Pine Plains planning board and Carvel consultants discuss DEIS completeness requirements

By: Darryl Ganglof f Register Herald   February 16, 2006

The Pine Plains planning board discussed the level of detail expected by the environmental consultants of the Carvel property development in their Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) at its recent meeting.

The board was expecting to hear a presentation by Erik Kiviat, the executive director of Hudsonia and an environmental sub-consultant for the town, at its Feb. 8 meeting, but Kiviat was unable to attend due to a family medical emergency.
The purpose of Kiviat's presentation was to summarize his suggestions for additional environmental studies of the Carvel property.
Due to Kiviat's absence, the planning board turned to Karen Schneller-McDonald, an environmental consultant with Milan's town planner, for her views on the level of detail in the DEIS.
"I know you were involved with Erik's work," Chairman Don Bartles said, while acknowledging that he was putting McDonald on the spot without any preparation.
"The main point is that the issue of completeness is not resolved yet," McDonald said.
"We still need impacts regarding birds and amphibians. It's largely a matter of scale. This development requires a higher level of scrutiny," she said.
McDonald added that the DEIS needs to completely define the areas of disturbance for the site.
Bartles then allowed the Carvel consultants to explain their comments on the subject to the planning board.
Matthew Rudikoff, the environmental consultant for the Carvel project and president of Matthew D. Rudikoff Associates, said that he had given the board an organized matrix of the Carvel consultants' responses to Kiviat's comments.
Rudikoff and Joseph Bridges, the senior biologist for Matthew D. Rudikoff Associates, told the board that they had divided the comments into three categories.
Category A contains comments that do not require additional study. Category B is comprised of information that can be obtained from existing data sources and does not require additional surveys. Category C contains comments that will require further surveys of the site.
"As Matt indicated, we essentially looked at the comments and asked which were complete and which were substantive," Bridges said.
"When is enough for the purpose of SEQRA? We think we've met the purpose of SEQRA," he said, in referring to the State Environmental Quality Review Act.
For an example of a comment from Category A, Bridges mentioned Kiviat's comment that additional wetland studies are needed. Bridges said that very few wetland impacts are currently proposed for the project, and therefore does not require additional study.
Nan Stoltzenburg, the environmental consultant for Pine Plains, voiced her concerns about identifying species in the upland habitats on the site.
"That's a work in progress that appears in category B of our comments. That information can be given using existing data sources. No further surveys are necessary," Rudikoff said.
"When doing this field work, we put in thousands of hours. We needed to boil it down in a practical way, so all the data cannot be included. The point of category B is that we will add the necessary information from our data," Bridges said.
Bridges gave the example of the golden eagle survey. He noted that as many as three golden eagles have appeared on the east side of Stissing Mountain in the winter since 1970, but is unsure if they ever make their way to the Carvel site. Bridges said that they have enough information to elaborate on this species without a further survey.

Exhaustive? Encyclopedic?
"The work on this EIS is more extensive than normal for a project of this size. This level of detail is not normally seen in SEQRA," Rudikoff said.
According to Rudikoff, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refers to this level of detail as "exhaustive and encyclopedic." Rudikoff emphasized that this is not the purpose of a SEQRA review.
"The comment has come up many times about the level of detail with SEQRA. We need to answer this," Bartles said.
"The legal issue may be different from an ecological issue. I want enough information to know the habitat types, species, which species have endangered status, and the specific locations they could use," Stoltzenburg said.
Bridges response was that the consultants have a list of more than 400 species of plants, 200 species of animals, and 27 natural communities on the site.
Warren Replansky, the Pine Plains attorney, referred to SEQRA's official wording on EIS content.
"SEQRA says that EIS content should be analytical and not encyclopedic. It must be clearly and concisely written for the public. The EIS should not contain more detail than appropriate," Replansky said.
"I think the applicant is agreeing to do the analysis, but are additional surveys necessary?" he said, emphasizing the question that the board must answer.
McDonald agreed that the level of information could be considered encyclopedic, but said that her concern in this instance was that the Carvel consultants presented their data in a confusing fashion.
"Perhaps some of our comments refer to that," McDonald said.
The planning board came to the conclusion that Kiviat should be allowed to respond to this discussion on the level of detail for the DEIS.
Bartles extended an invitation to Kiviat to speak at the board's March 8 meeting, and to tailor his presentation toward a response to Carvel's consultants.

©The Register Herald 2006

AREA NEWSPAPER
CONTACT INFORMATION

ULSTER/ DUTCHESS

Poughkeepsie Journal
PO Box 1231
Poughkeepsie, NY 12602
(845) 454-2000
For an on line letter to the editor. Fill out this form

ULSTER COUNTY

Saugerties Times
Monday deadline
P.O.Box
Phone:334- 8200
FAX your letter 334-8202
saugertiestimes@ulsterpublishing
(Attention Erica Freudenberger, editor)
P.O.Box 3329
Kingston, NY 12402

Albany Times Union
Times Union
90 State Street
Albany, NY 12207
(518) 454-5091
For an on line letter to the editor. Fill out this form

COLUMBIA COUNTY
The Independent
Indenews (online)

P.O. Box 360
Hillsdale, NY 12529
Phone (518) 325-4400
FAX (518) 325-4497
Parry Teasdale, editor

letters to editor require form through website

***NOTE: Our websites make an effort to glean info for our readers from local papers. This is no way a substitute for subscribing or picking up a local paper. We gratefully acknowledge the efforts local newspapers and publications make to our community.