Author name: Brian Brock

Residents of the hamlet of Treadwell have reached agreement with the Delhi Board of Education to transfer to the Town of Franklin the fields, playground, and tennis courts on the flood plain behind the new school building. These fifteen-plus acres would come with $920,000 to be put in trust for related expenses. The school property

Once upon a time in the far kingdom of Albany, the Division of Mineral Resources was required to write a guidance document on how to drill safely: the GEIS of 1992. (From its beginning, DMN had been charged with only maximizing production, minimizing waste, and protecting the rights of lease holders and land owners.) However,

Last year, the New York State Department of Transportation studied traffic running through the intersection of Routes 357 and 28 at the bottom of Franklin Mountain. In the last decade, there were 35 accidents (excluding collisions with deer) — ten times the accident rate at similar intersections. Contributing to these accidents is the limited visibility

It was best of roads, it was the worst of roads. Sanly Road runs some three miles from near the eastern end of Franklin Depot Road northward up the hill and then down five hundred feet to the middle of Merrickville Road. From Franklin Depot Road, it is a broad dirt road for 0.2 miles

Reluctant Regulator The oil and gas industry in New York State is only barely regulated. The Division of Mineral Resources (DMN) of the Department of Environmental Conservation is using regulations written largely in 1972, shortly after it was created. The only new regulations since then were written in 1986, dealing with the unusually high gas

New York is a state with strong home rule. Here local governments (county, town, and city/village) are granted broad powers to govern themselves. Under Article IX of our State Constitution as implemented by Municipal Home Rule Law, they can set up their own system of governing and ordinances. State approval is unnecessary, subject to excluding

The Treadwell Park The Franklin Village park, our first park in the town of Franklin, is less than a year old, and already there is talk of a second park in the hamlet of Treadwell. This park would be cut from the approximately 22 acres of school property by dividing it into two parcels after

A Cautionary Tale A new species of predator prowls our hills, stalking the unwary. They hunger not for your flesh, but for your signature. They’re called Landmen, and they want your land for gas drilling. They will try to get it for as little as possible: for as little money and as little protection for

Can the DEC do its job? If an energy company complies with the current Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS), then it can drill a conventional oil or gas well without a lengthy State Environmental Quality Review. The Supplemental GEIS will extend these conditions to cover “horizontal drilling and high-volume fracturing to develop Marcellus Shale and