| Watershed Post

Feral pigs running wild in Sullivan County

Video: Part 1 of A Pickup Load of Pigs: The Feral Swine Pandemic, a three-part series produced by the Mississippi State University Extension Service. More from the series available here.

Feral pigs are gaining a foothold in western Sullivan County and other places in New York State -- and without much in the way of state resources to control them, the job of keeping their numbers from exploding is falling to private citizens.

This week, a story in the Times Herald-Record features local farmer Peter Andersen, who also starred in a Reuters story about the pig plague earlier this year. His fields are being overrun by wild boars, and recently, reporter Adam Bosch writes, he killed eight of them in one night:

In two minutes, he fired nine shots and killed eight pigs. He also proved two points:

"I'm a very good shot," Andersen said with a serious chuckle, "and these animals need to be destroyed."

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FEMA sends temporary housing units to New York State

Photo of temporary housing units in North Carolina by FEMA.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced last week that they are delivering temporary housing units to Cobleskill, to be distributed to flood victims in New York State who cannot find available housing within their communities.

Those in need of housing should register with FEMA, and the agency will conduct a temporary housing needs assessment. If no rental units in the area are available, a temporary housing unit will be delivered and set up in a site approved by FEMA.

FEMA spokesperson Christopher Mckniff said that at least 50 temporary housing units were being deployed to Cobleskill. Mckniff said that the design of the temporary housing units had been updated since the Katrina disaster, when FEMA trailers became a ubiquitous sight throughout flood-ravaged New Orleans.

"It's not a trailer that you could hook onto a truck or a car and drive off. It's more of a prefab structure," said Mckniff. "It's a winterized, manufactured home."

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Brooklyn Bottling Co. damaged by fire

A fire that broke out at the Brooklyn Bottling Co. in Milton in the early evening on Sunday, October 2 has damaged the building and temporarily shut down the factory, the Times Herald-Record reports.

[Milton fire chief Stephen] Kneeter said 15 fire agencies responded and eleven companies actually battled the blaze for 90 minutes while four companies were put on standby. He said firefighters were concerned when they entered the smoke-filled building, which contains chemicals and a natural gas feed. Flames did get into the roof and soffits.

“It is not a pretty scene,” Kneeter said.

YNN has video footage from the scene of the fire.

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AP: Floods had little effect on NYC tapwater

Photo by Flickr user D. Sharon Pruitt. Published under Creative Commons license.

The Associated Press reports that although the recent flooding has stirred up New York City's water system considerably, and required the city to do some extra chlorination, it hasn't affected the quality of the unfiltered water coming out of the taps:

High counts of bacteria from human or animal waste appeared initially in the water system after the flooding. The water was treated with slightly more chlorine than usual in Westchester County. The coliform levels in the upstate system have since come down, [Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Farrell Sklerov] said.

The disinfection process prevented a health risk, Sklerov said.

"We know the storm doesn't actually have an impact on water that makes it into people's taps," he said.

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NYC Department of Environmental Protection

nyc watershed

Department of Environmental Conservation

Home Cookin': Troubled Waters

Ellen Verni has been writing "Home Cookin'," her column of Catskills recipes and rumination, for 24 years. She is sharing some of her archived columns with the Watershed Post. You can get more of Verni on her blog, at homecookincolumn.blogspot.com.

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Fun and Health in Phoenicia

This weekend in Phoenicia should be good for both one’s body and soul -- that is, if Celtic Music and healing arts like acupuncture do well for whatever might ail you. Maxanne Resnick was good enough to forward this announcement to our attention, and for that we are appreciative:

“The FREE Hurricane Irene Holistic Outreach Clinic has been extended due to increasing demand.

We will be at Parish Hall every Sunday from 3-6pm through October 23. (10/1, 10/9, 10/16, 10/23)

Treatments are FREE and no appointments are necessary. At each clinic there will be a mix of practitioners ranging from acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, EFT, energy healing, and more.

Please help us spread the word- tell your friends and neighbors!”

This is an incredibly generous offer, from all of those involved, to our community in a time of general need. Don’t hesitate to make good use of it. Sharing is a big part of what makes a community heal.

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Dispatches From Shandaken

Middleburgh update: Businesses opening and a party planned

Above: The main shopping district in Middleburgh one month ago. The water rose almost 6 feet high in the street-level buildings. Photo by Marty Rosen.

Matt Avitabile, the volunteer coordinator (and village trustee) for the village of Middleburgh in Schoharie County, sent us an update this week about how his village is doing in the wake of Irene.

Middleburgh, like its neighboring villages in the Schoharie Valley, was inundated during the storm. A month later, Avitabile reports, things are slowly getting better, enough so that the village is throwing a party for flood cleanup next weekend.

Here's Avitabile's report:

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Benefit Concert for the Catskills

Onteora facing empty coffers

The Onteora School District could be broke by 2016, according to a financial expert who addressed the school board on Wednesday. According to the Daily Freeman, Richard Timbs, the financial advisor, had dire news:

If the district continues on its present course, Timbs said his model projects, the district’s reserves will be fully drained by 2016, assuming 2 percent annual tax increases under the cap, and by 2017, the district could run an $11.38 million deficit.

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Onteora Central School District

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Windham's 2011 Autumn Affair - Resolve and Celebration

Photos from Windham Chamber of Commerce website.

The recent flooding from Irene and Lee has showed that tragedy can join people in positive ways. In the hard-hit town of Windham, many people have been talking about how the floods were not going to affect the Windham Autumn Affair. They were right: The Windham Autumn Affair will proceed as planned Columbus Day Weekend.

Don Muccilli, Vice Chairman of the Windham Chamber of Commerce, sent me an email about the significance of this year's festival that I share with you below.

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Windham Autumn Affair

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