T IMES
SOUTHERN
ULSTER
Vol. 16, No. 8
3
FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019
Celebrating
Seeger
Page 10
3
ONE DOLLAR
The
Little
Mermaid
Page 18
SERVING HIGHLAND, MARLBOROUGH AND PLATTEKILL
Danskammer debate continues
Marlboro lays
out five-year
fiscal plan
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
Danskammer Energy LLC is proposing a new plant to be built beside their old one on the Hudson River in the Town of Newburgh.
more frequently.
“Although the proposal is a better
use of energy and is a more efficient
plant, the fact is that the total amount
Sandra Kissam, a member of
of pollution will increase tremendously
Orange County Residents Against
because it will
the Pilgrim Pipeline
go from being a
[RAPP], addressed the
rarely used facility
Marlborough Town Board
decision on the plant to being a facility
last week on a proposal by
Danskammer Energy LLC
is expected by mid 2020 that is being used
constantly,” she
to build a new $400 million
and if approved, a new
said.
natural gas fired power
Kissam said
plant beside the old plant
Danskammer facility
Danskammer
on the Hudson River in the
would take approximately Energy
LLC,
Town of Newburgh.
represented
by
Kissam said presently
30 months to build.
CEO Bill Reid, has
the plant is operating
stated that the new
when there is a need for
plant will use a lesser polluting two-
energy while a new plant may operate
By MARK REYNOLDS
[email protected]
A
stage system.
“The first step is producing energy
from the natural fracked gas and the
second part is another turbine which
takes any emissions from that first
process and utilizes those emissions to
add to the electrical energy and involves
two turbines,” she said.
Kissam said a significant amount
of coal ash has accumulated on the site
since it opened in the 1950s and has
questioned how the new company will
handle this old waste material.
In a subsequent phone interview,
Michelle Hook, VP of Public Affairs for
Danskammer Energy, said they have
all of the required permits concerning
Continued on page 3
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Patrick Witherow, Director of
Business and Finance for the Marlboro
School District, recently presented the
school board with a long term financial
projection that reaches out through the
2022-2023 academic school year.
Witherow said at the end of the 2016-17
school year the district had $13.5 million
in a combination of reserves and assigned
and unassigned fund balances. However,
by the end of the 2017-18 school year the
district’s totals dropped to $11.96 million
because of an operating deficit of $1.54
million.
Witherow said the district’s current
final tax cap calculation stands at an
allowed 2.17 percent increase in the levy,
“which would bring our allowable levy
up from about $34.7 million to about $35.7
million; it’s about $963,000 and some
change.”
Witherow said continued attention will
be given to the district’s operating deficit,
which he anticipates will hit $1.7 million
in the 2018-19 school year. He said this was
a planned operational deficit.
“We knew these were going to occur
[and] drops down to about $1.5 million in
the 2019-20 school year. Then we start to
see debt drop off, so in the 2020-21 school
year we see a reduction of $500,000 in debt
payment and we also see our operational
deficit drop by about that much. In the
year after that we have a $1.2 million tax
certiorari debt payment that drops off
and again we see a significant amount
Continued on page 4