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Some Preliminary Proposals for Relicensing Settlement:
July
19, 2004 |
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Some Preliminary Proposals for Relicensing
Settlement for July
21-22, 2004 Amended by the
addition of three paragraphs, noted by [Paragraph added, July 22, 2004:] P. M. Eckel Bryology Group Missouri Botanical Garden, P. O. Box 299 Saint Louis, MO 63166 Email: patricia.eckel@mobot.org In that the people of New York State and Ontario, especially of
communities along the Niagara River, and others at the national (federal and
dominion) and international levels, have made a commitment to environmental
goals at Niagara for which they have spent time and energy throughout the
century, it is here proposed that a unification, review and reclarification of
these agendas be undertaken at a historic moment of extraordinary agency
transparency, and that such a moment is advantageous to implement a review
and reform of the protocols for achieving these human and social
environmental goals. 1. Because the area along the
upper and lower Niagara River, with particular focus on the Niagara River
gorge, is the repository of botanical resources rare in the Dominion of
Canada, and the Province of Ontario and the State of New York, and - because one biological (botanical) preserve of immense value in
the history of public lands, based on its vegetational character (Goat
Island), has national significance to the people of the United States, and - because the government and private custodians of these areas have
been shown to be ill-equipped after a century of public mandate to preserve,
protect or restore these areas under their care, and that environmental
governance has become increasingly incoherent on both sides of the Niagara
River with imminent threat to these biotic resources, and - because the biotic resources of both countries are dependent on
physical dynamics that extend across international borders, and to promote
the free exchange and movement of biotic resources across such borders to
maintain the essential components of the significant biological assets of
both countries, and - because the Niagara is part of the Great Lakes biotic region, and - because this area is the focus of influence of agencies and groups
with inordinate means that transcend the powers of the communities adjacent
to the river, powers to alter policy with the potential for deleterious
impacts on assets of value to the citizens of the United States and the
Dominion of Canada, therefore - IT IS HERE PROPOSED to establish a Joint
International Biological Commission or a commission with a name to that effect, composed of
knowledgeable and disinterested individuals from the federal and dominion
level, also state and provincial representatives with sufficient expertise,
to formulate policy, adjudicate policy, and review biological issues or
issues with biological importance before the communities on both sides of the
Niagara River. It is further suggested that specialists in botany and other biological
sciences with expertise in sociological and biological problems be appointed
or assigned to evaluate plans incorporating benefits or threats to the
natural environment at Niagara. 2. IT IS PROPOSED that a full bureaucratic performance review be undertaken
of the agencies on both sides of the river who have had custody of the public
lands under their mandate for over a century. Their present agendas and
policies are to be compared with the original intent whereby they, or their
bureaucratic antecedents, came into being by law in order to protect the
natural resources for the welfare of which the lands on which they exist were
removed from the private domain and placed under public protection. An
assessment of the deterioration or other change in natural resources should
be undertaken. An example of bureaucratic or institutional history would include
examination of the effect on the Niagara environment of the institution of
Authority, the legacy of New York State government, a hybrid between public
and private corporations, under a single bureaucrat (Robert Moses) who was
acting head of the Power Authority of New York State, the Department of
Parks, and the Throughway Authority during the 1950's and 1960's. Another
example would be to examine the institutional legacy and its impact on the
natural history of the Niagara River in the 1870's through 1890's of the
incorporated Canadian railway administrations, the development of
hydroelectric power and the evolution of the Niagara Parks Commission. [Paragraph added, July 22, 2004:] This proposal includes review of the more recent role of the United
States Department of the Interior in engaging in projects at Niagara that
contradict its mandate, for example, participating in the construction of the
Great Lakes Garden at Prospect Point in the Niagara Reservation, a project
that contradicts the intent of the original establishment of that property
for which that agency designated it a National Historic Landmark. It is
proposed that an outside review of that agency's role throughout the Niagara
gorge during the 1990's and the future be undertaken. The result of this proposal would be to provide an understanding of
the present and intensifying deterioration of social and environmental
coherence within the Niagara environments. Governing agendas appear to be
self-competitive and contradictory within the mandate of single bureaucracies
that represent the present governing agencies along the Niagara River, with a
resulting degradation of the natural environment under their custodianship. An example for study would include the possible past, recent and
