You know Covid-19, aka the coronavirus, is serious when authorities in Italy cancel top level soccer matches. (If you have season tickets for the New York Mets or have booked a flight for the Tokyo Olympics, you might look into force majeure.) In South Korea, cases have grown exponentially over the past few days,… Read More
Category Archives: Environment
“Long Term” Barge Anchorage Off Beacon’s Dennings Point?
The United States Coast Guard is proposing rules to establish 10 new anchorages in the Hudson River between Yonkers and Kingston. One of the sites proposed is directly off Dennings Point, with three others just south of the Newburgh Beacon Bridge. Currently there is one allowed anchorage on this stretch of the Hudson. These anchorages… Read More
Memorial Weekend Traffic Report
On holiday weekends like this, traffic in the real world gets crazy, but it tends to go way down here on Wigwam. So we’ll herald the unofficial opening of the summer season with another photo gallery. After the long weekend, we’ll plunge back into the fun stuff; parking, for instance, and development. Meanwhile, please enjoy… Read More
Can Engineering Ingenuity Help Prevent Future Droughts in Beacon?
Beacon experienced severe drought conditions last year. The city faces drought conditions more frequently than neighboring municipalities because one of its main water sources sits way above it, in a reservoir at the top of Mt. Beacon. To recharge, it relies on precipitation, gaining water when it rains or snows directly into the reservoir, or… Read More
Beacon Farmers Are Back To Work
Not that they ever completely stopped, but now the real action begins for our local farmers. We stopped in at Stony Kill at 79 Farmstead Lane off 9D, two miles north of the I-84 exit, to visit the Common Ground Farm fields and ran into farm manager Susan Paykin, who was in the greenhouse… Read More
Beacon Goes To Stage II Drought Emergency
The City has moved from a Stage I Drought Alert to Stage II Emergency. Wigwam listed the Stage I actions and prohibitions in an earlier post: Beacon Is a Dry Town. From the city code: Stage II: 40% of reservoir capacity or one well out of service. If at any time the Water Superintendent… Read More
Beacon Under a Blood Moon
A reminder to Wigwam readers that tomorrow night, Sunday, September 27th, brings us a rare total lunar eclipse of a super moon. A super moon refers to times when the moon is both full and closest to the earth in its orbit, making it appear 14% larger and 33 % brighter than your standard… Read More
Beacon Is a Dry Town
Beacon Mayor Randy Casale declared a Stage I Drought Alert for the city on August 3th. Unfortunately there has not been much rain since then. The alert was posted on the website in language that implies voluntary cooperation with the edict: “We are asking those who use the City’s water system to conserve water… Read More
Beacon Council OK’s $.5 Million Land Purchase For Parking Lot Use
The city council last night took another formal step toward the creation of a parking lot on the east end of Beacon by unanimously passing a resolution to purchase a 1.41 acre parcel of land. The property has frontage on Churchill Street to the south and the Fishkill Creek to the east. The seller… Read More
Indian Point Spent Nuclear Fuel Rods
Pose Increasing Danger
When the Fukushima nuclear plant was damaged, Japanese authorities evacuated people within a 19-mile radius. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recommended all U.S. citizens within a 50-mile radius evacuate. The Disaster Accountability Project (DAP) recently released a report urging authorities to expand the planning and information guidance for the public beyond the currently required 10-mile… Read More
Compost Culture
If you are worried about the state of the world but keep telling yourself there is nothing you can do, that’s just not true. A very useful thing to do would be to click on over to Zero to Go’s fundraising campaign to help jumpstart a composting operation in Beacon. Zero to Go is an… Read More
Gas Station Set to Expand
Despite Nonconforming Use
City regulations specifically prohibit enlargement of structures containing nonconforming uses, but the Xtrafuel gas station at Main Street and Fishkill Avenue is expanding nevertheless. The site plan is still up for public discussion. However, the building inspector has interpreted the zoning in a way that would allow the owners to add an additional 200… Read More
Beacon Outlaws Gas Stations
on Main Street
Over at Beacon Citizen, a Wigwam reader has become incensed over the leaking underground storage tanks at Main and Fishkill. This is as predicted in one of the previous posts about the LUST (Leaking Underground Storage Tanks): “Some of us might even get upset or angry over this egregious fouling of the environment. How could… Read More
LUST Comes to Beacon: It’s Volatile!
