Environmental Review

Town of Pittsford (Supervisor Smith's comments and town formal response)

Town of Perinton (Supervisor Hanna's comments and Town formal response)

Older material

Below is the memorandum of law filed by the Canal Corp in response to the town's filing. The file next to it (with a nearly blank cover sheet) is a consultant's risk assessment of part of the canal embankments in Perinton, submitted in January, 2018.

Environmental Impact Assessment in New York State

New York's State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR) requires all state and local government agencies to consider environmental impacts equally with social and economic factors during discretionary decision-making. This means these agencies must assess the environmental significance of all actions they have discretion to approve, fund or directly undertake. SEQR requires the agencies to balance the environmental impacts with social and economic factors when deciding to approve or undertake an "Action".

We believe that the NYPA should have completed an Environmental Impact Study, exploring alternatives to clearcutting the canal embankments, before proceeding with this vegetation management plan.

It appears that the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) agreed with the NYPA that this vegetation management plan was not subject to review -- in bureaucratic terms, that means the agencies described clearcutting 150+ acres of canal embankment as a "Type II action." Here's the DEC record of environmental review for this project.

We have no documentation about WHY this project was classified as Type II; our best guess is that the NYPA argued that it falls under the category of "maintenance of existing landscaping or natural growth,"

However, in the DEC's own SEQR Handbook , this is how they describe the kind of maintenance that does -- and does not -- qualify as exempt from review: In a municipal park, routine trimming of trees or replacement of shrubbery that has died would be Type II under this section. In contrast, clear-cutting of a forested area of the park would not fit under the heading of maintenance.

The DEC uses the very example of clearcutting as something that is NOT exempt from environmental review!

We have reached out to the DEC to ask them why they thought this project was exempt from review, but we have not heard back.

July 2021: The Draft Environmental Impact Statement can be found here: https://www.nyscanalintegrity.org/program-and-maps

Selected responses below: