo’s lieutenant governor and admits to being asked to run for Congress — he demurs. “That’s all very flattering,” he says, “but I got into government to make a difference for the people of Ulster County.”
CBS Channel 6 reports that a construction rig tipped over at the Gilboa Dam this morning, injuring a worker.
A statement via email from Michael Saucier, spokesman for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which owns and operates the dam:
There was a minor incident of equipment tipping over; no one was seriously injured and that this will not likely impact the timeline of the project. The operator of the rig was walking around after the incident but is going to hospital for evaluation. There is no damage to the dam itself.
Today, a wide swath of the Internet and web tech community is joining a digital protest of a pair of bills currently under consideration by Congress: the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate.
The bills are intended to combat piracy and illegal downloading, by giving the U.S. Attorney General a variety of tools for combating foreign websites that host pirated content, including the power to disable access to the sites by blocking their domain names.
But the bills also contain far-reaching language that imposes new legal requirements and liabilities on domestic websites -- including sites not accused of piracy, which could face enforcement action simply by linking to offending sites. From a New York Times story published today about the bills:
