Opposes trail structures in the Hudson River
At a Jan. 14 public hearing on the state environmental review of the proposed Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail, the environmental group Riverkeeper shared concerns over the plans and suggested alternatives.
Mike Dulong, the watchdog’s legal program director, said the organization is concerned that the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS) dismisses the impact of construction and shading that the trail could create and asked HHFT to avoid placing structures in or over the water.
The remote hearing, which drew 258 people over two sessions, was hosted by the state parks department, the lead agency for the environmental review.
Dulong said Riverkeeper, as a member of the HHFT Steering Committee, supported the Fjord Trail and its goals to increase public safety along Route 9D while providing opportunities for outdoor recreation, nature appreciation and education. He said many of the potential environmental impacts Riverkeeper identified could be avoided depending on the chosen route.
As proposed, the 7.5-mile Fjord Trail would link Cold Spring, Breakneck Ridge and Beacon. HHFT’s preferred southern route would include two half-mile sections over the river, one running south from Breakneck and the other from Dockside Park in Cold Spring to Little Stony Point. According to the plans, the construction would include 149 piles and 1,920 cubic yards of fill, which Riverkeeper fears will endanger shortnose and Atlantic sturgeon.
Read Riverkeeper’s Full Statement
Dulong said HHFT’s assertion that the shoreline in those sections is not within the sturgeon’s preferred habitat is incorrect. He said the DGEIS correctly states that the area from Denning’s Point in Beacon to Little Stony Point is designated as a “significant coastal fish and wildlife habitat” for sturgeon, adding that the state Department of Environmental Conservation describes it as “critical habitat for most estuarine-dependent fisheries originating from the Hudson River” because it “contributes directly to the production of in-river and ocean populations of food, game and forage fish species.”
The two in-river trail sections would require about 18 months to construct, according to HHFT. The shading, hydrological impacts on the shoreline and impacts on the ecosystem would also indirectly impact sturgeon, Dulong said.
In its comments, Riverkeeper also called for making wetland protection a priority in the northern section, where HHFT is considering two routes. It advocated avoiding a route that would include a boardwalk over a freshwater wetland south of Fishkill Creek that provides habitat for threatened and endangered species such as the eastern box turtle, spotted turtle, eastern hognose snake and pied-billed grebe.
Dulong said the possible presence of the Atlantic Coast leopard frog, which he said the DEC may add to its list of endangered species, should be considered. The group prefers the other proposed route, which it said could leave freshwater wetlands largely intact, although it requires further study.
Riverkeeper also objected to plans to add 22 acres of impervious or semipervious areas along the trail route, arguing that stormwater runoff from surfaces such as parking lots could increase contaminants entering the river and wetlands. Riverkeeper said it wants to see “minimal or no new impervious surfaces.”
The group also spoke against expanding the Washburn parking lot opposite Little Stony Point, which it said is a potential habitat for the eastern fence lizard.
Dulong said Riverkeeper’s comments at the public hearing were abridged, and its review of the DGEIS will continue.
HHFT Steering Committee
Project Lead
Scenic HudsonState Agencies
Environmental Conservation
Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
TransportationMetro Area Agencies
Metro-North Railroad
NYC Environmental ProtectionNonprofits
Hudson Highlands Land Trust
Lenape Center
Open Space Institute
Riverkeeper
New York-New Jersey Trail ConferenceMunicipalities
Village of Cold Spring
Town of Philipstown
Town of Fishkill
City of Beacon
Village of NelsonvilleCommunity Nonprofits
Friends of Fahnestock & Hudson Highlands State Parks
Little Stony Point Citizens Association
Town of Philipstown Greenway Committee
The Open Space Institute also offered feedback at the hearing. Matt Decker, its land project manager, said OSI “is an enthusiastic supporter” of the Fjord Trail, which he said will provide ecological benefits too numerous to mention in the two minutes each speaker was allowed. In a later email to The Current, Decker wrote that OSI views the trail as a way to “protect vulnerable species, safeguard against flooding and conserve and revitalize degraded habitat.”
OSI believes the trail will keep users away from sensitive, remote areas where hiking causes erosion and damages habitat. He also noted that the plans call for invasive plants along the route to be replaced by native species, including hundreds of trees and thousands of shrubs. The HHFT route will “avoid and protect habitat for wildlife including bald eagles, Indiana bats, fence lizards and sturgeon,” he said, and provide wildlife crossings to reduce human-wildlife interaction.
