If you're in Kingston, and your barroom pickup lines usually involve something about the width of your backside cache, you might want to head down to Keegan Ales at 5:30. The Kingston Digital Corridor is whooping it up beer/geek style in what's becoming a regular tradition: Happier Hour.
New Yorkers with unpaid water bills collectively owe the DEP an astonishing $58.4 million. The agency announced this week that they're going after homeowners with delinquent water bills:
This is the first of a series of notifications to homeowners owing $500 or more for six months or longer in an effort to prevent water service terminations. Homeowners who do not promptly enter a payment plan with DEP or qualify for a Safety Net program will be scheduled to have their water and sewer services terminated starting April 7 and continuing through the fall on a rolling basis.
Earlier: Going up: NYC water rates
Chesapeake Energy, one of the major players in the rush to prospect for New York State's natural gas in the Marcellus Shale, recently made a big hire that's raising some eyebrows among conservationists: Paul Hartman, a former employee of The Nature Conservancy, is now director of New York state government relations for Chesapeake. From the Albany Times-Union:
Actually, the switch may not be as tough as it sounds: the Nature Conservancy has historically been known for purchasing land for preservation as much as trying to mold state policy. The various energy companies looking to drill also have to acquire property, or at least the mineral rights under a given piece of land.
One DWI wasn't enough for Adam Day, an 18-year-old from Cochecton who had too much to drink on Monday, The Times Herald-Record reports. Two hours after state troopers stopped him from driving in the Town of Thompson after watching him fail sobriety tests, he allegedly tried to drive away again, only to be caught in the act and arrested .
The Half Moon, a full-scale replica of the East India Trading Company yacht Henry Hudson sailed in 400 years ago, is taking on crew from April 9 to 11, as the ship moves from its winter quarters in Verplanck to Peckham Wharf in Athens.
New York History has a call for volunteers:
If you are interested in joining the voyage, contact Karen Preston at [email protected]. Be sure to include your full name, address, and telephone in your e-mail, and tell 'em we sent ya!
Photo of the Half Moon sailing on the Hudson by Flickr user Katy Silberger. Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/katysilbs/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Daily Freeman reports the town of Ulster is considering evacuations along Orlando Street because of Esopus Creek flooding.
The Ulster County Red Cross will be opening a shelter in Kingston at 6pm.
Below: Live updating graph from NOAA of water levels in the Esopus.
The fate of most of New York's state parks is still undecided until legislators and the Governor can agree on a budget, but the axe is already falling on some natural areas in the state. With the DEC facing staffing cuts (and, potentially, a vastly increased workload due to looming natural-gas drilling), the agency announced today that it is closing seven of the campgrounds and day use sites it manages in the Adirondacks and Catskills.
Delhi resident Keith Daury, whose backyard was overtaken by the swollen West Branch of the Delaware River this afternoon, decided to make the best of it. "I think I lost my picnic table," he said.
The Watershed Post is delighted to introduce our first columnist: Aaron Bennett of Catskill Mountainkeeper. Bennett’s job as regional director at CMK is to serve the “high peaks region” of the Catskill Mountains, which includes Delaware, Greene and Ulster counties. We’ll be featuring his column, View from the High Peaks, on a regular basis. If you’ve got a column idea for the Watershed Post, we’d like to hear from you, too. –Ed.
