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Highlands Current Audio Stories

Highlands Current Audio Stories

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The Highlands Current is a nonprofit weekly newspaper and daily website that covers Beacon, Cold Spring, Garrison, Nelsonville and Philipstown, New York, in the Hudson Highlands. This podcast includes select stories read aloud. Arte Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • Grant Eyed for Route 9D Sidewalks

    Grant Eyed for Route 9D Sidewalks
    Jan 11 2026
    Upfront costs pose a challenge
    Philipstown and Cold Spring are pursuing state funding to build sidewalks on the east and west sides of Route 9D between the village, the Gateway Trail at Little Stony Point and the Washburn parking lot.
    But they must first find the money required by the state's Transportation Alternatives Program, which has a pre-application deadline of Thursday (Jan. 15), with finalized applications due by March 15, said Supervisor John Van Tassel during the Town Board meeting this past Thursday (Jan. 8).
    Philipstown would apply jointly with Cold Spring for the stretch between Mayor's Park in the village and the Gateway Trail at Little Stony Point, a project that will cost an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million, said Van Tassel. The town is also seeking a grant for a sidewalk along the east side of Route 9D from the village border to Washburn, a $3 million project.
    The Transportation Alternatives Program reimburses 80 percent of the costs, but the state refuses to waive a requirement that municipalities first spend their own money, said Van Tassel. "Somewhere between Jan. 15 and March 15, we need to have the money secured, or another route to finance the two sidewalks," he said.
    Van Tassel said he asked Putnam County if it was willing to guarantee the 80 percent outlay, but the county could not because it would need approval from the full Legislature, which is not scheduled to meet again until Feb. 3, after the pre-application deadline. The county did offer to help with engineering and the application process, said Van Tassel.
    The town also approached Hudson Highlands Fjord Trail Inc. for help, he said. "So far, the answer is not 'No,' " said Van Tassel. "They need to explore more, and I understand that. They're really willing to work with us."
    While funding is uncertain, the Town Board approved a resolution requesting that Putnam relinquish a 0.17-acre strip on Fair Street that is part of the area where the westside sidewalk would go.
    Depot Theater
    The board approved a 99-year lease for land at the Recreation Department property where The Depot Theater wants to build a "backstage" building for props, rehearsals and classes for students interested in lighting, set construction and sound.

    The Depot is seeking a state grant to construct the building, which will be given to the town and leased by the theater. Philipstown has already approved a lease for the building but needed a ground lease because of the state's concern "that there wasn't an immediate possessory right to the land," said Stephen Gaba, the town attorney.
    "It's one of the considerations that the state has in deciding whether or not to award the funds," he said.
    Gas station restrictions
    The Town Board approved laws restricting businesses that store petroleum products from opening north of Route 301.
    The laws confine new gas stations and "hybrid petroleum storage facilities" — such as home heating oil companies and truck depots — that store up to 25,000 gallons of fuel between Route 301 and Philipstown's southern border on Route 9, as well as a stretch of Route 301 between Route 9 and the Nelsonville border.
    The changes were spurred by fears that an oil spill could contaminate the aquifer that homeowners and businesses rely on for drinking water. Philipstown also approved a townwide ban on businesses that store large amounts of petroleum products.
    Conservation subdivisions
    Philipstown set a public hearing for March 5 to hear feedback on proposed amendments to its conservation subdivision zoning, which allows developers to build at a higher density in exchange for preserving as open space portions of their properties with features such as forests, scenic views and wetlands.
    Under the zoning code, developers proposing four or more housing units must submit a conservation analysis to the Planning Board. If the Planning Board determines that the project may adversely affect Philipstown's rural character, it has the option of requiring that the devel...
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    7 m
  • Can We Get the Lead Out?

