Not bad for a tiny little town that wants to revitalize its movie theater. From an email that the Collective sent out this morning: 

We did it!  Out of 362 projects across the United States competing for a $50,000 Pepsi Refresh Grant, the Rosendale Theatre Collective has finished in the number one spot. The Collective wants to thank profusely all of the supporters who made the effort to vote throughout April. An estimated 3,000 votes each day were needed to secure a top ten spot.

Local officials in Greene County are mounting an effort to get the DEC to reconsider their decision to close the Devil's Tombstone campground. From the Windham Journal:

The campground, located amidst Route 214’s Stony Clove, has been slated for closure along with six others throughout the state due to a massive $8 billion state budget deficit.

“It’s unfortunate that the fiscal shape of New York finds itself that a proposal would be present to close some of our open space, day use and camping areas,” said Hunter Town Supervisor Dennis Lucas. “We have built around economy around our open spaces.”

Earlier: Devil's Tombstone, Bear Spring Mountain to be closed this year.

Call it builder's remorse. Many years ago, the town of Ashland hopelessly contaminated its underground water supply, and the town's few hundred residents have been paying the price ever since. At last, relief is in sight, though it's going to be expensive: The USDA is going to spend almost $3 million putting in a new water system, the Catskill Daily Mail reports.

Water has to be imported to wash the town's fire trucks, which would corrode otherwise, and trying to keep washing machines and boiler pipes from swiftly rusting out is a losing battle.

Nobody is certain why everything went bad. The prevailing theory is that newer, deeper wells, drilled 80 feet down and more, tapped into nasty minerals that seeped into the underground network.

Increased housing development in the hills beyond the town may have stirred things up, with more wells and re-directed storm runoff disturbing the liquid depths in ways unseen.

Blue Mtn. Photos found a hidden waterfall in Blue Mountain, near Saugerties, last week and snapped this photo of it, which he posted to the Watershed Post Flickr pool. He says that it wasn't easy to get the shot:

I think it's just over the County line into Green County. Taken off the narrow road bridge ...  All the properties nearby were posted, so this was all I could get.

If you have a Catskills photo you'd like to see on the Watershed Post, post in in our Flickr photo group pool.