imminent inappropriate assignation of Environmental Bond Act, Environmental
Protection Fund and Relicensing Settlement monies for agendas that cannot be
shown to augment or protect the natural environment, in contradiction to the
intent for which these funds were and are being established. 3. IT IS PROPOSED that, based on the institutional review suggested
above (proposal number two), a new formulation of bureaucratic governance be
created, eventually encompassing both sides of the Niagara River, to arrest
further deterioration of public natural history assets within the Niagara
environment. Based on a clarified and more focused public mandate, this
reformulation may involve transfer of authority from one government agency to
another with appropriate additional staffing and expertise and funding, such
as putting lands at issue under the direction of the NYDEC or the Ontario
Ministry of Natural Resources in full or in part with use of Settlement funds
to implement the expansion of agency mandates. Agencies with appropriate staffing and expertise to understand and
manage natural resources directly, and who have acted in the public interest
since they have been established, appear to be conspicuously absent from the
profiles of the present agencies, with a resulting deterioration of the
wildlife assets under management. 4. Because two areas of significant biological (botanical) resources
on state land are located on Grand Island (Beaver Island and Buckhorn Island
State Parks), and - because these state lands were placed in the public domain to
protect those natural historic assets for the citizens of the State of New
York, and - because these public lands have sustained deterioration of
biological assets due to New York government agency decisions to permit
utility corridors to be established for utilities on land reserved from
development high above ground, in the shallow subsurface, in a water
corridor, to permit the laying of electric power, natural gas, telephone line
transmissions, highway transportation usages (Interstate 90), sewage and
waste disposal sites on these lands, therefore - IT IS PROPOSED that Settlement monies be allocated to purchase
lands that are of normal or ordinary biotic significance or culturally
altered lands to create state-controlled "utility park corridors"
to be leased to utilities and municipal governments and that park lands with
important biological resources be reserved from use as such transmission
corridors or for any other use than ecological protection, and - some portion of this money be allocated to purchase additional
land as buffers surrounding habitats and plant communities of significance to
the citizens of the State of New York (at the two parklands mentioned on
Grand Island), and, if deemed necessary, such land to promote recreational
agendas on properties culturally altered (such as farmland or other cut-over
land), and - some portion of this money be used to restore habitat and habitat
dynamics, and to mitigate the effects of utility emplacement in public areas
set aside for their environmental assets. 5. IT IS PROPOSED that a Niagara River environmental management
district be created to include environmental preserve areas adjacent to
and/or associated with the full extent of the Niagara River and portions or
entire lengths of its tributaries, encompassing identified natural resources
of concern to both the United States and Ontario. It is proposed that intensive exploration into the areas beside the
river be undertaken to identify resources to be managed, protected, and
restored together with identifying threats and ways to create cooperative
management policies with private land owners or to establish liens and other
protective instruments. It is proposed that defined areas of recently discovered concern
would be incorporated into the policies of the management district, such as
mollusk beds on Grand Island and watershed improvements to enhance and
protect these resources, or wetland forests recently discovered and as yet
undescribed or recognized by New York State government agencies on the upper
and lower floodplains of the Niagara River. It is proposed that settlement money be used to purchase for
preservation as much property as is determined to be feasible for appropriate
and adequate (i.e. buffer zones) area for environmental, cultural and
recreational management. Note that management within the Niagara River environmental
management district would have different agendas, goals and practices than
are appropriate for intensive-disturbance regimes of traditional greenway
systems, and metro-park emplacements, such as in the City of Chicago. 6. It is proposed that areas under public domain heretofore called
"Parks" should be defined according to their public purpose such
that certain areas be designated wilderness or to be preserved for their
biological assets, as distinct from parks for picnicking with no biological
assets, or for recreation or historic preservation. Each of these areas
should be given a title with a definition that makes clear the purpose for
which that land is put into the public domain, to relieve such lands from
ambiguity of purpose and incoherence of mandate and management. 7. IT IS PROPOSED that a citizen's committee of private,
non-government individuals, to include organizations of national or
international influence, should be formed to periodically oversee and review
implementation of overall objectives within the framework(s) given here. Such individuals should have no contracts
or other financial or other interested relations with agencies and industries
or individuals in the Niagara area such that there should be a conflict of
interest between the publicly mandated objectives of total environmental
