Letter to the TU Editor

PHOTO BY WILL WALDREN OF THE TIMES UNION. TO READ RICK KARLIN’S STORY: https://www.timesunion.com/business/article/port-coeymans-supports-nyc-infrastructure-ample-19757108.php

Staff Reporter, Rick Karlin, of the Capital Region Times Union newspaper published a story on Sept 13, 2024, that only told half the story. Here’s what he missed:

To the Editor,

I have long admired Rick Karlin’s environmental reporting. However, his recent article about the Port of Coeymans failed to question the Port’s fanciful public relations campaign. Josh Kowalski, the Port’s vice president of sales and business development, said “Acreage is our selling point .. we have the space …”, but a quick tour of the Port would show it is completely built out. It can only expand by invading residential areas or corruptly manipulating local zoning laws. Carver Companies has already clearcut an important indigenous woodland along the Hudson and would continue such destruction if allowed to expand in Coeymans. In short, there is no more space at the Port of Coeymans. Nor is there room on our residential two-lane roads for the heavy industrial truck traffic the Port has already attracted, let alone an increase in such traffic. Mr. Karlin is an experienced reporter and should be able to recognize when he is being sold a fairytale that needs to be questioned before it is reported as fact. Moreover, despite its impressive PR, the Port of Coeymans is not the only port along the Hudson that can handle large infrastructure and wind power projects; it is just the area’s only non-union port. The Capital Region has room at the Port of Albany and has considerable space in Rensselaer. TU reporters should take a look around or even talk to local residents before swallowing exaggerated claims from the Port of Coeymans.

Barbara Heinzen

Local Resident & Chair of Clean Air Coalition of Greater Ravena-Coeymans

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022

Is New York State really this corrupt?

(Opinion printed in the Altamont Enterprise)

Thursday, September 22, 2022

To the Editor:
Around 8 p.m. on Sept. 2, at the start of the Labor Day weekend, the Department of Environmental Conservation circulated its decision to permit the Port of Coeymans, owned by Carver Laraway, to expand.

While the port’s application was based on an abandoned plan for an important wind power business, in fact, it supports the expansion of a major waste-management and incineration business in the upper Hudson Valley. The economic, human, and environmental consequences of that waste business were not examined by the DEC, the Army Corps of Engineers, or any other New York State Department.

This DEC decision is a travesty that exposes the corrupt flaws in New York State’s environmental protection laws. Why, for example, is there a clause in the Environmental Conservation Law that allows local governments to override a county law concerning air quality?

Thanks to that clause, the Albany County Clean Air Law cannot limit the burning of waste at the Lafarge Cement Plant in Coeymans because Coeymans Local Law was revised to allow it.

Why was the environmental impact study submitted by the Port of Coeymans not legally required to be done by an independent agency, but is instead wholly the work of consultants hired by the port to do its bidding?

Why is the DEC forbidden by law from commissioning an independent study of the cumulative impact of the Port of Coeymans waste-management complex, which has expanded one small segmented decision at a time?

Why has the DEC never forced the port to pay the fines it should each time there is another violation of environmental laws and regulations?

What is the DEC afraid will happen to it if it enforces the law to its full extent?

More locally, why has the town supervisor of Coeymans, George McHugh, ensured that all local laws now line up to support the collection and incineration of waste in Coeymans, but has never declared the number of beneficial connections he and his board have with Carver Laraway and his multiple businesses?

Why is Mr. McHugh now acting as the lawyer for the neighboring town of New Baltimore, where Carver Laraway wants to buy the Shady Harbor Marina?

And where are the politicians who should represent the people here? Why are Michelle Hinchey and Paul Tonko silent on this issue? Do their environmental credentials suddenly fall away at the gates of the Port of Coeymans? If so, why?

I have huge respect for the professional staff of the Department of Environmental Conservation. I have no respect for this decision or the laws that have allowed it.

It has forced me to ask: Is New York State really this corrupt?

Barbara Heinzen

New Baltimore

March 12, 2022March 12, 2022

Direct Air Capture workshop recording

Moderated by our own, Barbara Heinzen, Ph.D., Chair of the CAC, this virtual event was recorded on April 10, 2022. It begins with an overview of the Carbon Dioxide Removal Leadership Act (A8597/S8171) in the NYS Assembly and Senate. Presentations by speakers June Sekera, Visiting Scholar at the New School University in New York/Senior Research Fellow at Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center and Jim Walsh, Policy Director for Food & Water Watch/Food & Water Action. There was a Q&A following the event.

This event is co-sponsored by us, the Clean Air Coalition of Greater Ravena Coeymans, the Clean Air Action Network of Glens Falls, Beyond Plastics, People of Albany United for Safe Energy, Food & Water Watch, Green Education and Legal Fund, and NATURE Lab and People’s Health Sanctuary at The Sanctuary for Independent Media.

The Sanctuary will continue to support community activists and environmental justice groups working on your behalf! Thank you for watching. Feel free to comment and share.

March 9, 2022March 9, 2022

Help Kermit & company cross the road

Every year, one of our CAC members dons a safety vest, rain jacket, and flashlight and finds herself stopping traffic on Route 144 in New Baltimore. That member is Barbara Heinzen and she is Mother Nature’s ultimate crossing guard. If the slimy, spotted salamander or the bumpy Fowler Toad, or the quick wood frog could talk they would thank her for their protection.

Weather Dependent Migration

The migration crossing is an event not to be missed! The excitement is especially educational for children first learning about the importance of wetlands. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of critical little creatures emerge from their underground winter shelters and head to vernal pools for breeding. The estuary that surrounds Barbara’s home makes for the perfect habitat for an important courtship. “The adult amphibians will gather, breed, and deposit eggs early enough to ensure their aquatic young can hatch, grow and leave the pools before they dry up,” says the DEC. The migration is weather-dependent but it always happens on balmier, rainy nights.

The Bigger Picture

Barbara is also a guardian angel of biological diversity. She’s the protector of all things green and vulnerable. She has worked for decades, without funding, to protect and conserve her Hudson River property from the effects of industrialization. She’s a passionate stakeholder in ensuring that her ecosystem doesn’t fall victim to the same fate as the Port of Coeymans.

She has secured sensitive slopes and soils that border the Hudson river with newly-planted native trees, shrubs, and vegetation. She also unearths tons of garbage and tires that wash up onto the shoreline every spring. Cottontails, white-tailed deer, turtles, even Bald Eagles have slowly but surely migrated to her oasis.

Joy in the Journey

If you’d like to help the aquatic young survive the journey, let Barbara know and she will send you an email with details. Thank you to all for caring about our community!