FrOGS News Alerts

FrOGS Hosts the New York Committee Meeting of the Highlands Coalition (2008)

Teddy Eisenman, the chairman of the NY Committee conducted the meeting held at the Patterson Library on September 11. There were around 30 in attendance including Co-chairmen Andy Chmar and Martus Granirer. Mike Griffin, Supervisor of the Town of Patterson welcomed the Committee and stressed the importance of the Great Swamp as open space as well as its positive effect on water quality and flood control for the town.

The topics discussed were:

Concerns about plans to build a desalinization plant at Haverstraw and how it would promote explosive development in Rockland County. A call to amend NYS Water Law so that development would depend on the available natural water supply.
The need for new funding sources for the three HC staff positions that rely on grants
Betsey Ryder spoke about trying to save the 129-acre family farm on Starr Ridge Rd. in Brewster. They are applying for a NYS grant that helps farmers keep their farms by buying the development rights on the land. OSI, Putnam County and the Town of Southeast have supported the application.
Lynn Eckhart of the Putnam Smart Growth Alliance reported that the State plans to limit the upgrade Route 22 to the section from Route 684 to Doansburg Road. The Highlands Coalition will have to focus on the expansion of travel corridors since they determine the pattern of future growth. Scenic Hudson is concerned about the expansion around Stewart Airport.
Sybil Gilbert of the Oblong Land Trust expressed their concern about protecting "Little" Whaley Lake, a scenic jewel of a property with great habitat diversity.
Tonia Shoumatoff spoke of the opening of the NY office of the Housatonic Valley Association and their plans to apply for a grant to conduct a scientific study of the Swamp River, which is the north flow of the Great Swamp. With more than 2000 proposed housing units this watershed will be under intense pressure.
Dr. Jim Utter gave a power point presentation on the Great Swamp and the 1,000 acres of wetland and buffer protected in the South Flow with NAWCA Grant funds and the assistance of all the Grant partners. FrOGS has just submitted a new NAWCA grant proposal for lands in the north flow of the Great Swamp.
Matt Shurtleff of the Trust for Public Land spoke about their efforts in conjunction with the DEC, to acquire 647 acres on both sides of Haviland Hollow Road. The property includes the steep upland forest north of the road and runs down across the brook into the wet meadows and forested hill to the south. This is the last and longest unprotected portion of Haviland Hollow Brook designated a "critical treasure" by the Highlands Coalition. The acquisition would link almost 2000 acres of parkland for public use. The State would pay local taxes on the land and the DEC would treat it as a Wildlife Management Area. Biotic corridors would be preserved and the water quality of the brook would be protected. One million dollars from the Federal Highlands Conservation Act fund has been pledged towards the acquisition of the parcel but more is needed!
Letters of support for the acquisition of the 647-acre property known by the DEC as the North/South Hollow would be appreciated. Address them to:
Commissioner Alexander B. Grannis
N.Y S. Department of Environmental Conservation
625 Broadway, 14th Floor
Albany, NY 12233

Following the meeting, FrOGS Board Member Rick Saracelli took interested attendees on a canoe trip into the Great Swamp from the Patterson Environmental Center.

Mike Purcell Receives the Housatonic Valley Associations' "Friend of the River" Award (2008)

FrOGS Board Member Mike Purcell was given The Friend of the River award at the Housatonic Valley Association's Annual Meeting on September 12th for his dedication to the protection of the Ten Mile River watershed in New York as well as being a staunch advocate for the protection of the biodiversity of the Great Swamp and the Swamp River in Dover and Pawling. Mike is a hard worker, a dedicated environmentalist, and extremely active in the field study work being done in the north flow of the Great Swamp.

FrOGS On The Go! (2008)

This summer FrOGS has appeared at many more events thanks to tireless volunteers like Laurie Lewis who is willing to set up the displays and spend hours manning the table as well as offering tee shirts and caps.

The year started off in May with our popular canoe trips, followed with a table display at Green Chimneys annual Birds of Prey Day on June 1st. This is always a spectacular event and should not be missed. On June 7th and 8th we ran more canoe trips that brought lots of local scout troops into the Great Swamp. On June 28th, Carol Paterno of Mistover Farms graciously invited FrOGS to set up a table in the viewing room for the duration of a very successful horse show that featured dressage and jumping events. We hope to return for Mistover's next show on October 25th. FrOGS was invited to set up a table at the Elk's first annual Community Awareness Day on July 20th and we wouldn't miss the yearly opportunity to attend the Putnam County 4-H Fair on July 26th and 27th.