Update on the gasoline leaking from the underground storage tanks at Main and Fishkill Avenue: Removal has continued after a delay due to too much moisture in the soil. Truckloads of contaminated dirt are being hauled to an approved facility in Albany. Still no word on the extent of the contamination, but at this point… Read More
Gas Leak Update: The Hole We Dig Grows Ever Deeper
The attempt to clean up the spilled gas at Main Street and Fishkill Avenue continued today, with quite a few more truckloads of contaminated soil carted away in dump trucks throughout the day. And it may not be just the soil that has been compromised. According to several locals, there are subterranean feeder springs to… Read More
Fuel Gas Leak on Main Street
The redecorating job at Xtrafuel on Main Street and Fishkill Avenue has hit a slight snag. The job entailed removal and replacement of the gas storage tanks buried underground. Workers expected four tanks, and were surprised to find several more. Unfortunately, these older, non-operational tanks had never been emptied, and have apparently been leaking gas.… Read More
Beacon Loop Trail on Christmas Day
I particularly enjoy going for a bike ride on the “indoor” holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. One of the few bike blogs I read with anything approaching regularity recently had a well-wrought description of this phenomenon: I’ve always had mixed feelings about Christmas celebrations. But the one thing I like about this time of… Read More
Node Will Host Crude Oil Pipeline Discussion at Newburgh Rowing Club
This Sunday, September 7, node will host the art and activist project SeaChange, as it makes its way down river from Troy to New York City. Wigwam reported on node a while back, and it is going ahead full steam, with a change in location from the Long Dock building to the University Settlement Camp.… Read More
A Sailing Opportunity
The Vermont Sail Project is alive and well, and looking for two sailors. Harvest Sailing Ceres and her crew completed a second voyage down the Hudson earlier this summer, stopping in Mechanicville, Waterford, Troy, Clearwater’s Great Hudson River Revival in Croton-on-Hudson, and Nyack, among other ports. Now we’re looking ahead to next weekend’s Tugboat Roundup… Read More
Scenic Hudson Concerned With Power Line Proposal
Wigwam received this action alert from Scenic Hudson this morning: ACTION ALERT: Public Comments Needed by Friday, Aug. 29! The state Public Service Commission (PSC) has released a proposed outline for moving forward new transmission line projects. The proposal basically starts the whole process over—without addressing any concerns raised by the Hudson Valley Smart Energy… Read More
Beacon Needs to Take Control of Former Prison Property
As a cost-saving measure New York State has been closing prisons that it has determined are no longer essential. Our community was affected when the women’s correctional facility in Beacon was closed last September. There will be a community meeting on Tuesday, July 29, at 6:30pm at Beahive, 291 Main Street (South Brett), to discuss… Read More
Riverkeeper Sues Over Crude Oil Expansion In Albany
From the Riverkeeper newsletter: When it comes to protecting the environment and the public from the risks of crude oil transport along the Hudson, we mean business. That’s why Riverkeeper, along with four other environmental and community organizations, filed suit against the New York Department of Environmental Conservation June 9. Riverkeeper and Waterkeeper Alliance,… Read More
New Constellation To Emerge Over The Hudson
“Looking at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots representing towns and villages on a map. Why, I ask myself, shouldn’t the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France? ” —Vincent Van Gogh, in a letter to… Read More
Oil Terminal Across From Beacon Seeks Expansion
Global Partners has applied for permits to expand its oil terminal facilities on the Hudson River, including one directly across from Beacon, to a capacity of 1.8 billion gallons of per year. According to a presentation last night at the Newburgh Free Library by Scenic Hudson and Riverkeeper, the permitting process involves Federal and State… Read More