Thursday, December 11th, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Kingston, NY. – A coalition of organizations and communities from Ulster County and New York State submitted a petition on December 5th to the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council. The group requested that the council not award grant funds to the controversial Niagara Bottling Company proposal in this year’s round of grant announcement.
“We are pleased with the Governor’s announcement today and the decision not to fund the Niagara Bottling Company’s proposal at this time. With the project being in the midst of a full environmental review, it is a good decision to wait until all of the related impacts can be evaluated.” says the rapidly growing coalition in the region.
The proposed Niagara Bottling 414,800 square-foot bottling facility will process up to 1.75 million gallons per day (GPD) of water from the City of Kingston’s water supply at Cooper Lake located in Woodstock, using over 25% of its capacity, with plans to truck in much more than that from springs in surrounding communities. The Group’s effort is to build a transparent, participatory process based on the facts about this project, having learned that the proposal is being promoted without adequate analysis of its potential economic and environmental impacts. A “Positive Declaration” has been determined and a full public scoping process in the State Quality Review (SEQR) process from the Town of Ulster as Lead Agency is now currently underway.
For more information, contact Rebecca Martin at rebecca@kingstoncitizens.org
It is encouraging that the economic development authorities are recognizing both the value of a transparent review process and the importance of community support for a proposed business – even from a purely economic point of view. There are so many stronger ways to approach water-related economic development – preservation and restoration technologies rather than simple extraction of the resource.