September 7th will find us at Patterson's Community Day, always a lot of fun and many friends. Our biggest community event will of course be the annual Great Swamp Art Show and Celebration on October 18th and 19th at Christ Church on Quaker Hill.

On June 17th, FrOGS was one of the local Putnam organizations honored by Patterson Rotary. Edie Keasbey accepted the award and check on behalf of FrOGS. The funds will be put towards our on going work in the northern flow of the Great Swamp in Dutchess County. We are deeply grateful to Patterson Rotary for this

FrOGS' Dr. Jim Utter Rediscovers Rare Butterfly Not Recorded In New York State Since 1866 (2008)

by Gordon Douglas

Luck favors the well prepared. So it was with Dr. Jim Utter, chairman of Friends of the Great Swamp (FrOGS) and Associate Professor of Environmental Sciences at SUNY, Purchase, when he photographed an unusual butterfly in the Great Swamp on July 12th of last summer. Heretofore butterflies were not near the top of Dr. Utter's long list of interests and involvements. He is better known for his studies of behavioral ecology of birds, work with rare turtles, study of a rare woodland lily and work with migratory birds in the Great Swamp-and for his tireless and successful efforts to preserve the Great Swamp. Birders usually pay only passing attention to butterflies. However, if interesting birds are not around and the sun is out many birders will look for butterflies as a backup alternative.

Last summer Jim Utter purchased a new camera with a macro (close-up) lens to assist in making a record of butterflies, small orchids and other tiny creatures on a property in the Great Swamp that FrOGS had recently acquired. Jim's interest in butterflies had been encouraged by his former student, Bill Wallace, of Brewster, who, a superb birder himself had recently taken up the study of butterflies. Walking into an open area in the Great Swamp on July 12 and armed with his brand new camera, Utter headed towards a bright orange butterfly bush that Monarchs often visit.

A small butterfly with muted but beautiful markings flew off the orange flower but quickly returned. Jim froze in his tracks. Without disturbing the butterfly he was able to take several photographs of it before continuing on his inventory. That night Dr. Utter transferred his day's butterfly pictures to his computer and emailed a sampling of them to Bill Wallace. When Wallace looked at the pictures a few days later he rushed to call Utter and told him that photo number 5 was of a rare Northern Metalmark last seen and recorded in New York State in 1866. Like so many butterflies, the Northern Metalmark has a very short life in its winged metamorphosis. The several specimens that he found had ragged wings. They had finished breeding and were soon to pass from the scene. Had he been a few days later he would not have discovered them. Had he been more than two earlier they would not have emerged from their cocoons.

What is the outlook for this rare and precarious colony of Northern Metalmarks? Many species of butterflies (and moths) have disappeared from the Great Swamp area and all upstate New York in recent decades. Every municipality needs to have a strong policy to protect what remains of our butterfly heritage. Often a butterfly species' habitat area is very small and protection would not be onerous. It is our responsibility to not allow these beautiful creatures to needlessly drift into extinction. Butterflies are not free, but with just a little effort we can ensure that our children will thrill to their sight in times to come.

Dr. Jim Utter will do his part. "This summer", he says, "he will survey the area for other populations, identify and inventory nectar sources, more accurately estimate population size, and work with the landowner to protect and manage the habitat of this beautiful, vulnerable species".

For all who love butterflies I highly recommend Butterflies through Binoculars by Jeffrey Glassberg. You might also join NABA (the North American Butterfly Association). The beautiful magazine alone is worth the modest cost of membership.

Eighteen Acres of Promise (2008)

by Judy Kelley-Moberg

With a lot of hard work, a little help from our friends, and NAWCA Grant funds, FrOGS has been able to acquire an 18-acre patch of uplands and floodplain meadow bordering Quaker Brook at the corner of Haviland Hollow Road and East Branch Road in the Town of Patterson.

Quaker Brook, sometimes called Haviland Hollow Brook, runs through the 18-acre parcel before turning south to join the East Branch of the Croton River in the Great Swamp. The brook begins in Connecticut, flows through Deep Hollow then into New York where it runs parallel to Haviland Hollow Road. Several tributaries join the brook near the Connecticut border. The streams drain portions of New York State's Cranberry Mountain Preserve. One stream flows through a deep limestone gorge in Putnam Counties' Ciaiola Park and another drops down the mountainside in a series of small waterfalls along an abandoned section of Stagecoach Road. As Quaker Brook wanders westward through the forested valley it's criss-crossed with beaver dams and passes through the ruins of a massive milldam to emerge in the wide wet meadow of the 18-acre parcel. It then runs under East Branch Road and into a wooded floodplain before it joins the Croton River.

