Stormwater Management Crucial for Pocantico Lake Subdivision
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
I have been a resident of Westchester County for over 48 years. I have always enjoyed walking the trails in the Rockefeller preserve. I love the beauty and serenity that Pocantico Lake County Park provides.
I spoke at the public hearing on Feb. 2 for Meadows and Briarcliff because residents need to understand how stormwater runoff from this property will forever impact not only the county park, but the Rockefeller State Park Preserve as well.
Any error in stormwater management will have devastating consequences for multiple ecosystems, aquatic and terrestrial, and degradation of the water quality in the Pocantico River will have adverse consequences for ecosystems in the Rockefeller preserve as well as all municipalities downstream.
The stormwater management system proposed in the 1,500-plus-page Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for a 32-home development was based on an “assumption” of water percolation rate. In other words, the Mount Pleasant Planning Board is evaluating planned development without the applicant having even tested the soil to confirm its assumptions upon which the entire stormwater management system is based. It is outrageous that a plan that poses such significant adverse environmental impacts for a county park, a state park and the Hudson River is being reviewed by a local board based on assumptions alone.
One can only guess why the applicant did not have to do actual soil testing, but the proposed plans show a property with so much bedrock that the applicant is proposing to build homes on 10 feet of fill. History shows that John Rockefeller Sr. used rocks from this property to build roads throughout the Pocantico area.
This entire project should be put on hold until the applicant does minimum soil testing, demonstrating that its stormwater management system is even feasible.
Failure of the stormwater management system will bring pollutants and contaminants directly into Pocantico Lake, not only destroying the parks, but forever ruining a potential back-up reservoir for all county residents.
Wendy Masserman
Ossining
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