In an email to The Current, HHFT Executive Director Amy Kacala said that while most speakers said they supported the Fjord Trail, “we also heard comments flagging questions and concerns. This is what the environmental review process is all about and will ultimately help us deliver the best project possible.”
State parks compiled the hearing comments, and a video is online at dub.sh/state-parks-HHFT, along with the 709-page DGEIS. Comments can be submitted through March 4 to [email protected] or to Nancy Stoner, Environmental Analyst, NYS OPRHP, DESP, 625 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Albany, NY 12238.
As I remember it in 2016, both Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson were against building in the water. That’s the difference between environmentalists who we can depend on to stick to their grassroots, and the land barons chasing their world class linear park.
There were scientific errors in your story, as well as one very important omission.
First, the two species of sturgeon that inhabit the Hudson River are federally endangered, and that’s why Riverkeeper is especially concerned for their welfare. This is not mentioned.
Second, where you report on the potential harm to wildlife around Fishkill Creek, the species named are neither endangered nor threatened. They have been designated by the state as “species of special concern,” a notch down from threatened. However, that is the nesting area for the osprey, which is state threatened. Additionally, as stated in the DGEIS, wildlife “along or near the Fjord Trail North Corridor” includes two species of federally endangered bats, state endangered peregrine falcons, state threatened timber rattlesnakes, etc. Why no mention of these species?
Third, the OSI spokesman should take time to read the DGEIS, because construction in the “north corridor” would result in the permanent loss “of 45.4 acres of ecological communities.” How, OSI, will “that protect habitats for wildlife”? The hypocrisy here is absurd, transparent and obviously very partisan.
Thank you for this article. When finding my way through the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement (DGEIS), it’s so important to me, and I’m sure to others, that Riverkeeper — a true steward of our river — is on the watch.
I did notice something I’d like to point out: The two river sections of the trail route that Riverkeeper cites as a concern will require 433 piles — 149 piles for the section between Breakneck and Little Stony Point and 284 piles for the section between Little Stony Point and Dockside. This total is easy to miss because it never appears in the DGEIS. Rather, discussions of pile totals for the different sections are pages apart and both use the words “a total of.”
The DGEIS does cite the “potential impacts” of placing these piles in the river: “permanent long-term loss of 365 square feet [of habitat] and net placement of 375 cubic yards of flowable concrete. … Permanent long-term placement of approximately 1,920 cubic yards of fill … Permanent long-term increase in overwater coverage of 23,000 square feet (0.53 acres).”
What these impacts will mean for creatures and for the environment is why we need our stewards, like Riverkeeper, and reporters.
Thank you, The Current, and thank you, Riverkeepers. I wish The Current had pointed out that the CEO of the Open Space Institute is Erik Kulleseid, the former commissioner of New York state parks, who, while in that position, advanced the HHFT proposal without asking the fundamental question of who will pay for it. His colleague didn’t disclose that possible conflict. I do not believe that every coincidence has a darn underbelly, but during the public hearing several spouses of staff or leaders of other nonprofits that received money from Fjord Trail board Chair Chris Davis did not disclose those associations.
Transparency means allowing the public to decide on the merits of proposals when given all the information. The HHFT people refuse to follow the most fundamental tenets of an open process. They never learned the lesson that if people trust the process, they are more likely to trust the outcome.
Park is a very general word, used for everything from industrial parks to city parks to Adirondack Park. Some parks preserve land in its natural state, or close to it. The great majority, of course, don’t. Right now, the Highlands parkland is not Disneyland, the High Line or ballfields. It’s something much more unique and vanishingly rare: plants, animals and vistas in an almost natural state. The foresighted preservation efforts of the past have saved for us a spectacular, unique treasure.
What will this natural gem become once we carve into it and graft onto it a pedestrian highway on concrete pilings at the edge of the river? It will be a different place, less unique, less spectacular and far less natural.
Why throw away what we have and replace it with a suburban “pjark”? Why not do what parks around the country and the world do: limit access to preserve what is unique and, once altered, can never be restored. The urge to drive a pedestrian highway through parkland is the epitome of human arrogance. Have we no respect for the terrain, for the nature people come here to experience, for the natural history on display here? There is no “mitigating” the loss of nature.