Quaker Brook is not only a major artery that feeds the "heart" of the Great Swamp but it's also an ecologically unique and important waterway. Fishermen know this brook as a pristine trout stream thought to be one of the rare places where native trout populations can still survive. It has one of the highest trout streams ratings given by the State of New York. FrOGS hopes to see the entire stream corridor protected from the Connecticut border to the Great Swamp. The corridor would connect the County and State parks near the Connecticut border to the future Great Swamp Conservation Area. The acquisition of this 18-acre piece of wet meadow is an important step towards reaching this goal. The property already connects parcels donated by Putnam County, another partner in the "Heart of the Great Swamp" NAWCA Grant, to the Elena Hill Preserve along Route 22 owned by the Putnam Land Trust. This 18-acre corner parcel will provide access to the whole Quaker Brook corridor.

FrOGS' Chairman Dr. Jim Utter Honored as an Educator and Environmentalist (2007)

Camp Herrlich honored Jim Utter with their Community Leadership Award at their 2007 "Autumn in Putnam" fund raising dinner dance. The following article was printed in the fall edition of The Herald, Camp Herrlich's newsletter:

"More than 180 guests gathered in the ballroom at the Putnam National Golf Club in Mahopac to honor special guest, Dr. Jim Utter, as the recipient of the 2007 Community Leadership Award. As a BOCES certified environmental education center, Camp Herrlich chose to recognize Dr. Utter for his important research and teaching of Environmental Sciences particularly in the area of the wetland dependent migratory birds within the Great Swamp Wetland."

The article also praised Jim for promoting awareness of the values and needs for conservation of the Great Swamp for over 20 years and his active participation in land protection and habitat preservation.

FrOGS Chairman Receives Dutchess County Award (2007)

FrOGS Chairman, Dr. Jim Utter, was recognized by Dutchess County Executive William Steinhaus at the "1st Annual County Executive Green Achievement Awards" on October 25th at a ceremony at the Bowdoin Park Community Center in the Town of Poughkeepsie. Awards were presented in five different categories: Government, Education, Non-Profit, Commercial and Individual. Dr. Utter was recognized in the "Individual Category" for his environmental work and preservation efforts in the 6,000 acre Great Swamp, and his success in protecting hundreds of acres in the Great Swamp through partnership with various organizations funded by a NAWCA grant as well as private donations.

County Executive Steinhaus stated, "Our Green Achievement Awards are our way of recognizing those who have gone the extra mile to preserve and protect our environment. The Green Achievement Awards were designed to credit the good work of individuals and corporations who are making strides to help sustain and protect the environment".

FrOGS Remembers Tom Keasbey

FrOGS remembers one of the founding members of the Friends of the Grweat Swamp.

New Bottle Bill Proposed (2007)

The current "bottle bill" has increased recycling of soda and beer containers and reduced the amount of litter in places like the Great Swamp, but the majority of bottles we purchase are exempt from the deposits that encourage their return. The new Bottle Bill would extend coverage to these other bottles, and in addition, it would mandate the public's recovery of the unclaimed deposits, rather than leaving it as a "windfall profit" for the beverage companies. This critical change will likely add $100 million or more to the Environmental Protection Fund which supports land acquisitions in the Great Swamp and elsewhere.

As part of FrOGS' Saving New York's Great Swamp Federal NAWCA project, EPF supplied the money for protection of 300 acres of Great Swamp wetland and upland buffer on Cornwall Hill Road in Patterson. This land is now open to the public. Other benefits of the Bigger Better Bottle Bill include reducing the expensive waste stream headed to landfills and increasing public awareness of how each of us can help improve environmental health.

Dr. Jim Utter, Purchase College Environmental Studies Program
and Chairman, Friends of the Great Swamp

Nature Conservancy Gives Patterson Funds for Trails (November 2005)

The Nature Conservancy surprised Patterson Supervisor Michael Griffin with a gift of $ 10,000 to the Town to be used for creating trails and educational displays on the Town's recently acquired 63-acre tract in the Great Swamp adjacent to the Patterson Environmental Park. Mark King, land protection director for the Nature Conservancy, handed Supervisor Griffin the check at the FrOGS Annual Meeting on November 19, 2005. The funds were donated to the Town to help make the new parcel more user-friendly. Some of the possible uses are to create a boardwalk and also a handicap-accessible trail.

"This will allow people to see it," stated Dr. James Utter, Chairman of FrOGS. "Portions of this new section added to the Patterson Environmental Park contain some uplands and some transition areas that are valuable to wildlife and well suited to trails. Some of the wetland area acquired borders the East Branch Croton River as well. It is not just a matter of acquiring land. It is a matter of bringing people on to it. The funds will allow the Town to make more use of the land acquired. The new parcel is only a block away from the Matthew Patterson Elementary school and can be used as an outdoor laboratory for science classes as well.