    Can We Get the Lead Out?
    Jan 9 2026
    Shortage of funds and staff as federal deadlines loom
    In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Newburgh and Poughkeepsie flexed their industrial muscle by installing state-of-the-art water systems.
    Unfortunately, state-of-the-art was lead, notes state Assembly Member Jonathan Jacobson, whose district includes both cities, as well as Beacon. "There's no such thing as a safe level of lead in the water," he said. Water contaminated with lead usually looks, smells and tastes the same, and the negative health effects of lead poisoning can take years to become apparent.
    According to an analysis by the New York League of Conservation Voters Education Fund of newly available data, many lead pipes may still be in use. In Poughkeepsie, 82 percent of the pipes that connect mains to individual buildings are lead, the highest rate in the state. Beacon is in better shape, with only two service lines confirmed as lead, and only 13 in Putnam County. But the status of 45 percent of Beacon's lines, and 41 percent of Putnam's, is unknown.
    The data was released because of a federal law passed during the Biden administration that required municipalities to submit water-line inventories to the Environmental Protection Agency by October 2024. By October 2027, municipalities must confirm which lines are lead. By 2037, according to the law, every lead line in the country must be replaced. The EPA estimates there are about 500,000 lead service lines in New York state.
    Jacobson notes that, to meet the 2037 deadline, 41,000 pipes will need to be replaced, on average, each year, at an estimated cost of $7,000 to $12,000 each. While state and federal funding is available, it doesn't seem to be reaching the communities that need it most. "The state has to take this seriously," said Jacobson.
    Mapping the problem
    Lead has a lot going for it. It's flexible and durable, making it an ideal candidate for service lines that must wind their way from street mains to homes.
    But in the mid-20th century, scientists began to sound alarms about lead, linking neighborhoods with high levels in the water to ills ranging from higher dropout and violent crime rates to developmental disorders and birth defects. Municipalities began adding chemicals to water to keep lead from leaching into the supply. But getting the mix right requires monitoring, as Flint, Michigan, found to its peril when in 2014 it switched its drinking water source from Lake Huron to the Flint River.
    The river water was more acidic, but the city didn't adjust. That error, along with many other failures, led to 100,000 Flint residents being exposed to water with lead levels several times higher than the federal limits. A national outcry over the crisis prompted the federal legislation to remove all lead service lines. In 2021, Congress included five years of funding in its Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

    Josh Klainberg of the New York League of Conservation Voters notes that, while other environmental regulations have come under fire from the Trump administration, the lead rules have so far proved the exception. "This is a very popular program," he said. "The money is going out to red states and blue states."
    While every state must inventory lead lines, the federal law doesn't require them to share the information with the public. New York passed its own disclosure law, but says it will take several years to turn the data into an interactive map.
    The NYLCV decided to make its own. "We figured we could do better," said Klainberg. "This is letting folks know what's going on — not just within their household, because they should get notification of that from their local water system — but within the community." (You can browse the map at dub.sh/lead-lines.)
    Beacon had a similar idea. Its lead-line map can be found at bit.ly/BeaconLead, although Ed Balicki, the superintendent of water and sewer, said it's due for an update. The city has data to add because of an unlikely ally: the pandemic.
    The funding pipe...
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    8 m
  • She Was Nice to Mice (and Still Is)

    She Was Nice to Mice (and Still Is)
    Jan 9 2026
    Actor and author Ally Sheedy to visit Garrison
    On Saturday (Jan. 17), the Desmond-Fish Public Library in Garrison will host a creative writing workshop for children and teens ages 8 to 13 led by Ally Sheedy. Philipstown resident Emily Lansbury will interview the actor and author before she is presented with the Alice Curtis Desmond Award for Excellence in Children's Literature.
    Sheedy is best known for her roles in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, both released in 1985. But a decade earlier, when she was 12, she wrote a children's book, She Was Nice to Mice, a memoir of a literary mouse in the court of Queen Elizabeth I that was published by McGraw-Hill and two years later in paperback by Dell. She also published a collection of poetry in 1991, Yesterday I Saw the Sun.

    Sheedy says her Garrison library visit is designed to encourage reading. "I am a big reader," she says. "It's about different ways to look at the world, and you get that from reading a lot of books."
    She also admits to being "a history obsessive," which is what inspired She Was Nice to Mice. As a child, she watched Anne of the Thousand Days, a 1969 film starring Richard Burton as King Henry VIII and Geneviève Bujold as Anne Boleyn, his second wife.
    Because of that movie, "I got obsessed with the Tudors; I got obsessed with Elizabeth I," Sheedy recalls. "I wanted to be in that world all the time. I read everything I could find," including A Little Princess, a 1905 novel by Frances Hodgson, and the Mary Poppins series by P.L. Travers, which led to a further focus on British novelists and British history.

    About 15 years ago, she began to help her mother, Charlotte, at her literary agency. "Because I read so much, I started reading manuscripts and writing up editorial reports," she says. "That led to working with some writers one-on-one, to look at their structure and story arc and see if there's a way to get their manuscripts into the best possible shape for submission to publishers.
    "I'm better at writing an analysis of somebody else's writing than I am at coming up with my own ideas. For some reason, I'm really suited to taking apart stories. Maybe it has something to do with taking apart scripts."

    Sheedy says her favorite book is The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan, and that she enjoys podcasts such as The Rest is History. "I love to read nonfiction," she says. "I thought there were — even at this age [she's 63] — gaps in my education about world history. I've been on this search to fill those holes."
    When asked if the students at the workshop will have seen her iconic films, she says: "I don't think that they're going to know. We'll skip right over that and just talk about writing. I did write a book when I was 12, so — you never know."
    The Desmond-Fish library is located at 472 Route 403 in Garrison. To register for the free event, which begins at 2 p.m., see dub.sh/DF-ally-sheedy. She Was Nice to Mice is out of print, but the library has 10 copies to lend.
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    3 m
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