CWC board approves Schoharie grants, Ulster loan

MARGARETVILLE, N.Y., October 4, 2007 – The Catskill Watershed Corporation (CWC).

Board of Directors has approved grants for five municipal planning projects in the Schoharie Reservoir basin.

The projects will be undertaken as part of the CWC’s Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) and are intended to curb future stormwater problems and turbidity in the basin

Grants totaling $500,000 were awarded at the Sept. 25 CWC Board meeting. Funds will go to the Town of Windham to compile a Generic Environmental Impact Statement (GEIS) to identify the impacts of and mitigations for reasonably foreseeable future development; the Town of Roxbury to do a Comprehensive Plan addendum and a GEIS; the Town of Conesville for a GEIS for the Manorkill area; and the Town of Jewett for a Stormwater Analysis.

The Town and Village of Hunter and the Village of Tannersville will team up to prepare a GEIS for the Route 23A corridor through the town.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection is funding the LTAP projects under terms of a 2006 SPDES permit issued by the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to the City for its discharges of turbid water from the Schoharie Reservoir via the Shandaken Tunnel into the Esopus Creek and Ashokan Reservoir.

In other action at its monthly meeting, the CWC Board approved a $1 million low-interest loan to Numrich Arms Corp. of West Hurley, Ulster County. The funds will help pay for a new 26,000-square-foot warehouse on the company’s Williams Lane property to lease to affiliate Numrich Gun Parts Corp., the largest supplier of gun replacement parts in the world employing 75 people. The building will be use to store the company’s175,000-item inventory.

The CWC board also approved a Special Education Program grant of $19,700 to Calliope Creative Foundation for a video documentary on this summer’s Mountaintop to Tap Trek by 12 high school students from New York City and Sidney. The video will be produced by Delhi Stories, Inc. and will be screened at an upcoming opening of a CWC-funded exhibit of student photographs and writings from the 100-mile trek.

For more information on the non-profit Catskill Watershed Corporation and its environmental protection, economic development and education programs, go to www.cwconline.org, or call 845-586-1400.