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The Durst/Carvel Hearings: The Fifth and Final Durst Hearing |
Now’s the Time: Add Your Voice to the Durst Public Comment
The public hearings on the Durst DEIS are finally over (see our report on the last hearing below [insert jump to fifth hearing report]. Now it’s time for ALL concerned citizens to write letters or email to the Pine Plains Planning Board. If you couldn’t make it to any of the hearings—and even if you did—your written comments are crucial as the review process moves forward.
Here’s the address:
Pine Plains Planning Board
Box 955
Pine Plains, NY 12567
The email address is pineplainspb@aol.com.
Comments must be received by Monday, May 5.
Why is it so important to write? Because your written comments become part of the permanent public record of the hearings. The Pine Plains Planning Board must review all the comments and take them into consideration as they decide whether or not to accept the DEIS as it’s currently written. The PPPB will also take those comments into account if they decide to ask the Dursts for changes to the DEIS.
What should you say? Tell the Pine Plains Planning Board that this project as described in the DEIS has very serious flaws—in fact, that the DEIS is so badly flawed that they should reject it and insist that the applicant (that’s the Dursts) return to the drawing board and make substantive changes to address the many problems raised in the public hearings.
If possible, go on to address specific issues that relate to specific chapters of the DEIS. In the reports on the hearings on this website, we describe the criticisms from the many expert consultants who have commented on the DEIS. We’ve linked to their written reports whenever possible, and we’ve also linked to newspaper accounts of the hearings. There’s also a lot of good information on the Pine Plains United website at www.pineplainsunited.org. Please use these resources to address specific issues and concerns if possible. Specific criticisms have more impact than general statements that you’re just opposed to the project.
Some points to make (with thanks to attorney John Lyons of Pine Plains United—see his powerful comments here): [insert Lyons pdf link]
● The DEIS is inconsistent with the Pine Plains master plan and proposed zoning.
● The DEIS is incomplete with regard to numerous important and relevant potential adverse impacts.
● The inadequacies, omissions, and material deficiencies of the DEIS are so fundamental that the public can’t comment effectively on the document.
● To mitigate the impacts that have been identified by the experts, this project must be dramatically reduced in scale and its design must be significantly changed.
● Ask the PPPB to take a very hard look at the adverse environmental impacts of this project and demand real mitigation, not more greenwash.