Food insecurity is real, everywhere

 

There is a food pantry at Zion Lutheran Church in Gasport that is open once per month. Back in January of this year, 22 families used this critical service. Last weekend, 41 families did.

 

That increase is outcome of the COVID economy. It’s a substantial number, too, given how small Gasport is: The Census Bureau says the population within the hamlet proper is just over 1,200 people. That means if all those individuals hail from the immediate area, 10 percent of area residents are relying on the charity to get by.  

 

If you tell those numbers to anyone, and specifically Gasportians, it’s met with amazement. They’ll claim that Gasport doesn’t look like it’s saddled with poverty and that they hardly know anyone in need.

 

That’s the problem with poverty. It sneaks up on you. It often doesn’t look like it should and appears in places you’d least expect.

 

That’s especially the case in rural and small town America.

 

We all know the inner-cities are impoverished. It grabs the attention of the press, academia, and policymakers. And, it grabs a disproportionate amount of money and energy in the war on poverty.

 

Rural poverty, on the other hand, remains under the radar. You almost never hear about it on the nightly news and it’s even rarer yet to hear an elected official cast a spotlight on it. 

 

Maybe it’s because it’s less noticeable than it is in the big city. Rural poverty is less centralized and more spread-out through a given community with low-income families living next door to middle or high income folks. You don’t get that in cities where social classes tend to be segregated.

 

Maybe it’s because it’s fly-over country. The population centers, for better or worse, dictate thought and public policy throughout America. Everything outside of the likes of Los Angeles, Chicago and Miami is meaningless to powerbrokers. We see that here in the Empire State in spades – New York City lawmakers determine what happens across the state, much to the detriment of upstate.

 

Regardless of why it’s ignored, it’s a problem nonetheless and, as many will find surprising, one greater than that of the cities.

 

Prior to the COVID crisis (its impact won’t be shown in government statistics until mid-next year) 13 percent of the population in urban locales was considered impoverished while 16 percent of rural and small town Americans were. 

That accounted for 10 million Americans living below the poverty line in towns identical to those where this newspaper is circulated.

Worse yet, of those 10 million people, a majority of them are children. While you may not know their circumstances in the home, it’s more than likely you know many of those kids. They could be your neighbors. 

As the president of the board of the local Boy Scout council which serves eastern Niagara and the GLOW counties, I tell people all the time that we not a social club for boys, but rather a social service organization. Our duty is to deliver education and development to children, in need and out of need, to help them rise above any obstacles in their lives and prepare them for careers and parenting.

When one looks at how the youth served by our council are besieged by poverty, you’ll understand my social service designation.

In Medina, 12 percent of the population under the age of 18 lives below the poverty line while in Batavia that rate is 29 percent. In Geneseo it’s 31 percent and in Albion it’s 37 percent.

Or, on a more macro scale, consider the poverty rate for minors in each of the counties under our jurisdiction: Wyoming (17 percent), Niagara (18 percent), Livingston (19 percent), Genesee (20 percent), and Orleans (25 percent).

Basically, 1-out-of-every-5 or 1-out-of-every-4 kids are impoverished in this region. 

That’s why our local school districts have so many free or discounted breakfast and lunch programs. In order to best utilize the wonderful public resources that our public schools offer, the children there need to be nourished or it’s all for naught.

That’s why food pantries are tested to their limits. 42 families at Gasport’s food pantry last Saturday? That’s a lot. But it pales in comparison to the food distributions seen in Orleans County. Hundreds of families line up at a time. Quite often when the Orleans Hub reports on these modern day bread lines, their photos show cars are lined up for blocks or miles. It’s a heartbreaking visual that puts it all into a palpable perspective.

Most people wouldn’t expect such abject poverty in God’s Country. I don’t care if they’re visiting from a suburb or living right here in the epicenter. The unparalleled beauty and bounty of the fields and forests seem to do a fine job in hiding the fact that are some truly ugly circumstances plaguing our rural communities and economies.

