Highlands Current Audio Stories By cover art

Highlands Current Audio Stories

By: Highlands Current
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  • Summary

  • 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.
    © 2024 Chip Rowe
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Episodes
  • Stormwater Challenges

    Stormwater Challenges
    Jul 26 2024
    A year after record rainfall, Cold Spring still recovering A year ago, Cold Spring was at the center of a record-breaking storm. As much as 9 inches of rain fell on the night of Sunday, July 9 - the equivalent at a colder time of year to 9 feet of snow. Flash floods washed away roads and bridges, flooded houses, disrupted transportation and caused millions of dollars in property damage in the region. In Highland Falls, a 30-year-old woman drowned. In Cold Spring, more than 7 inches of rain fell in just a few hours, inundating the drainage system from Cedar to Fair streets. The village has responded with plans for upgrades to handle the next superstorm. Hahn Engineering has completed the design for a $1.5 million rebuild of a collapsed drain beneath Fair Street. A parking ban remains in effect at Mayor's Park. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will fund 80 percent of the work to replace the 30-inch culvert that failed with two, 42-inch pipes. Work could begin late this year or early in 2025 once permits are approved. Because Fair Street lies within the Hudson River floodplain, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Conservation must OK the plans. The Fair Street drain flows into the tidal pool at Route 9D which, in turn, empties into the river, the endpoint for stormwater from the 160-acre Back Brook watershed that begins at Bull Hill, some 1,300 feet above Mayor's Park. "Topography is the biggest challenge we have," said Mayor Kathleen Foley, noting that during the 2023 storm, the volume of water that rushed down the mountains and slopes at high speed was simply too much for the infrastructure. That was evident at Cedar Street, which flooded when the stormwater drain was inundated by water flowing from Bull Hill through the Nelsonville Woods, a situation made worse because the village-owned 18-inch culvert under the street flows into a 10-inch pipe that runs under private property. While Fair Street is Cold Spring's first major project in response to the storm, it won't be the last. Elected officials are racing to find the ways and means to improve a system that, in some cases, dates to the mid-19th century. It's a race against global warming. According to the DEC, extreme storms are becoming a greater threat. Between 1958 and 2010, heavy precipitation in the northeastern U.S. rose by more than 70 percent, the largest increase for any region of the country. The Fair Street project underlines the high cost of upgrading infrastructure. The village has applied for a Hudson River Estuaries Climate Adaptation Study Grant that, if approved, would determine the best options for improving stormwater management throughout the Back Brook watershed. Related: Storm Repairs Ongoing Fuss and O'Neill, a firm that specializes in climate adaptability forecasting, will advise the village on proposed modifications to the system. Hahn Engineering's work delineated the Back Brook watershed and assessed the movement of stormwater within it. Foley pointed out that most residents don't realize Back Brook is a single, continuous stream. That's not surprising because it has been altered many times. It flows beneath Cedar Street and parts of Main Street but is open behind houses on the east side of Garden Street. Hahn recommended that upgrades be made first at the bottom of the watershed by installing larger culverts; dredging open portions of Back Brook; adding retention areas above Cedar Street to slow the flow from Bull Hill; restoring James Pond and creating new ponds; and expanding wetlands. Runoff which shifted into Back Brook because of more recent storms could be altered to again flow into Foundry Brook. Such initiatives would require intermunicipal agreements with Nelsonville and Philipstown, as well as input from the DEC, and Foley said the village is researching grants to apply for and prioritizing them by likelihood of success. "In theory, there's a lot of money out there from the federal infra...
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    4 mins
  • Shakespeare Fest Plan Approved

