SamPratt.com

Dogs and woodchucks, living together

A small number of the few remaining copies of The Woodchuck’s launch issue are now available for sale at The Spotty Dog in Hudson, for $5 each (440 Warren Street, between 4th and 5th).

Also, a very basic webpage has been created to archive the list of articles in each issue. But as before, the content of the broadsheet is only available in print.

 

 

Coming soon, in print only

The first issue of my new quarterly broadsheet is at the printers, and will be available soon—by request only. None of the content of The Woodchuck will be available online. If you wish to request a sample copy, please email your snail mail address by clicking here.

The premiere issue includes:

• Spike Vrusho’s column about driving a taxi in the mid-Hudson Valley; 
• A review of Jen Beagin’s Hudson-centric novel, Big Swiss;
• Tool recommendation: Kindling Cracker XL;
• Why Thoreau was wrong about how to live the simple life.

Earth to solar opponents: Don’t ruin it for everyone

Note: The following is an expanded version of an opinion piece I wrote for a recent issue of The Columbia Paper. Some additional information has been added, along with some useful links.

When ordinary citizens reach out for help on a big local problem, they often get brushed off. The same politicians, regulators and nonprofits who profess to protect our Valley tend to be unresponsive—at least, until the issue spills into the streets and splashes across front pages.

I know what that experience can be like. Locally, I’ve been involved with campaigns to stop a dry cleaning waste dump at the Hudson waterfront, the rebuild of a PCB facility which exploded in Ghent, and a massive coal-fired cement plant.

Each time, it took way too long to get traction with the powers that be. So I try my best to take distress calls from folks facing serious community issues.

However, there is one type of distress call I’ll hang up on: the ones which start with “Solar fields are ruining my community!” As one thoughtful Copake resident put it, “Everyone wants sustainability, but no one wants to see it.”

Why no sympathy for solar opponents? Our news this summer is full of dire portents of far worse things to come. If it’s not another drought, heatwave or wildfire, it’s a flood, hurricane or tornado. We barely even pay attention to the latest collapse of another vast ice shelf.

Global warming is speeding up, not slowing down. Its effects are hitting sooner than expected, even as we miss every target for recycling, sustainability and clean energy—such as solar.

The generation now in school may be the last to experience the comforts that many Americans (certainly not all) grew accustomed to between 1950-2020. Today’s kids and grandkids will witness entire regions becoming unlivable, with all the ensuing shortages, chaos and violence.

Think supply chains are disrupted now? As natural disasters escalate, food and water supplies dry up. Basic goods, parts and materials become unobtainable. Eventually, this leads to civil wars and genocidal scapegoating, as humans squabble over the remains of civilization.

Now, I’m familiar with the standard arguments against solar projects. Let’s run through a few:

1. “We’re losing all our farms!” Really? The last USDA census showed that Columbia County gained 4,000 acres of farmland from the prior five years. Meanwhile, devoting some land to solar may actually allow farms to stay afloat. But maybe you would rather the farm sold to some giant vinyl “townhome” development, generating tons of traffic and draining the water table?
2. “We’re losing local control!” Yes, the State has assumed some responsibility for solar permitting, but only for the largest utility-grade projects. Barely any of these are proposed locally. With most projects, local boards retain powers to extract concessions: low-cost electricity for residents, large buffer areas, non-token screening, and bonds ensuring cleanup if it’s ever decommissioned. Clearly, some planning boards do a better job than others… So by all means, go to meetings and demand sound siting and benefits. Don’t just reflexively oppose it.
3. “They’re spoiling our community character”! Fleeting windshield glimpses of solar fields won’t ruin your town. Doing nothing about global warning will. Again, consider the alternative: If a big piece of land goes up for sale, solar is among the lowest-impact uses imaginable. Newer “agrivoltaic” projects even mix ag and solar, such as sheep grazing between the panels.

This summer, I toured a large solar array under construction. It’s well-sited on commercial land, with large buffers. It will be barely visible, and offer reduced electricity rates for locals. The owners live nextdoor. As construction was wrapping up, there were still over 50 workers onsite, earning high wages. And by the way, virtually every worker I saw was a person of color. Whether this was company policy or accidental, it’s good to see a local development lifting more than the usual boats.

