HUDSON RIVER TRAIL CONSTRUCTION

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

06-08-10 - 10:35 a.m. - A trail connecting the Greenport Conservation Area with Harrier Hill Park in the Town of Stockport could be constructed later this year, Scenic Hudson officials say.

Officials are currently working out with the project partners—the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and Open Space Institute—maintenance agreements for the trail once it is constructed, said Scenic Hudson representative Rita Shaheen. “We are talking with our partners in the project on how the property and trails will be maintained properly for public enjoyment,” she said.

Plans are also being evaluated to determine what trail construction work can be done by volunteers and what must be put out for bid by contractors. The project is being funded by an $80,000 federal grant that was awarded through the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. Shaheen said the current project schedule calls for construction to begin in September and last eight weeks. Following that, the park could be open “sometime in the fall.” In the meantime, the proposal must go before the Stockport and Greenport planning boards, though no dates making those proposals have been set. Shaheen said that, in additional to planning board approvals, at least one public outreach meeting will be conducted to discuss the plans.

The Stockport-Greenport trail would eventually become part of a larger trail network that will link to North Bay in Hudson with the 3.5 miles of trails in the Greenport Conservation Area and the Harrier Hill Park in Stockport. The Hudson section is being developed by the Columbia Land Conservancy (CLC) and city officials. Ellen Jouret-Epstein of CLC said the Hudson-Greenport leg of the trail is in the planning stages with a master plan still being developed. “There are a lot of people to talk with. It was a landfill after all,” she said, speaking of the former county landfill in the city, where the trail begins. She noted there also ownership issues to be resolved with all of the parcels that the trail would cross. Despite the complications, Jouret-Epstein said the overall future of the trail system remains quite bright.

“The Land Conservancy is working with the Kinderhook-Stuyvesant-Stockport trails committee. . . . The hope is there that we can someday develop a trail that starts at the [Rensselaer-Columbia] county line and goes all of the way into Hudson,” she said.