    Shakespeare Fest Plan Approved
    Jul 26 2024
    New theater scheduled to open in 2026 After several years of reviews, public meetings and modifications, the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival on July 18 received its final set of approvals from Philipstown for the first phase of development at its new home at the former Garrison Golf Course. Planning Board approval sets the stage for a groundbreaking in the fall for a 13,850-square-foot outdoor theater on the former 11th hole, which provides an expansive view of the Hudson River. Chris Davis, who owned the course, donated 98 acres to the festival, which moved to the site in 2022 after staging its productions for more than 30 years on the grounds of Boscobel on Route 9D. Once completed, the structure will be the first purpose-built theater in the nation rated LEED Platinum. Among other criteria, the international standard - which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design - judges buildings on how well they reduce global warming, protect water resources, enhance biodiversity and improve a community's quality of life. Platinum is the highest of four levels. Renderings by StudioGang The site plan was initially presented to the Philipstown Town Board in 2020 and revised several times to address concerns by Planning Board members and neighbors about issues such as noise and traffic. Plans for an inn and an indoor theater were removed from the first phase, more trees will be planted along Route 9 and a parking lot positioned on a wetland was relocated. Artistic Director Davis McCallum said this week that he appreciated the time that Town Board, Planning Board and Conservation Board members dedicated to the project. He also thanked residents who offered feedback during five public hearings. "We tried to listen to the community with openness and curiosity about how we could adapt this project to serve the community best," he said. "The process has yielded a better outcome." The theater will have solar panels, a green roof, natural ventilation and rainwater capture systems and will use low-carbon building materials. McCallum said that HVSF hasn't determined how much the project will cost, but that because of "quiet fundraising" and a $10 million state grant, it will begin construction on the theater in the fall and open the facility before the 2026 season. Since 2022, the festival has been staging its plays in a tent elsewhere on the site. The site was designed by Studio Gang, whose recent projects include the Richard Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Its design there drew acclaim for its flowing and curvaceous granite interior that evokes desert canyons and beehives. "For us, they have delivered a design that is beautiful, sustainable and consonant with the landscape of the Hudson Highlands," McCallum said. Although the theater will have fewer seats than the tent, it won't include support poles that block views. In addition, McCallum said it will allow HVSF to extend its season from early September to mid-October, allowing for weekday matinees for students. The 2025 season is being envisioned as a "farewell to the tent," according to HVSF. McCallum said next year's schedule will be announced in October. He hinted that the company has known for years what show it will perform to open the theater in 2026. He wouldn't budge when pressed for a reveal but said: "It will be the fulfillment of something that we've wanted for many years, which is that moment when the actors can appear over the hillside and approach the theater. That's the thing that I'm most looking forward to on the first night."
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    3 mins
  • Internet Insecurity

    Internet Insecurity
    Jul 26 2024
    Cyberattacks pose growing threat Chris White, the Beacon city administrator, is concerned enough about a cyberattack that he would prefer the city not be mentioned in a story about the threat. For good reason, municipalities are reluctant to present themselves as a target, discuss their security measures or share how they responded to being held hostage by hackers or having data stolen. The City of Newburgh learned in June how disruptive an attack can be. A "network security incident" disabled its ability to process payments for parking tickets, property taxes and services such as sewer and water. Earlier this month, the Goshen school district in Orange County said it had been victimized by a ransomware attack, in which hackers hijack systems and demand payment to restore access. The district said the attack disabled computer, email and phone systems. Every local government and school district, especially smaller ones without the staff and resources to adequately protect themselves, faces this potential for havoc. Along with demands for ransom, hackers could steal sensitive information about residents that is collected by every county, town and village. Earlier this year, the security company Sophos released the results of a survey of 5,000 IT leaders in 14 countries for its annual report, The State of Ransomware in Critical Infrastructure. The survey included 300 school districts and 270 local or state governments; 80 percent of the schools and 69 percent of the municipalities said they had been hit by ransomware demands in the past year. Of those, 62 percent of the schools and 54 percent of the governments paid. Of those who provided numbers, schools reported paying an average of $7.5 million and governments $5.3 million to recover their data. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center last year received nearly 27,000 complaints about cybercrimes in New York state, including online scams and data breaches, an 8 percent increase over 2022. Losses were estimated at $750 million. The most common scam reported nationally are "phishing" emails, which hackers design to resemble official correspondence in an effort to get the recipient to enter log-in information or click links or open attachments that install malicious software that can take control of a computer. These emails are the source of more than 90 percent of cyberattacks, according to the state Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services (DHSES). More than 75 percent of organizations say they have been the target of phishing, and more than half of all emails are malicious, according to DHSES. "It is a threat that keeps evolving and growing," said Steve Oscarlece, the acting commissioner for the Dutchess County Office of Central and Information Services (OCIS). "There can be significant financial costs, as well as to their reputations, and the interruption of services." In June, more than 200 people representing over 100 organizations attended an annual cybersecurity summit that Dutchess and Marist College began holding in 2022. The panel discussions included representatives from the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and DHSES, which has an Office of Counter Terrorism and a Cyber Incident Response Team. Attendees also witnessed a mock cyberattack staged by the Office of Counter Terrorism to illustrate how municipalities and organizations can respond. Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT have made phishing attempts harder to identify because they eliminate telltale signs of fraud such as misspellings or grammar errors. "It's made it easier for them to craft emails that look legitimate and are more likely to fool the recipient," said Jacob Morrison, the deputy commissioner for OCIS. At the same time, Morrison said, artificial intelligence is being used by organizations to bolster their defenses and by cybersecurity companies to improve the ability of software to detect attacks. Other countermeasures include educating employees on id...
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    6 mins
Art Politics & Government
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