PROPOSED O&G ROAD HITS A POTHOLE

Mike McCagg

ccSCOOP News

03-07-10 - 6:45 p.m. - Not so fast.  

After the second consecutive month of discussions over traffic, speed, and sight distances at the intersections of the proposed O&G truck route from the quarry in Greenport to the deep-water dock in Hudson, the Greenport Planning Board nixed a request from the project's engineer to move the proposal forward by sending it to the Ccounty Planning Board for review.  

"No letter [from the Department of Transportation], no action," Planning Board member Michael Bucholsky said in response to the request from O&G Engineer Pat Prendergast. "I just think a traffic light [at the intersections] is an absolute necessity. It's a fatality waiting to happen."  

“Someone is going to get killed, sure as heck,” added fellow board member Bob MacGiffert.   In January, the Planning Board said it would send a letter to the Department of Transportation requesting the traffic lights at the intersections of proposed O&G road with Route 9 and Route 9G, but the board didn't send the letter because it never received a requested $1,000 escrow check from O&G.Despite assurances from Prendergast that he could have the check submitted this week, the Planning Board said it would take no action until the check was in hand. In the end, Prendergast said he would make the request to DOT and have a response before returning to the Planning Board on March.

The Greenport Planning Board said it would reach out to the City of Hudson to see where the city is in the review of the project. Prendergast said discussions with the mayor of Hudson and an unnamed representative of the Hudson Planning Commission have indicated that no site plan review may be required in Hudson.“We have met with the mayor and we talked with the [Hudson] Planning Board," Prendergast claimed, "and the good news is that there might not need to be a site plan approval in the city because we already use the causeway for truck traffic.”

Regardless of what Greenport or Hudson may think of the proposal, the Freshwater Wetlands Appeal Board may have the final say. Although the Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a permit for the "maintenance and repair of [the] existing gravel and stone roadway," Scenic Hudson has appealed that permit, maintaining the use of a former railroad bed as a roadway for heavy truck traffic will harm the South Bay and the wetlands east of Route 9G. Prendergast told the Greenport Planning Board that an average of 10 to 15 trips an hour would be made by trucks on the proposed road.

Responding to questions posed last month by the Greenport Planning Board, traffic engineer Ken Wersted, employed by O&G, said traffic has not increased dramatically since the last state traffic studies were done Route 9 and Route 9G. He also reported that the sight distances north and south the proposed intersection on both highways exceeded state recommendations in two instances and fell just below what is recommended in the other instances. Where the sight distances were less than what is recommended, Wersted said that vegetation and trees could be removed from Holcim property to correct the problems.

“If the trees have to go, the trees have to go,” said Prendergast.