protection (total includes all biotic categories and emphasizes the
fundamental botanical resource as the basis for all habitat and community
function as opposed to focus on one select set of organisms, such as the bird
fauna). 8. IT IS PROPOSED that a full biotic inventory of the Niagara River
should be undertaken with a particular emphasis on floristic data. Such an
inventory would include natural and artificial dynamics (soils, wind, water diversion),
and monitor changes through time. Recommended goals, standards, protocols for
initiatives, such as restoration and preservation should be identified based
on the results of this inventory. The inventory would include habitats,
communities past and present assessment of species etc. throughout the
management district, the district boundaries to be altered to accommodate
this research. 9. IT IS PROPOSED that institutions that presently maintain baseline
collections of historic voucher specimens, archival materials and other
physical information, such as maps, letters, photographs with biological
information relevant to the proposal statements above, be identified. A
catalogue of the institutions and the nature of its archived information
should be assembled as a research tool. A framework for coordination and
cooperation between such institutions could be established, as, for example,
the pictorial materials at the various art museums, such as the Albright Knox
Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Buscaglia Art Gallery at Niagara
University, and the photographic collections of the Kodak Corporation (these
may be at the Smithsonian Institution). Institutions are to include pictorial
archives in Ontario. Curatorial protocols should be established for acceptable
maintenance of these baseline collections where financial partnerships are
proposed, to preserve collection existence and the information that
inherently resides in them. Partnerships in maintaining the quality of
curation and upkeep of these collections should be established and money be
provided to ensure quality of preservation and access by researchers with
periodic review. Money should be provided so that the collections be
catalogued and research on them promoted with periodic review. New collections should be established where new research generates
collection-quality material, and archives established for documents that are
relevant to Niagara issues, but which do not presently exist. 10. IT IS PROPOSED that full and detailed master plan should be made
for the preservation and restoration of biological assets presently and
historically verified, with goals, methodology, criteria for success, and
appropriate protocols. Whatever
natural dynamics of the ancestral environment that contributed to the
original biotic abundance and diversity should be identified (such as
substrate complexity vs. imposed uniformity). The plan would address new
influences and dynamics and future conditions, and such topics should be
identified and assessed (increase in CO2 in atmosphere,
alterations in the growing season, alteration in thermal and precipitation
dynamics, pressures from exposure to exotic propagules, drainage alteration
and restoration, elimination of repetitive disturbance regimes by maintenance,
etc.). The focus of this plan would be on the Niagara flora including
mitigation of deleterious influences (a botanical inventory and restoration
of habitat and plant community). 11. IT IS PROPOSED THAT based
on this plan, a dedicated restoration of botanical habitats and plant
communities would be initiated. Such restoration would require appropriate
government agency oversight with properly specialized scientific staff with
authority to devise and implement such a plan. Staff would include individuals
with experience in horticultural applications applied to a natural
restoration mandate. Implementation would be subject to periodic professional
review. This would entail protocols for collecting indigenous plant matter,
such as seeds, other propagules, cuttings, etc., to ensure that restoration
includes the genetic continuity of vegetative elements that are considered to
be native populations in the Niagara area. Off-site greenhouse facilities are
essential to this plan. To minimize disturbance, every attempt should be made to ensure the
free expansion and reintroduction of native species and species populations,
with an evaluation of any new alien and native species established from areas
outside of the normal Niagara flora. It is suggested that expertise in this area be sought at Cornell
University and the State University of New York College of Environmental
Science and Forestry at Syracuse, New York; in Ontario expertise might be
sought at Brock University, and the University of Toronto. [Paragraph added, July 22, 2004:] 12. It is here proposed that an all-New York State agency review be
undertaken of the State's basic premise that the principal environmental
focus of its financial resources be on the fauna of the State at the expense
of its flora. It is a fundamental biological fact that all life depends on
photosynthesizing organisms organized into habitats and ecosystems. It is
probable that some elements of environmental management in the State is based
on a reversal of this relationship to the deterioration of both native fauna
and floristic entities in the State. [Paragraph added, July 22, 2004:] It is suggested that adjustments be made in government institutions
such as the Gift to Wildlife Fund to underwrite professional studies of a botanical
nature, such that ecosystems and plant communities on which fauna derives its
sustenance be given equal attention if not priority. |
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