My name is Marian Rose. I’m president of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition (CWCWC).

 

Historically, our purpose has been to preserve the quality of our drinking water, here in the Croton Watershed. Thoughtless development can pollute our streams, our groundwater and reservoirs on which we depend here locally, and which also supply NYC residents with as much as 30% of their drinking water in times of drought. This common concern is shared by our individual members and by our over 50 member groups here in Putnam, Westchester and NYC.

 

We believe that this proposed development will have devastating impacts on the quality of life of residents throughout this area. CWCWC has confronted dozens of developments in the Croton Watershed. We have never encountered one as inappropriate or as potentially damaging as this one. Because of these concerns, CWCWC has engaged several expert consultants. Our opposition to this development is based on sound knowledge and sound reasoning.  We shall be submitting these expert comments to the lead agency, in conjunction with our own written comments.

 

In our opinion, the impacts from this proposed development will be so severe that we urge the Patterson Planning Board, the lead agency, to simply deny a permit for the development as it stands and to demand an SEIS for a drastically reduced proposal.

 

Tonight, several of our members and expert consultants will be speaking about the unworkable traffic plan; the deficient proposal for sewage treatment; the poorly mitigated noise impacts; the inadequate stormwater plan. Furthermore, some of the legal problems with this proposal will be discussed by our attorney, Jim Bacon.

 

I’d like to summarize just a few of the many concerns that CWCWC has with this project.

 

We are often told that the developer has rights. We agree – of course a developer has rights. But, mere ownership of a piece of property does not confer the right to harm one’s neighbors. Yet, this is precisely what this development will do.

·        This development can cause these local country roads to become dangerously congested. This will happen unless the developer pays in a timely fashion and in full for the needed improvements at the various traffic intersections and elsewhere along the roads, as described in the DEIS. Simply because he owns the property, the developer has no right to cause road congestion that will most likely only be mitigated at some later date, when the developer is gone, leaving the cost and the tax burden to the local residents.

·         Over 60 acres of a thickly forested area will be eliminated. Among other superb benefits, forests absorb sound. This forest will be replaced by a huge shopping mall that will generate noise from tens of thousands of cars and trucks. Simply because he owns the property, the developer has no right to significantly increase noise levels in the neighboring quiet, semi-rural community.

·        The developer is proposing a highly questionable underground system for treating 11,000 gpd of raw sewage that could eventually, by the admission of his own consultant, reach the groundwater and affect the neighbors’ properties. Simply because he owns the property, the developer has no right to put the neighbors’ wells at risk.

·        The developer is submitting a manifestly inadequate stormwater pollution prevention plan that uses inaccurate input data and fudges the final results so that no conclusions can be drawn regarding an increase or decrease in phosphorus pollution to Lake Carmel, or the Middle Branch and the East Branch Reservoirs. Using the accurate input data, phosphorus levels will increase. Under the new Phase 2 stormwater regulations, the Towns of Patterson and Kent will then be obliged to install stormwater devices to reduce the phosphorus.   Simply because he owns the property, the developer has no right to cause this extra cost to the towns which translates into an extra tax burden on the residents.

·        The proposal calls for the destruction of over 60 acres of a steeply-sloped, thickly-forested hill, an integral part of the scenic Hudson Highlands, and deface it with 34 acres of impervious surfaces that include extended parking lots and Big Box buildings. This will necessitate the drilling and blasting of 447,500 cubic yards of soil, 119,000 cubic yards of rock, which together would cover a football field to a depth of 106 feet. According to the applicant, the work will be carried out six full days per week; mitigation will consist of not working on Sundays and holidays -- and this would not even serve some real public need such as a school or hospital. Simply because he owns the property, the developer has no right to ruthlessly destroy acres of superb scenery and forested land that protects the neighboring lake community from the noise and pollution of a major highway

·        And finally, the developer has no right to cause a decrease in the value of neighboring homes by destroying the peace and quiet and beautiful landscape that these homeowners now enjoy, and replacing it with impervious surfaces, noise, air and water pollution, and traffic congestion.

 

We urge the lead agency to deny this devastating proposal and to demand that the applicant prepare an SEIS together with plans for a drastically reduced project.

 

 

Marian H. Rose, Ph.D.

President, CWCWC