In the monstrous Trump climate we have now, it seems absurd to continue with the “grand idea” that essentially very few of us in Cold Spring want. Please let us be and use the money to defend us from horrors that have taken over this country.
The comments by Riverkeeper are right on the mark, and while I respect the science behind their concerns, anyone with common sense knows that the best way to protect and avoid degradation of wildlife habitat is simply to keep people out of it.
This swath of habitat is both unique and irreplaceable and deserves our utmost respect. It’s also disingenuous of HHFT to offer up environmental bandage fixes to ameliorate planned 14-foot concrete walkways, such as removing all invasive trees and shrubs in an area full of wildlife, both native and migrating, who’ve made their home there. I defy anyone who says they can remove a single Japanese Knotweed plant successfully. Scenic Hudson’s attempts to remove it in Madam Brett Park in Beacon were fruitless; it poked right through the landscape fabric and went on its merry way.
It’s disheartening to hear groups like Scenic Hudson and the mayor of Beacon pooh-pooh local concerns about the park causing permanent habitat degradation, as if they are easily remedied. If only The Current had thought to post side-by-side photos of how this area looks versus what it will look like after the proposed concrete walkway is installed, with hundreds of new pilings driven into the riverbed — a beautiful, wild landscape, compared with a razed and overdeveloped one. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.
According to the DGEIS, the Fjord Trail is intended to “express reverence for the regional landscape” and “cultivate the ecological sublime.” How is that consistent with the destruction of critical wildlife habitat, or the construction of an elevated concrete boardwalk that would look more like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway than a trail? The Fjord Trail as proposed would not cultivate the sublimity of the Hudson and its Highlands, it would, heartbreakingly, diminish it. The trail would not express reverence for our regional landscape, it would desecrate it.
The concerns about the Fjord Trail raised at the state’s public hearing by Riverkeeper’s spokesperson, legal director Mike Dulong, are based on science, and they wholly conform to Riverkeeper’s mission and values. Thank you, Riverkeeper.
In contrast, Matt Decker of the Open Space Institute (OSI) offered the same confounding claims we’ve heard so often at the many public meetings HHFT has held — for example, that this mega project will improve the shoreline and replace invasives with native plants. In fact, it will denude the shoreline and destroy habitat. Crucially, HHFT provides no assurance of funding the years of maintenance that replanting requires. Look at the state parks department’s wasted efforts at Dockside in Cold Spring. So many trees and shrubs that withstood salt water, flooding and drought were removed. Replacements have died.
Equally egregious is the notion that visitors who stray from trails and cause damage to the environment would be safely channeled through fenced-in, elevated concrete boardwalks. We’ve heard about the supposed benefits of channeling visitors from the beginning of the Fjord Trail rollout. In fact, visitors will continue doing what they already do on the trails but, in addition, a whole lot of new visitors will be attracted to the linear park. It is the concrete boardwalk itself that will do enormous damage to the environment. How is the “channeling” concept consistent with the boast of offering “get downs” to make the river and its shoreline available to everyone?
OSI, Riverkeeper, the Hudson Highlands Land Trust and Scenic Hudson were all born in Philipstown and committed to protecting the river and the Highlands. Why have so many forgotten their origins?
Thank you, Highlands Current, for this insightful article. Thank you, Riverkeeper, for highlighting the many dangers the Fjord Trail design poses to the ecosystem and the many creatures who inhabit this irreplaceable landscape of the Highlands.
As mentioned, there are alternative routes that could avoid harmful impacts and still bring about public safety and recreational access to nature — please, state parks, consider these less-invasive options. I concur with Riverkeeper’s call to avoid all impervious surfaces, particularly the hundreds of new parking spaces proposed along Route 9D, which will only bring more cars into the area — hardly an environmental win, however you look at it.
Just build it from Beacon to Breakneck. Forget all the Cold Spring stuff. [via Instagram]
If it is not broken, don’t fix it. For many years, this beauty has endured. To add manmade items would not improve it one bit. I have seen what concrete and metal light fixtures look like after 20 years on the river. Check out the train stations, for example. Proceeding with Fjord Trail is a big mistake. Just think what this stuff will look like in 20 or 30 years, when it will need to be cleaned up.