Editorial of August 21, 2025

It’s 2025. Do You Know Where Your GEIS Is?

Twenty-three years ago, “The Freeman’s Journal” was reporting on the Generic Environmental Impact Statement, or GEIS, on the capacities of the Cooperstown region. Developed by Community Planning and Environmental Associates of Berne, under the leadership of Nan Stolzenburg and in collaboration with other environmental science agencies, the 243-page draft of the GEIS was released for public comment in May of 2002.

“Following a public input process, GEIS developers sought to identify environmental sensitivities, review land-use laws, document negative impacts and offer mitigation strategies useful to protecting the area’s future,” wrote then-Managing Editor Tim Hayes.

“The document instructs readers on various impacts potentially found in the area and establishes a means for interested parties to evaluate the effects of these impacts,” Hayes continued. “The GEIS outlines these impacts as having “extremely severe,” “severe,” or “moderate” limitations on potential proposals given environmental conditions of a particular area. According to the GEIS, certain areas have constraints, such as water, shoreline buffers or conservation easements, which would prevent construction in a particular area. Other areas could benefit from a variety of mitigation techniques to allow for development.”

The sub-sections of the GEIS deal with: geology; hydrogeology; wellhead protection areas; surface water; Otsego Lake and its watershed; ambient light conditions; historical resources; visual resources; wildlife, plants, and important habitats; agricultural resources; on-site wastewater treatment; Village of Cooperstown Water Treatment Facility assessment; suitability for septic; groundwater; transportation; emergency services; demographics; economic conditions; land-use trends; affordable housing; and tourism impacts.

The study area included the Village of Cooperstown and the towns of Middlefield, Otsego, Springfield, and Hartwick.

At the time, following each public meeting on the GEIS, TFJ staff shook their heads in consternation at the apparent public disinterest in the project. Draft headlines, written tongue in cheek, read, “GEIS: Still Unpopular.” In his page one article, Hayes pointed out that representatives from the towns of Springfield and Hartwick “chose not to participate in the formal process.” Those towns were included in the study and will receive copies for review, as will the county planning department, Hayes said.

Very useful for municipal planners, a GEIS is an information-gathering process that can be helpful for understanding complex environmental issues. The result of this comprehensive environmental assessment, the Final GEIS, is an analysis of the potential impact of a broad range of actions—or a group of related actions—often used when site-specific details are not yet available. The GEIS process includes important information and recommendations for making informed decisions on new development and infrastructure. The goal is to identify and assess common environmental impacts to allow for more efficient review of individual development projects that fall under the scope of the GEIS. The GEIS does not, however, exempt specific projects from further environmental review under the State Environmental Quality Review Act to assess impacts that vary between locations.

Last week, Bill Bellen reported for us on a proposed 111-lot subdivision of 1,525 acres of properties on the west side of Otsego Lake, owned by real estate developer Fraydun Manocherian. Unlike the GEIS in 2002, public interest in this project appears to be high. The planning boards of the towns of Otsego and Springfield were presented with a sketch plan, “a very early-stages display of bare bones of what the proposed project would entail,” Bellen wrote. Social media has been abuzz with concerns about and objections to the subdivision. Bellen described the planning board meetings as “contentious.”

Coincidentally, the Town of Otsego announced earlier this month that it has contracted with the Mohawk Valley Economic Development District Inc. to update the town’s 2008 Comprehensive Plan, a document with which local zoning law must be in accordance. Community members are invited to an open house at the Otsego Town Hall on Thursday, August 28 to “help shape Otsego’s future,” according to the press release. “Drop in any time between 5-8 p.m.,” it reads.

It is interesting to note that the Otsego Comprehensive Plan does refer to the findings of the GEIS, titled “Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement on the Capacities of the Cooperstown Region.” The Town of Springfield, which did not participate in the study, also references the GEIS in its 2009 comprehensive plan, as does the 2024 comp plan for the Town of Middlefield. We could not find any mention of the document in Hartwick’s plan, released in 2020.

So how relevant is the GEIS today?

Back in 2002, Hayes wrote: “One of the largest sections [of the GEIS] contains recommended environmental strategies at the municipal level and evaluations of individual municipal policies.”

“For instance, the towns of Middlefield and Otsego have zoning ordinances with components that ultimately promote sprawl,” the GEIS states.

Town of Otsego officials say their revised comp plan “will guide future decisions on housing, the economy, natural resources, infrastructure, and more.” Some of the information in the original GEIS, approved in the fall of 2002, most likely needs updating, but surely there is content that remains useful and is still applicable. In fact, the GEIS provides a sound factual foundation for any comprehensive plan update or revision within its focus area.

But where is the GEIS? We could find portions of the document online in what was, albeit, a quick search, but could not locate the full final document. Back in the day, all towns located within the study area received a copy, as did the Village Library of Cooperstown. We hope the municipalities still have their copies, and are ready to dust them off and make them available to the public and to town officials working on updating comprehensive plans.

No one seemed all that interested in the GEIS 23 years ago, but this document—a comprehensive, science-based assessment of what the region’s environment can bear in terms of development—could now become all the rage now as residents around Otsego Lake object to the Manocherian project and bemoan what some are calling “The Nightmare on Wedderspoon Hollow.”