In This Issue:
2006 Annual Report

2006: Review of a Successful Year
By Herbert Fox, President

Open Space Protection Sets a Record
in 2006
By Tom Andersen

2006: Review of a Successful Year
By Herbert Fox, President

Our Advocacy Efforts Continued.

FCWC continued to advocate acquiring Davids Island as a County park, and improving Westchester’s air quality through the Healthy Air Task Force, which drafted the two new county laws on cleaner diesel fuel and technology and reduced diesel idling that passed the Board of Legislators. Concurrently, we urged the use of mass transit rather than depending on automobiles, particularly single occupancy vehicles.

We continued a new initiative on water quality focusing on non point source pollution and the requirements of the Municipal Stormwater Sewer System plans (MS4s). FCWC helped execute an Intermunicipal Agreement (IMA) for three towns on the Kisco River (Bedford, New Castle and Mt. Kisco). We continue to monitor the Broadwater proposal for Long Island Sound and sent a letter to the governor requesting that he reject the easement sought for the project until public hearings are held. We monitored FAA’s proposed redesign of the airspace over Westchester and look forward to reviewing the planned four phase improvements at the Westchester County Airport.

We Had an Active Year in Environmental Education.

We held a major conference in March on Air Quality, Smart Fuels and Technology with Environmental Defense, the American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, Citizens Campaign for the Environment and the Hudson River Navigator, with over one hundred attendees, which prompted Suffolk, Nassau, and Rockland Counties to adopt healthy air policies. Also in March we co-sponsored a Sustainable Water Resources Management workshop with the Hudson River Watershed Alliance.

In April, WESC collaborated with CELF (Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation) on a Students Environmental Sustainability Expo at Pace Pleasantville, attended by over 700 students, parents and teachers, while in May we co-sponsored a conference on Invasive Plant Species with The Nature Conservancy and Nature Network. Our final conference of the year, in October, focused on a broad spectrum of topics aimed at protecting water bodies from construction activity pollution. It was co-sponsored by the Construction Industry Council and NYS Department of Environmental Conservation among the cooperating groups and sponsors.

FCWC co-sponsored all of the “Conversations on Conservation” meetings with the County Parks Department during the year. These included meetings on road salt, energy conservation, backyard habitat and one in November on a “Nature Deficit Disorder” of our children led by former president and board member, Bill Lawyer.

Our Board Activities

Throughout the year, Board members updated a number of our position statements, which are now posted on our website, www.FCWC.org. They continued to serve and participate in many other environmental initiatives and groups, such as the Westchester/Rockland Tappan Zee Task Force, the County Deer Task Force, County Pest Management Committee, County Soil and Water Conservation Board, County Land Use/ SEQRA Committee, Hudson River Watershed Alliance, and the recently formed county Global Climate Change and Sustainability Task Force, which is co-chaired by board member, Robert Funicello. Board members also shared their expertise by speaking at various engagements including an Earth Day event of the Pace Law School Environmental Law Society. Herbert Fox serves on the New Rochelle Advisory Committee on Energy and the Environment.

Federation of Member Organizations Met.

During the Spring we held a meeting for our south county member organizations at the Greenburgh Nature Center to share their current environmental concerns and priorities.

In addition, in March we held a public meeting for our member organizations and interested members of the public on the alternatives being evaluated in a state Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Tappan Zee Bridge and the I-287 Corridor. FCWC continues to advocate including mass transit in the selected alternative.

Our Grants and Donors (for a complete list, click here)

FCWC was the recipient with Environmental Defense of a $40,000 grant from the Westchester Community Foundation for our clean air work. We also received grants from the Ginsburg Community Fund, the Ruth and Seymour Klein Family Foundation, and Hon. Suzi Oppenheimer, a member item. We thank them for their generous support. We are also indebted to our major donors for generously supporting our activities and to all our members.

WESC students continued advocating healthy air policies for their peers through their SNAP! (Students for No Air Pollution!) initiative. WESC held a training summit in White Plains, presented their campaign to County Legislators in celebration of Earth Day, and held meetings with school district officials. Of the school districts approached, Katonah/Lewisboro yielded the most success this year, as it adopted all of the healthy air policies, and secured a $410,000 grant to retrofit their fleet of school buses.

At the Annual Meeting in June, FCWC presented its first Edith G. Read award to honor the memory of our illustrious board member and Director Emerita, who died in April. The award went to WESC president, Alex Gertner, for his outstanding leadership.

During the year we reluctantly accepted the resignation of long time Board member, Bob Tritsch, and welcomed new board member, Sharon Pickett, of Scarborough.

Looking Ahead at 2007

Through our education and advocacy efforts, FCWC has been creating new partnerships and reaching out to new constituents, with a concentrated effort on building bridges between the environmental and business communities. In 2007, we hope to continue these efforts by holding a series of seminars for business leaders on corporate social responsibility, and implementing sustainability initiatives by using the Triple Bottom Line, which measures a company’s growth and value based upon its social, environmental and economic impacts. We hope you will join us in our work to protect and improve Westchester’s environment.

2006: Some Good News for the Environment
By Warren Ross

The mission of FCWC is to encourage an environmental ethic in private and public decision making.

There is evidence that we’re making progress in achieving this objective, not of course due to the efforts of FCWC alone, but to the growing constituency of environmentally aware organizations and individuals. Their commitment
has begun to translate into more enlightened policies on the part of local, county, state and possibly even federal politicians. For instance:

• New federal and state legislation has enabled the Westchester Land Trust to acquire almost 150 conservation easements covering close to 3,000 acres in 25 communities. (See story by Tom Andersen on page 2.)

• Westchester County received federal and state grants totaling $2.08 million for the development of pedestrian and bicycle paths in Harrison, Rye, and Hastings, and an extension of the river walk in Ossining.

