Published: July 31, 2008 02:34 pm         

In These Otsego Hills

Normally this would be the week in which we note that we survived the Hall of Fame Induction ceremonies, noting all of the interesting comings and goings related to the event. However, this year, as part of our Do Nothing Day, we paid not a whit of attention to the goings on. And thus we have no report. Of course, we did not really do nothing as we spent the day in our basement sewing room working on a window treatment project for friends in Ohio. The “Do Nothing” designation is actually an avoidance of the outside world, thus allowing us to do whatever we please which is, we hasten to point out, rarely nothing.

The next meeting of the Literary Discussion Group, sponsored by the Women’s Club of Cooperstown, will be held on Thursday, Aug. 28 at 2:30 p.m. in the Cobleskill Community Library in Cobleskill. In addition to discussing the month’s book, “Lost Horizon” by James Hilton, the group will tour the recently renovated Cobleskill Library. And, anyone who would like to do so is invited to join the group for lunch at 12:30 p.m. at the Grapevine restaurant. For more information and directions, and to make a reservation for lunch, please contact Jane McMahon at (518) 234-7166. We were interested to read in last week’s paper that the Village of Cooperstown has formed a Sustainability Committee. The paper reported that, according to the press release from the village, the “The Sustainability Committee’s mission is to provide proactive leadership and solutions to assist all village agencies, residents, households and businesses to utilize their natural, economic and human resources efficiently in order to prevent pollution and improve the economic, environmental, health and social well-being of current and future generations ...” The paper further noted that Committee Chairman, Neil Weiller is quoted as saying “It’s time for the village to set an example and join the 21st century to address climate change issues with a broad brush.”

We found the irony between the article on forming the Sustainability Committee, which was found on page three, and the article entitled “Village decides not to sell water to gas driller,” found on page one, worthy of note. While on one hand, the Sustainability Committee is charged with trying to improve the economic and environmental well being of the community, the Village Board of Trustees seems set on denying revenue for the village’s water department at the same time it increases the carbon footprint of the gas drilling project, a project that will proceed with or without water from the Village of Cooperstown.

However, by refusing to sell village water for the project, it is safe to say that not only will the revenue for the sale of water now go to Cortland instead of Cooperstown, but also the water will have to be trucked further, with each truckload of water requiring an additional round trip distance of upwards of 150 miles. This means that if a tanker truck holds 5,000 gallons of water, which is the number we recall hearing, it will take 60 trips to move 300,000 gallons of water. By our estimation this is an additional 9,000 miles which, if the tanker truck gets 10 miles to the gallon, will use an additional 900 gallons of diesel fuel for the project. And, as far as we know, diesel fuel adds to the carbon footprint just like the use of any other oil-based energy source. And there are, we suspect, limits to how much carbon our Otsego carbon scrubbers can actually mitigate. Thus, while the Village Board of Trustees may feel it has made a broad statement against natural gas drilling, they did not stop the project. Nor did they appear to give any consideration to the economic and environmental impact of their decision.

Therefore, it might be suggested that one of the first tasks to the Sustainability Committee might be to work with the Village Board to point out that climate change issues should be viewed in a much broader scope and not fall victim to the NIMBY mentality. And while the Village Board may feel it acted to maintain the village’s integrity, although we suspect that the integrity of being against projects that have the potential of lowering this country’s dependence on foreign oil might be debatable, they seem to have, in the process, added to the woes of climate change. It is, we think, a delicate balancing act which has no easy answers. But the irony of the two articles in last week’s paper was absolutely delicious. Of course, as we think about all the various issues which have come to the forefront of late, we have been stuck with how many people who are not residents of the village, evidently feel it is their right to lobby the village on the issue of their choice, be it parking, pollution of the lake or gas drilling.

And while we certainly feel everyone has a right to his or her opinion, we are bemused at the desire on the part of some to seemingly have representation without taxation. We do recall that the founding fathers of this country were not happy with the concept of taxation without representation, taking rather drastic steps to correct what they saw as a great disservice. Therefore, we cannot help but wonder what the take of the founding fathers would be on the concept of representation without taxation.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, by telephone at 547- 8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.