Film looking for horse farm location

Th Hudson Valley Film Commission says a feature film looking to shoot this summer in the Hudson Valley region seeks a horse farm, “with a masculine/rustic looking home, a barn, stables/paddocks and smaller caretaker’s home. The house itself should have a rustic feel. It would also help if there was some type of water on [...]

GE says dredging causes more pollution

From Andrea Bernstein at WNYC: The General Electric Corporation is arguing that its clean-up of PCBs from the upper Hudson River is making the pollution worse. GE is telling a panel of scientists meeting today [through Thursday at Queensbury Hotel, Adirondack Room, 88 Ridge Street, Glens Falls] that phase one of the dredging stirred up [...]

Tomato blight again?

Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University Agriculture Department, shares these tips for anyone who would like to grow tomatoes in the wake of last year’s blight (h/t Rural Intelligence): The good news for gardeners is that they are starting with a relatively clean slate this year. Phytophthora infestans, the fungus-like pathogen that causes [...]

DEP opens public lands

From Watershed Post: This just in from the DEP: The agency that polices New York City’s upstate watershed will open 12,000 acres of city-owned watershed land to recreation. A total of 71,000 DEP-owned acres in the New York City watershed are now open to the public, according to a press release from the agency. The [...]

State Senate Agricultural Committee votes down farmworker bill

On Tuesday the State Senate’s Agriculture Committee voted down the Farmworkers Fair Labor Practices Act. Among features of the bill, farmers would have had to pay over time to laborers who work more than 60 hours a week or 10 hours in a day and farm workers would gain the right to form a union [...]

DEC issues de facto ban on gas drilling in NYC watershed

From Lissa Harris in Watershed Post: This just in: The DEC has declared that their draft regulations on natural-gas drilling don’t apply to New York City’s watershed. (Or, for that matter, Syracuse’s Skaneateles Lake watershed, also among a handful of water systems in the nation allowed by the EPA to operate without filtration.) From the [...]

Film crew sought for area production

Per the Woodstock Film Festival (h/t The 12534), Ulster County-based actress Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Departed) makes her directorial debut with a low-budget production called “Higher Ground” that films nearby and is looking to hire Hudson Valley crew members for May-June film production. Send e-mail with resume to highergroundmovie@me.com. They are looking [...]

Shad on the rebound?

From The Watershed Post: American shad, once plentiful in the Hudson and the smaller rivers they return to each year to spawn, have suffered tremendous declines in recent years–so much so that the NY DEC declared them off-limits in the Hudson this year. Nevertheless, the guides at Cross Current Fly Fishing think this is going [...]

No JetBlue expansion plans at Stewart, for now

From Mid-Hudson News.com: JetBlue Airways is for now planning on sticking with its two daily flights to Florida from Stewart Airport, just west of Newburgh. The airline flies one flight a day each to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale. At some point it would like to consider expanding, but for now, officials say they are satisfied [...]

New DEP rules for NYC watershed

From The Daily Freeman: Updated regulations for the New York City reservoir system watershed took effect on Sunday. City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway said the new regulations amend existing regulations to align them with changes made in federal and state law over the past 10 years, and address issues that have been [...]

New York State trout season opens April 1

(The brook trout, left, and the rainbow trout, right, from DEC.) From DEC: “Trout season opens April 1 in New York State, and anglers can again look forward to a great year of fishing, thanks to the natural diversity of angling opportunities within New York and management of the state’s fisheries by DEC. Due to [...]

Today’s local headlines

Greene Supports Cementhttp://www.dailyfreeman.com/articles/2009/07/16/news/doc4a5e963a75857373047517.txt CATSKILL — Greene County lawmakers on Wednesday roundly endorsed operations of local cement manufacturers to remind state and federal officials that the industry is important to the local economy. The support was given in a unanimous vote, with one absence, during a county Legislature meeting, where officials asked that funding for modernization [...]