I am pleased to once more inform you about issues being discussed in the County Legislature. I personally pay for the printing and mailing costs of this newsletter, and I hope you find it of value. In the newly reorganized Legislature I now serve as the Chair of the Public Safety Committee and continue as a member of the Public Works and Capital Projects Committee. I am the Chair of the Legislature’s Tick Task Force, serve as a member of the Airport Advisory Committee, and continue as the Democratic liaison to the Board of Trustees at Dutchess Community College as well as liaison to community groups urging State-level tax reform in the method of funding education. Please contact me with your opinions and concerns.
 
JACKSON CREEK and SPROUT CREEK: In October volunteers with the Fishkill Creek Watershed Project in cooperation with Cornell Cooperative Extension and volunteers from the County Environmental Management Council and the Conservation Advisory Committee from LaGrange conducted a stream walk along the length of Jackson Creek from where it starts in Union Vale and meanders through LaGrange and a small part of East Fishkill before joining Sprout Creek just upstream from the Town of Wappinger baseball park off Robinson Lane. The volunteers documented the conditions of the stream bed and its banks and also noted the specific locations of the invasive Mile-a-Minute vine – which was found in numerous locations in LaGrange from where Jackson Creek crosses Rte. 82 to the field on the east side of Arthursburg Rd.

At the end of April, a similar stream walk will take place along the longer Sprout Creek from where it starts in the Town of Washington and proceeds through Union Vale and LaGrange and the acts as the boundary between Wappinger and East Fishkill before joining Fishkill Creek. These three creeks and the streams that feed them are part of the Fishkill Creek Watershed and are connected with the Hudson River Estuary. It is vital that we protect the conditions of the creeks and streams, and if you would like to participate in the Sprout Creek stream walk, call me at 223-5734, and I will forward your name to the organizers.
    
MILE-A-MINUTE INVASIVE PLANT: The presence of the Mile-a-Minute vine is a serious threat to croplands, wetlands, private property, parks, and forests in Dutchess County and has been discovered in Dover, LaGrange, and Beekman. Despite the dedicated efforts of many volunteers last summer to hand-pull the vine where it was found near the ball fields in LaGrangeville, the vine has quickly spread along the banks of Jackson Creek – as noted by the volunteers mentioned in the stream walk above. The vine itself is an annual plant, but its berries can live for five years, and that is how the plant spreads.  

In the Legislature, I and other Legislators sponsored a resolution to instruct the County Environmental Management Council, with the assistance of Cornell Cooperative Extension and others, to investigate the M-a-M vine and then recommend a course of action to eradicate it. Their report has been completed, and plans are being put in place with the cooperation of officials in LaGrange, Beekman, and Dover to implement those recommendations this spring and summer. At the April meeting of the Legislature we are scheduled to vote on officially declaring the M-a-M vine a “noxious weed” in Dutchess County; this will allow for the application for grants from the State and DEC to fund the eradication of the vine. We will also vote to use funds from the County’s contingency fund to start the process and to enable application for matching grants. Mile-a-Minute is a nasty weed and has to be stopped quickly before spreads across the County.
 
WELL WATER TESTING: The Towns of Wappinger, East Fishkill, and Fishkill have had successful experiences with their laws requiring the testing of private wells upon the sale or transfer of property, giving owners of private wells some of the protection given to those who get water from municipal or community water systems – similar to laws in Rockland and Westchester Counties and NJ. I hope that in 2008 we will pass a County-wide well-testing law, as advised by the Dutchess County Board of Health.