Food insecurity was really bad before 2020. The COVID crisis has made and will make things even worse. It’s time we brought this out of hiding and did our best as a people to initiate the economic policies, locally and nationally, and sustain the charity and volunteerism to bring opportunity and prosperity to those who have been deprived of hope for far too long.

 

 

From the 21 December 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Celebrating fifty years of the DEC

 

Last month, I caught a fish that I never believed possible in the Genesee River in Allegany County. That rainbow trout measured over 26 inches and weighed in at nearly 7 pounds. You’d expect a trout like that in one of the Great Lakes, not an inland trout stream. 

 

While marveling that fish and that moment I said to my daughter, “This is one of those times you thank God and the DEC.”

 

The Department of Environmental Conservation made that catch possible. They stock the river, allow a year-round fishery in the Genny, and maintain upstream a special catch-and-release section that lets big trout flourish.

 

That experience had me further reflect on the importance that the DEC has had on my life.

 

Some of my earliest and most cherished memories of the outdoors are of family camping in state forests near Alfred. That helped lay the foundation for my deep appreciation of our wild world, something many of you know from my daily #Nature365 posts on social media.

 

I’d like to think the same foundation-laying is happening now with my kids, as they absolutely love our annual summer trip to the Adirondacks where they can hike and paddle on DEC-managed lands and waters.

 

Beyond those foundations, there is much more to appreciate of what the DEC provides New Yorkers – Man and Beast alike: Clean water and air, game management, campgrounds, forestry plans, invasive species controls, wildlife restoration, Econ officers, forest rangers, and so much more. 

 

3,000 men and women work for the DEC and the environment, assigned to 24 divisions and offices. It seems like a lot, but it’s a big state, so diverse in natural splendor that takes an incredible amount of effort and so many macro and micro strategies to protect and promote the natural world: Heading west to east we have the Great Lakes and the mighty Niagara River; the Allegany mountains; the Genesee watershed including Letchworth; the Finger Lakes; the Tug Hill plateau; the Adirondacks; the Hudson River watershed; the Catskills; and the marine environs around Long Island…and many places in between. 

 

We have a whole world’s worth of wonder just in our state’s borders.

 

It’s truly amazing.

 

And, so are the accomplishments of the DEC. Here are some highlights:

 

In 1970, the DEC created the state’s first endangered species list to identify and protect the most threatened of our plants and animals. I think of how this has helped our orchids and moose, to name just a few, escape extinction and, in some cases, thrive.

 

In 1976, the bald eagle restoration program was launched. Over my lifetime, these magnificent birds, our national symbol, have gone from rarities to regular sights across the state.

 

In 1980, the Salmon River Hatchery was opened. That was instrumental in making Lake Ontario a truly world-class fishery. Think of the millions of dollars in sportsfishing tourism that the hatchery and others bring to our lakeside communities every year.  

 

In 1984, the acid rain law was passed after years of study by DEC scientists. Since then, brook trout and other creatures have made a return to Adirondacks waters once poisoned. Dedicated stewardship reversed fortunes.  

 

In 1985, the DEC launched the Saratoga Nursery seedling program. If you’ve ever purchased seedlings from your local Cooperative Extension office or Soil and Water District, you know how important this has been for affordably improving our lands. 

 

In 1988, the DEC helped devise the Solid Waste Management Act which has decreased the number of active landfills from 500 to 27 statewide. This has saved numerous rural towns and counties from being dumping grounds and having their watersheds exposed to various forms of waste.

 

In 2003, the DEC took ownership of the Brownfields Cleanup Program which uses $120 million annually to salvage and improve tainted industrial sites that were left by previous generations and bad players. It’s reassuring to see wastelands being repurposed to usable properties or greenspace.  

 

The list could go on and on. Victories big. Victories small. Victories yet to be had.

 

2020 was supposed to be a special year for the DEC, its 50 year anniversary. There was so much planned to celebrate that milestone and I was looking forward to taking my kids to some celebratory and educational events at campgrounds, parks, and state forests. But, alas, like all celebrations this year it was canceled or muted.