• In addition, the county’s wastewater treatment plant in Yonkers became the first such plant in the entire state to be certified as meeting the ambitious international Environmental Management System Standard. In the future, the county administration also hopes to qualify for such certification for all its other treatment plants, as well as pumping stations, sewer lines, etc., while FCWC experts point out that even the Yonkers plant still has problems, such as objectionable odors, energy-wasting burning of methane, and the fact that combined sewer operation allows raw sewage to flow into the Hudson during heavy rain or snow. Anticipated new development may, of course, make all these problems worse.

• Just before leaving office, Governor Pataki reached his goal of adding a million acres of land to New York’s protected open space.

• And while not as easily quantifiable, there was evidence that Al Gore’s book and movie, An Inconvenient Truth, helped achieve a public consensus that global warming is indeed a threat that the country needs to deal with. Case in point: Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest company, has decided to go green, putting its marketing clout behind the adoption of power-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Now, with continued effort and commitment, let’s see whether we can do even better in 2007.

Mr. Ross is an FCWC board member and former president.

County Executive Andrew J. Spano congratulates honorees
Peter Lehner and Carolyn Cunningham at the FCWC fall benefit.

Open Space Protection Sets a Record in 2006
By Tom Andersen

Any year in which you help complete the biggest open space
purchase ever in Westchester has got to be considered a good one. And when it’s one of 13 preservation projects in 11 communities, things look even better.

Those 13 projects added up to a total of 885 acres protected in 2006, the most Westchester Land Trust has ever been involved in.

Nine conservation easements are among the 13, and we would be remiss if we didn’t remind people that the federal and state tax rules for easement donors changed considerably in 2006 – to the potential benefit of landowners. If you have land you’d like to protect via conservation easement, you might be eligible for even bigger tax benefits than previously. If you’d like to know more, by all means please get in touch with us (call Eileen Goren, our director of conservation outreach, at (914) 241-6346 x27, or look in the What’s Happening box of our website, www.Westchesterlandtrust.org. A complete list of WLT’s 2006 projects is also on the website.

Tom Andersen is Projects Director for the Westchester Land Trust.

Mr. Sandler, a former president of FCWC, has been named the first Executive Director of CWCWC.

Getting Children Back in Touch with Nature
By William Lawyer

The latest in the series of Conservation Cafés, jointly sponsored by the Westchester Department of Parks, Recreation and Conservation and FCWC among others, was devoted to a discussion of Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.

Under the title of “If we save it will they come?,” the November 17 gathering, held at the Pace University Pleasantville Campus, attracted some 90 participants from many different backgrounds, including administrators of nature centers and parks, environmental educators, teachers, school board personnel, and members of municipal conservation advisory councils. Parents showed a particular interest in the topic, which concerns how today’s children are being deprived of exposure to the natural environment.

The conference also resulted in two specific outcomes. First, Dorna Schroeter, coordinator of the Center for Environmental Education of Putnam/Northern Westchester BOCES, and Jeff Main of the County Parks Department, prepared a proposal for an environmental/sustainability education task force that was submitted to the transition team of Governor (then governor-elect) Eliot Spitzer. Second, Ellen Weininger of the Grassroots Environmental Education and Molly Roffman of the Armour Villa Neighborhood Association in Yonkers, agreed to work with Bill Lawyer to plan a program at the Greenburgh Nature Center on how to promote healthy, child-friendly yards for coping with “nature deficit disorder.” It is scheduled for April. For further information call or write (914) 813-1837.

Mr. Lawyer is Director of the Greenburgh Nature Center.

After nine years as leader and inspiration of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition (CWCWC), Marian Rose has left the presidency in order to return to her first love of research in physics.

Having been instrumental in founding the coalition in 1997, she served it as “financier, top recruiter, analyst, lobbyist, and strategic planner,” according to David Ferguson, the organization’s vice president, who also called her “a heroine for the region.” She will be succeeded as president by Fay Muir.

“What Marian has brought to Westchester County is far greater environmental awareness,” said Oreon Sandler, former president of FCWC, who has taken over as CWCWC’s first executive director. “While her primary focus has been on protecting the Croton watershed,” he explained, “she has also devoted extensive time and effort - as well as her unmatched expertise -- to many other Westchester environmental issues. Until recently, for instance, she served on the County’s Land Use/SEQRA committee, and her accomplishments have been recognized not only by FCWC but also by Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, and many other environmental groups.”

As president of CWCWC, she fought hard and usually successfully to maintain water quality in the Croton watershed and its distribution system, spending a lot of effort to keep northern Westchester from being sold to the highest bidder and paved over. “That battle continues and will be her legacy,” Sandler added. “If we now realize how important it is to preserve open space and to keep our wetlands, streams, rivers, and reservoirs from being inundated with contaminants, we owe much of that growing awareness to the vision of Marian Rose.”

Under her leadership, the Croton coalition often found glaring errors in locally published water quality data by hiring its own experts in law, hydrogeology, engineering, conservation biology, and ecology. As a result, several residential and commercial developments were cancelled, while others were reduced in size or impact.

Having earned a doctorate in physics at Harvard, she will now return to some of the experiments at Yale and NYU that she had to abandon in order to concentrate on preserving the water we all drink. Not that she has lessened her commitment. As she said on her retirement: “Our role is to keep the water clean and healthy at the source. You can live without oil and coal, but not without water. Let’s never forget that.”

WESC will be participating in the “Pedals for Progress” used bicycle drive, sponsored by the Westchester Cycle Club. Students will be collecting rust-free bikes that are shipped to Central America, providing a cheap and environmentally friendly means of public transportation. If you have one to donate, please call the office for information. Call FCWC at (914) 422-4053 to participate.