At my own home, I’ve installed a modest number of panels to reduce my carbon footprint and become more personally self-sufficient. Community self-reliance is one broad goal we can all get behind, both left and right. With Columbia County’s low population, large forests and plentiful farmland, we might eventually manage to supply our own needs. I’m much less confident about the rest of the world.

But not everyone has the time or cash to grow their own food, chop their own wood and install their own solar. Community and other public solar projects allow everyone to participate in a solution.

So those opposing solar need to ask themselves: How will future generations remember us?

Will our descendants be thankful for our late but dramatic responses to this crisis, or curse our decades of complacency? Will they pine for the wise counsel of their elders, or lament our selfish short-sightedness?

What does “ruin” really mean to you?

 

County Dems endorse Cochrane over Herman, Portin for judge

According to Columbia County Democratic Committee members in attendance, attorney Heidi Cochrane of Hillsdale was endorsed over Brian Herman of Copake to be the party’s 2022 nominee for State Supreme Court justice, by a weighted vote of nearly 2-to-1.

A third candidate, Mark Portin of Ghent, dropped out just before the vote, but not before giving a speech to complain about what he apparently considered an overly-elaborate selection process. (Portin’s close friend Cheryl Roberts similarly sought a judicial nomination several years ago, also without success.)

Attorney Heidi Cochrane

Election to the State Supreme Court for the 3rd Judicial District bestows a 14-year term upon the victor. New York has a whopping 324 justices serving in 14 districts. Despite the name, it is not the State’s highest court; that would be the Court of Appeals.

Cochrane’s party nomination still has to go before the larger Democratic convention for the district, which sprawls across several counties; and then she has to run in the November General Election. By a Tammanyesque tradition, each county Democratic Committee in the district takes a turn selecting a judicial candidate across multiple cycles, rather than finding the best candidate districtwide ... And this time it is Columbia’s turn.

During the week prior to the vote, it was rumored that Herman might continue to seek the nomination even if the CCDC rejected him, but it is unclear if he intends to follow through on that threat.

Herman, who campaigned aggressively and negatively for the nod, was seen leaving the meeting prior to the vote and was not spotted afterward. The vote was secret, but based on remarks by members his scattered support appeared to come primarily from Copake, Hudson and Stuyvesant. Encomia from Abdus Miah, Lee Jamison and Malcolm Nance failed to carry the day.

No word of a Republican candidate has reached this site’s ears.

The Glacier Cometh

 

Take a moment to ponder this astonishing statistic: Columbia County’s population has not even doubled since 1800. 221 years ago, there were 35,000 people here. Today, there are about 63,000.

 

This one statistic explains 95% of why our area is now viewed as so “desirable.” Sure, we have a National Heritage River, great scenery, ruggedly beautiful terrain, plenty of agriculture, and lots of historic buildings. But it would be hard to notice any of those things if local population had kept pace with the rest of the nation. We would have hundreds of thousands, or even millions of residents (proportionally speaking). It would take an hour to drive from Hudson to Hillsdale.

 

How long can that last?

 

There is a population glacier to our south, and it is creeping northward. Has been for decades.

 

Events like 9/11 and COVID cause The Glacier to leap ahead, then settle down and resume its slow creep. Longtime residents get alarmed by the big leaps, then go back to sleep and take less notice of the steady glacial deposits.

 

With more climate, economic and other disasters (recently, the subway and apartment floods in NYC), that constant northward flow will just keep coming, and accelerating.

 

Frankly, it’s futile to try to stop it. Yell on Facebook about “citiots,” reminisce about the (not so) Good Old Days, pray for them to go back to Brooklyn all you like.  It ain’t happening. The culture wars between old and new (and newer) may rage; but the changes will proceed without a pause. Glaciers can’t be stopped.

 

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It will not be surprising if mid-Hudson populations explode over the next 25 years. As New York City, Long Island and Westchester become less and less livable, the Taconic and I-87 will be the paths of least resistance for urban refugees (already are). Destinations within a three-hour drive north of the metroplex will keep filling up. It only takes a small percentage of residents from those areas to head north to abruptly transform low-density counties like ours.

 

For now, population has remained steady, in large part because the increase in households has been accompanied by a decrease in household size: There are more homes, but smaller families. Don’t expect that to continue.