 

But, just because parties couldn’t be had, we shouldn’t take the time to reflect upon and recognize what the DEC has meant and will mean to you, your family, and our natural world. 2020’s shutdowns and Covid protocols should have put it all into perspective: The crisis drove people to the outdoors and the chances are good that, this year, you probably enjoyed a public asset maintained by the DEC (a trail, forest, or camp) or savored a harvest they helped provide (like a trout or wild turkey).

 

The DEC has been good to us and good for us. They truly and literally make New York a better place.

 

Happy belated birthday!    

 

 

From the 14 December 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News

Why it's called "Gasport"

 

Almost all Western New Yorkers know about the famous “Eternal Flame” at Chestnut Ridge Park in Erie County. That flame, created by gas seeping from shale at the park, has always made the Park a popular destination, even more so now in the COVID era with families heading outdoors for something to do.

 

Though uncommon, there are gas seeps located throughout the northern half of Western New York. A few of them gave rise to the name “Gasport”, a community you may be familiar with from the bio to this column or one of your visits to Becker Farms.

 

There’s a lot of history to and science behind that name.

 
The young hamlet at the time of the construction of the Erie Canal was known as Jamesport. It was an unauthorized name, having no legal merit or consideration by the town of Royalton’s founding fathers.

 

In 1826, students from the Rensselaerian School (now Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) were making an excursion up the Erie Canal for the purpose of geological study when they discovered gas bubbling in springs near the Canal. They suggested to one of the locals that the community be named Gasport instead, recognizing the oddity. The students were delighted on their return trip just days later to see that the name was painted on buildings and docks.

Over time, those gas springs have been mostly eliminated, covered up by progress – houses, farms, and businesses – and most people would not know how we got our name. But, there are still some places where the gas can visibly be found in Gasport.

 
The near-surface pocket of gas is located in an area that begins roughly one block west of the Main Street lift bridge and is within a half-mile of each side of the canal from that point westward to the roughly the border with the Town of Lockport.

Most of the shale structures that allow the gas to reach the surface are buried under the soil, so you would have to search out the small streams, as through the centuries they have cut through the dirt, sediment and shale and allowed the gas to escape.

As you come upon one of the larger gas leaks, the smell is unmistakable. The area around it will smell like rotten eggs. While methane itself has no smell, in the presence of biological agents and sulfur it can create stinky methanethiol which accounts for the stench.

In some streams, the bubbles will be periodic, a series of them coming up for one to two seconds at a time and reoccurring every five to 10 seconds. In other springs which have cut deeper into the shale, the bubbles will be continuous and the water actually appears to boil, and the roiling noise can be quite loud.

When some of these streams dry up in the summer, you can still encounter the gas. Exposed formations of shale will continue to bubble with even the slightest bit of moisture and the ground itself will make hissing and bubbling sounds. These above-ground seepages will leave a white-grey froth.

You can replicate the Eternal Flame here in Gasport. Placing a match over bubbling rocks will create a brief flame as long as the match is held over it. But, if the gas is captured and allowed to concentrate in a defined area rather than immediately escaping to the air, the results are even more impressive. To do so, just place a pipe into the shale around one of the leaks and loosely place a rock over the end of the pipe to allow a small release of the gas. Once you light it, it will stay lit, just as the Eternal Flame does.

 

During an earlier time when itinerant workers or hoboes traveled the Erie Canal towpath to find work on neighboring farms, they would set camp in Gasport to cook over such flames. You can find remnants of those visits as carvings on beech trees.

 

In more recent times, the seeps have caught the attention of scientists studying the biome in and around the gas to see what creatures live in them. I have taken scientists from the US, Canada and the United Kingdom to Gasport for studies.

Although the total area in which gas seepages may be found in Gasport is really not that large (four square miles, maybe), it has also attracted the attention of some gas companies. On the heels of the fracking boom in Pennsylvania and the hopes that a similar industry is allowed in New York’s Southern Tier, about ten years ago, one company sent letters to local landowners about an exploration lease.

Everyone to a man said “no”.

Let’s hope it stays that way.

Gasport’s gas seepages are unique, perhaps fragile, and they offer an interesting link to our geological and historical past.

 

 

From the 07 December 2020 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News