Editorial On Thin Ice An unusual thing happened during this past weekend’s severe cold snap: Between 6:30 p.m. on Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday, Otsego Lake, the largest lake in Otsego County, froze over completely. With this week’s warmer weather forecast, it may well thaw again and, if it does, it will follow a somewhat disturbing trend that could spell trouble in the years ahead. Records of ice cover on Otsego Lake have been kept since 1842 and, with the…
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Certified Passive Chestnut Crossing Open House Slated for Jan. 28 By DAN SULLIVANCOOPERSTOWN Josh Edmonds has decided where he will work to make a difference in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. “The built environment accounts for 40 percent of global emissions,” said Edmonds in a recent interview. “Furthermore, two thirds of existing buildings will still be in use in 2050.” Thus, the mission of Edmonds and his company, Simple Integrity, is to turn standing buildings into high-performance…
Editorial Tread Lightly, Care and Think Every year the growth, and non-growth, of a variety of areas of interest—such as the economy, the population, bird migrations, immigration, wildfires, utilities, stocks, violence, college rankings, China and the like—are subject to intense research and interpretation. Inevitably, the results are published far and wide just after the last drop of the New Year’s ball. One such fast-developing aspect of our life is our carbon footprint (CO2e), the total greenhouse gas emissions that trap…
Farmland Runoff, Intense Storms Raise Phosphorus Loads That Drive HABs in Seneca-Keuka Watershed, 9E Study Finds By PETER MANTIUS Originally published in October in “Water Front,” an online blog by Peter Mantius, this article is being reprinted with permission from Mantius because of its relevance to issues currently threatening water bodies statewide, including challenges to keeping our freshwater resources clean and climate-caused threats. GENEVA, NY – A comprehensive plan to cut phosphorus pollution in the Seneca-Keuka Watershed won final state…
Column from Dan Sullivan Otsego County—a ‘Receiving Community?’ The lexicon of climate change evolves as the climate crisis wears on. Terms like “greenhouse effect” and “global warming” are now considered old, even though they are not. Recently, two new terms (new to this writer) appeared during a Harvard University climate change webinar: “retreating communities” and “receiving communities.” Simply put, these terms refer to communities that are becoming undesirable or unlivable (“retreating”), and those that appear to be either less affected…
Column from Otsego Electric Cooperative Inc. OEC Statement on Climate Action New York’s Climate Action Council is finalizing its Scoping Plan for meeting the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act goals. The Climate Action Plan needs to achieve an affordable, dependable, and safe electric grid but we are not certain that the CAP will achieve this. OEC is a distribution utility. We do not generate our power supply. OEC has been a green energy utility since the early 1960s. OEC…
News from the Noteworthy Algae Bloom Affects Lake Activities The summer of 2022 will be remembered as the year our beloved Lake Otsego first suffered a Harmful Algal Bloom (HAB). The conditions which allow a HAB to occur are known. This column reviews Village of Cooperstown public beaches, boat launch sites and most importantly, Village drinking water. The SUNY Oneonta Biological Field Station (BFS) has monitored lake conditions for decades. This summer, when Glimmerglass State Park first noted an algae…
Tree Inspection Complete in Cooperstown The Village of Cooperstown does a yearly assessment of all of the trees in the Village. “The assessment went well this year. We were fortunate to have five members of the Tree Committee able to attend. We did it with 5 sets of eyes which is fantastic,” Cindy Falk, Deputy Mayor and Chair of the Streets Committee. “We have a number of village trees where it’s clear that parts of them have either already dropped…
Editorial Looking an Aqua Pandemic in the Eye Recently, we at The Freeman’s Journal have become aware that some of our readers, and others who may not be our readers, still have questions about the toxic algae blooms that of late have been creeping up on us from the depths and edges of our beloved Otsego Lake. So here goes an effort to get it right. According to NOAA, whose satellites, along with those of the EPA, NASA and the…
News from the Noteworthy Much Ado About Methane Our column, The Life of the Land, is an exploration of local agricultural practices. Several of our pieces will focus on farms which raise grass-fed animals; here we address the environmental implications of locally raised livestock. It is indisputable that industrial livestock management is an ecological disaster. This has led to pronouncements from numerous authoritative agencies to eat “less meat” or even “no meat”. Yet grass-fed production of livestock is an important…