 

The average family size will stay smaller than it was a few generations ago, but the number of families will keep growing. In Columbia County, 65,000 could easily become 125,000. People will wake up and lament, “What happened to the place I once knew?” as if they never saw it coming. And then look around for scapegoats to blame, other than ourselves.

 

Across the River, you’re already hearing a lot of grousing about developments like the “massive” Winston Farm project, which would cover some 800 acres. According to published reports, this would include not just standalone homes, but also multi-family units... along with “an indoor waterpark resort,” plus “job incubators, an amphitheater, event space, camping spaces and an old mansion on-site that would be turned into a boutique hospitality space.

 

Oh, and an “agrihood concept,” whatever that is.

 

All that sounds pretty undesirable, at least at this moment. Honestly, this observer doesn’t like it one bit. Nor should anyone buy the developer’s carefully-massaged sales pitch, cribbing buzzwords and concepts from “smart growth” advocates as selling points.

 

Still, Winston Farm may look tame or even enlightened in retrospect, compared to what else may be coming. The pressure to slam in half-acre cookiecutter developments is going to be immense in the coming years, as realtors run out of existing housing stock to sell.

 

Then distressed farms and other larger properties owners, unable to foot their tax bills, will be glad to cash out to developers. They’ll retire to the Carolinas or Florida… only to get their comeuppance from heat and hurricanes. But that’s another story.

 

City buyers who 20 years ago would not “settle” for less than a handsome falling-down farmhouse on 20+ acres may in another 20 years come to feel fortunate to find a condo within sight (and earshot) of the Parkway or Thruway. Beats living with an elevated train 10 feet outside your apartment window, not to mention floodwaters up to your knees. And empty grocery shelves. They’re not going to feed millions from bespoke rooftop gardens.

 

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Many fantasize that land trusts will save us from this quandary. Their project is to raise money from ultrarich residents to put farmland and forests out of the reach of developers. Problem is, most if not all of these trusts have highly corporate-friendly boards, who are as terrified of controversy as they are inclined to “compromise” with (read: reap major donations from) developers. Often, these boards are populated by developers themselves.

 

Covenants meant to protect open space forever will get modified or even abandoned as the land rush accelerates, greatly augmenting these trusts’ coffers. Release 200 acres here to development, then sprinkle a little of the developer’s donation on one corner of the land for a small public park or farmer’s market, to appease any pesky critics. As once said by Ned Sullivan of Scenic Hudson—who placidly made a deal with a fossil fuel power plant behind the backs of activists, in exchange for a multi-million donation to his organization: Development is something they only seek to manage, not oppose.

 

Such all-but-ineveitable sellouts will be justified as necessary triage. We’ll come to accept the “curation” of growth, and try to make the best of things. In reality, we would be relegated to selecting the least worst option.

 

So what can we do to prepare for the inevitable? For starters, certainly support local agriculture to lessen their temptation to sell to developers. Get as many of your groceries and other essentials from local sources.

 

While we’re at it, tell your neighbors hyperventilating about solar farms to knock it off. We are headed for not just global warming, but global catastrophe. Every inch of solar generation—whether it is located here, or in Nebraska, or Siberia—benefits everyone to the extent that solar replaces fossil fuels and the carbon emissions which result from them. It also helps keep space relatively unspoiled. Solar can always be pulled up, and the soil will still be there.

 

Also, tell your newly-minted neighbors—whether longtime locals, or new arrivals from Manhattan—to not just register to vote, but to vote in more than just national elections. As reported here, turnout from the 2020 Trump-Biden tilt dropped precipitously in 2021, dropping off 43% just a year later. This demonstrates that many voters have yet to understand that local elections actually affect their quality of life (and pocketbook) more than Federal ones.

 

If you want to be able to recognize this place in 20 years, get involved. Support better zoning and more sensible local officials. Oppose boneheaded ideas that would truly destroy the health and character of the area; don’t oppose trivialities. Rather than railing at out-of-place newcomers, or mocking the supposed backwardness of old-timers, focus on solutions that will meaningfully lessen the dramatic changes heading our way.

 

That should include relatively low-impact and contextual new housing stock, built while we still have time, not in a hurry... before the pressure reaches crisis levels, and every pasture gets turned into Levittown.