It’s not often that a headline error winds up enhancing an article. The headline for Mary-Ellen Seitelman’s My View article in last week’s paper mentions the White Lake Mansion. The article addresses some of the critical issues regarding the White Lake Estate. While these are two separate projects, all of these issues apply equally to the White Lake Mansion as well. It is a happy accident that this headline ties both of these projects together.

Both projects are in close proximity to each other.  Both projects are on 17B, a heavily traveled road.  Both are in the White Lake Watershed, formally known as the Swinging Bridge-Mongaup River HUC12 Watershed.  Both used the same flawed traffic survey, one that appears to have relied on faulty equipment and barely covered one weekend during the summer. Both projects are private, gated facilities and will not provide any services for the general public.  Both would be connected to our already over-taxed sewer system. 

Our boards must consider the combined impact from both projects. 

This is the definition of “cumulative impact,” as defined by the NYSDEC SEQR handbook. 

Chapter 4, section 16:

“Cumulative impacts occur when multiple actions affect the same resource(s). These impacts can occur when the incremental or increased impacts of an action, or actions, are added to other past, present and reasonably foreseeable future actions. Cumulative impacts can result from a single action or from two or more individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over time. Cumulative impacts do not have to all be associated with one sponsor or applicant. They may include indirect or secondary impacts, long-term impacts and synergistic effects.”

Planning boards most often treat SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) only as a procedural issue, when it is also substantive law.  The vast majority of projects before these boards are determined to be “unlisted” or Type II actions which have will have no significant impact on the environment and require no further SEQR review, even when there is a preponderance of evidence to the contrary.  

It is well past time we hold our town boards, planning boards and zoning boards accountable, not only to the current residents and taxpayers, but to the future of our communities as well.

Barbara Lerner is a Sullivan County resident and an advocate for a sustainable future.