Published: July 03, 2008 08:20 am         

Plans for music fest being reviewed

By JIM AUSTIN
Cooperstown Crier

SPRINGFIELD — Madison Square Garden Entertainment is not waiting to find out if an environmental impact statement will be required for its $15 million proposal to hold a three-day music festival on 1,000 acres of land in the town of Springfield.

Planning Board Chairwoman Mary Clarke said this week MSG recently submitted a preliminary scoping document in anticipation of doing an environmental impact statement.

``They’re assuming they’ll have to do one,’’ Clarke said. At the time MSG submitted its site plan application, Senior Vice President Don Simpson said they planned to do an environmental impact statement.

``We know and realize with the magnitude of the project it will mostly likely be required so we might as well go ahead and do it,’’ he said.

Although the planning board is just in the beginning stages of its review of the project, Clarke agreed the move could save MSG time in the review process.

Environmental impact statements are generally triggered when a board makes a positive declaration for a proposal during Part Two of the State Environmental Quality Review. Clarke said that because MSG is going straight to an impact statement, she is uncertain if the planning board will complete Part Two of the SEQR.

``We don’t have to do Part Two, but we can,’’ she said, adding that completing Part Two sometimes helps to highlight other impacts the board may not have considered. MSG’s scoping document identifies the impacts that it believes it will have to address in the environmental impact statement. Clarke said the document lists agricultural and cultural resources, vegetation, wetlands, topography and soils, storm water, traffic, transportation and noise as the impacts MSG anticipates.

The planning board can add to the list if it identifies other potential impacts.

Clarke said the board has 60 days to respond to the scoping document and plans to seek public comment. After MSG receives the planning board’s response, they will submit a final scoping document. The planning board is expected to declare itself lead agency for the review of the project.

The site plan submitted by MSG must also be reviewed by the planning board.

The festival is expected to attract as many as 75,000 people to the site off Route 20 to hear three days and nights of music annually. According to Simpson, the festival would be patterned after Coachella in California and Bonnaroo in Tennessee, and the goal is to have the first concert during the summer of 2010.

The planning board meets Thursday in the Springfield Community Center at 7 p.m.