Town of Patterson Launches a Stormwater Management Education Website

The Town of Patterson has created a website dedicated to the topic of stormwater runoff and low impact development (LID). The site teaches the causes and effects of stormwater runoff, and offers tips to homeowners on how to avoid common problems through such means as maintaining their septic systems, making careful choices in landscaping and grading, and reduced reliance on chemicals and pesticides. The site is well illustrated and contains some interactive features. It can be reached via the town website, and selecting "Stormwater Management" from the menu on the left.

What is Low Impact Development (LID)?

LID is a recently developed, comprehensive, alternative technology for stormwater management and environmental protection. LID combines many old and new management principles and practices. Its effective use, requires a shift in mind-set, a rethinking of stormwater management, and a change in view from seeing stormwater as a nuisance to considering it a valuable resource. LID uses a wide array of innovative methods to retain, detain, filter, recharge and use runoff through decentralized distributed integrated small-scale controls. It is based on sound engineering, environmental principles and years of practical experience throughout the US and Europe in watershed protection and ecological restoration.

LID is complementary to other innovative site planning principles. It enriches the range of tools available to site planners, engineers and regulators. LID goals are accomplished by reestablishing the predevelopment volume of runoff, recharge, storage and evaporation. An integrated "treatment train" of micro-management features restore the frequency, duration, quality and quantity of runoff discharge. The goal of LID is to restore important ecological functions in a watershed such as the hydrologic regime.

Unlike conventional stormwater management where runoff is, concentrated, collected and conveyed to a centralized treatment facility as quickly as possible, LID is just the opposite. Runoff is dispersed, held controlled on the site to be recharged, filtered, evaporated and used. LID principles such as a hydrologically functional landscape, uniform distribution of small controls and strategic timing can be universally applied to all urban, suburban and rural developments as well as urban and suburban retrofit.

With LID techniques every urban landscape feature (roofs, streets, parking, open space, sidewalks and green space) can be designed to be multifunctional incorporating detention, retention, filtration or runoff use. An additional benefit is LID is a significant cost reduction. Construction and maintenance costs can be reduced by 20% to 30% compared to conventional approaches. Pollutant removal approaches 95%. Property values and sales velocity are significantly enhanced.

The basic steps to an LID design include:

Conservation of Natural Features: forests, natural native vegetation, streams, wetlands, open space, etc., and to the extent practicable, these features are multifunctional serving typical uses and designed to be a part of the over all stormwater management strategy
Minimize Impacts and Disturbance: reduce clearing and grading, save infiltratable soils, limit lot disturbance, reduce and disconnect impervious surfaces, use reforestation, and reduce the use of pipes, curbs, and gutters. These techniques reduce runoff and encourage more infiltration, runoff storage and evapotranspiration.
Maintain the time of concentration of runoff; reducing discharges and encouraging more infiltration and evaporation, use of open drainage systems, flatter slopes, disperse drainage, lengthen flow paths, use vegetative swales, maintain natural flow paths and maximize sheet flow. These techniques are totally opposed to conventional approaches that try to get water off the site as quickly as possible.
Use of distributed integrated small-scale management practices These techniques include: bioretention (rain gardens), depression storage, infiltration practices, rooftop storage, pipe storage, street parking lot storage, rain water use, and soil amendments to increase storage. The advantage of these small-scale practices is that they are not costly to maintain nor do they require unusual skills.

Many municipalities and governmental agencies are beginning to question the efficacy of conventional stormwater management technology. They are finding it harder to fund stormwater programs due to the increasing maintenance burdens of the growing and aging stormwater infrastructure created by conventional approaches.

In an attempt to improve the effectiveness of it's stormwater technology, Prince George's County, Maryland, Department of Environmental Resources (PGDER) began exploring alternative stormwater management practices and strategies back in 1990. The development of bioretention and a plant soil filter technique or "Rain Gardens" (using the green space to manage runoff within small depressed upland landscaped areas) lead to the understanding of how to engineer and integrate small-scale lot level techniques into the developed landscape to maintain and/or restore hydrologic functions. In 1999 PGDER in cooperation with US EPA released the national version of the Low Impact Design (LID) manual on the use and analysis of decentralized distributed source controls.

The goal of LID is to use innovative lot level based management strategies and techniques that allow a site to be developed in a manner that maintains the predevelopment hydrologic regime and preserves essential ecosystem functions.