MINUTES for Tuesday 2/27/24
Town of Rochester Environmental Conservation Commission

Location: Community Center: 15 Tobacco Rd. Accord Time: 6:00 PM

Members in Attendance: Todd Anderson, Kurt Sutherland, Judith Karpova, John Messerschmidt, James Easely
Members of the Public in Attendance: Ann Belmont, Meg Smith

Chair Report:
More people are coming to the meetings, and we want everyone’s voices to be heard but still end the meeting at a reasonable hour. John will open the doors 20 minutes early so we can set up the tables, socialize and still start the meetings on time. Please try to arrive early, tighten up on tangents and side talk, and get to the point when it’s your turn, so we don’t feel like we must rush through everything. John will be the traffic cop!

Report from the Vice Chair: Contacted Deb Medenbach, Chair of the TOR Historic Preservation Commission re: a joint ECC- HPC Earth Day event, awaiting her response.

Town Board Liaison Erin Enouen Report: Erin not present
Approve Minutes: Minutes from December 2023 and January 2024 were approved.

Ulster County Environmental Management Council Report, James Easely
Meeting January 31, 2024
Guest Speaker: Lucas Carillo of Dam Good Farm in Wallkill, spoke about small acreage organic farming, and community composting. The Town of Shawangunk pays Lucas to collect food scraps around the Hamlet of Wallkill once or twice per week.
Department of the Environment (DoE):
• Ulster County DoE is doing a county-wide Greenhouse Gas Inventory by municipality. The results will be on the County website. This data may be used by local Climate Smart Community taskforces.
• DoE has completed the County Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) and it is available on the County website. The NRI can be used by towns for Comprehensive Planning, Open Space Planning, site plan review, SEQR, etc
• DoE has completed a draft Hazard Mitigation Plan for the County. Response plans for each Town are listed and a summary of Prioritization of Actions for improvement is given.
• Legislature Report: “Better Bottle Bill” and “Packaging Reduction and Recycling Act” are being worked on in both houses. The Legislature is calling on the EPA to take additional action on PCB cleanup from Hudson River.
• Shawangunk – Open Space Institute continues working on completion of the Rail Trail.
• Gardiner – The town is drafting a wetlands law.
• Hurley – The Town is looking at Superfund designation for a Perfluorooctanic acid (PFOA) leachate site.
• Wawarsing – Rail trail improvement planning is ongoing. A solar developer is looking at a project on/near the Catskill/Shawangunk Greenway.
• Comments on Report: UC Dept. of the Environment an excellent resource. County Natural Resource Inventory available.

Upcoming Events:
• Earth Day ’24 – We will partner up with Historic Preservation Commission for an event. Michael Gaige is not available. We’ll need another idea. John to ask Baden if we can buy seed packets from our budget.
Website:
The theme of the new website is to be an information hub for the community on everything we are working on. ECC members will choose any of the points below and begin gathering information that we can give to the web designer when they are ready for it. Goal is to have all text prepared by March.
• Who we are (Mission Statement): Ann will email amended Mission Statement to everyone, people will respond to entire group with suggestions.
• Commission Members: Same as on current website
• Contact: Meeting Dates: Same as on current website
• Third Thursday link: Same as on current website
• Join the ECC
Pollinator Pathway page:
• Lists of native plants and species they attract John will supply
• Add information about invasive plants
• Links to non-profit organizations related to pollinator friendly/native plants
• Links to books and articles
• In person consultants, with links: Everyone will send their resources to Judith, who will compile them and give them to Erin. John will reach out to Catskill Native Nursery. They are not limited to Town of Rochester businesses or people.
Events Page:
• Past events with photos and description: John has photos of past events and will send to Erin.
• Future events with description and dates
Get Involved Page:
• Text should emphasize that “We’re here to listen” and list some of the concerns people have brought to us.
• Neonics campaign: Jim will provide information about this.
• Enterococcus campaign
• Who are our representatives in government, what district are we in: Kurt will do this.
• Other environmental groups where people can donate or get involved.
• Local environmental concerns
• Join the ECC
Logo:
• We will not use the logo previously proposed. John will go to Mike Baden to see if we can have and if we have a budget for it.

Old Business
• Pollinator Pathway:
o Discussed soliciting endorsements promoting the town as a Pollinator Pathway, getting known/already existing native pollinator gardens to join the national database, and getting new people to plant new gardens. What exactly we are asking for?
o Judith will apply for another One Tree Planted Event Grant.
• Pollinator Gardens: Discussion of expanding the pollinator pathway garden at Town Hall. Kurt wants to be involved in this.
• Neonics Round Table: No action taken on this.
• Plastic Bag Collection: The plastic bag recycling program will restart on April 1st Saturday.
• Enterococcus: Rondout Creek is unsafe for swimming. Riverkeeper has been testing for 10 yrs or so, but no one has done or is doing anything to make it safe. Larry spoke with Ben Gannon of the DEC, who is still uncertain of the source of this contaminant. He will next contact Riverkeeper for raw data so it can be re-organized to show where it’s clean, dirty, and where it gets contaminated after a rain.
• Watershed Preserve: John will present Michael Gaige proposal to Rep Baden.
• Toxic dumping: John will discuss with Rep Baden

Meeting adjourned at 7:45 pm