EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: Moss Lake – one of the few bogs in WNY

You might say that I’ve had a love affair with bogs that goes back decades. Back in the sixth grade, my science fair project was all about the acidic, mossy waterways where decay happens at a turtle-like pace. I have always been intrigued the living things hosted by bogs, which include some of the strangest plants in the world – like carnivorous plants – and a variety of rare birds.

Bogs are more of a northern thing, more likely found on the Canadian Shield. They are rare in Western New York. Only two come to mind -- Allenberg Bog near Salamanca and Moss Lake near Rushford. The latter is the subject of these week’s adventure.

Many readers of this column are familiar with the area, as they have might have a cottage on the shore of Rushford Lake or a hunting camp in the nearby hills of Allegany County. For any of those souls, or the leaf peepers who will be out in full force the coming weeks, a visit to Moss Lake is a worthy stop.

When travelling between Rushford and Caneadea on Route 243, you will want to take Sand Hill Road to the northeast. After a few hundred yards Sand Hill becomes a gravel road (which is in good condition). To your right, about two-thirds of a mile down the road, will be the entrance to Moss Lake. It is a single-lane driveway (so, travel with caution) that travels about 200 feet into the woods. The parking lot, if you will, is a dirt opening in the woods that can hold five cars.

Adjacent to the parking spot is a small picnic area with a nice, open view of the 15-acre lake, a third of which is covered by a vast mat of sphagnum moss.

From that spot you can do as so many visitors do – throw some bread into the water.

“Throw some bread into the water?” you ask?

Yes, you won’t regret it. A sign actually encourages visitors to bring no more than two slices of bread per car.

Last weekend I saw some locals feeding bread to a snapping turtle there. I’ve seen some giant snappers in my life, but this one absolutely took the cake, besting some of the largest turtles I’ve seen by more than half their size. It was a beast, obviously a Methuselah of the turtle world. She is decades old – could she have been around during the Second World War? It’s a legitimate question to ask.

From the lot, you can head off to a nature trail into some old growth spruces, hemlocks, and pines which hold some nesting warblers typically found in the Adirondacks and Canada. About 200 feet in, you will walk across a foot bridge into even more coniferous trees.

About a third of the way into your 1.3 mile hike, you will encounter a series of boardwalks that go out into the mossy regions of the lake. This is the highlight of the hike.

Whatever you do, DO NOT leave the boardwalk and walk onto the moss. For starters, you can break through the moss, but more likely, you will destroy the precious ecosystem by walking on it. Stay on the boardwalk and enjoy the plant life from there.

I was completely enthralled by the incredible number of pitcher plants that were growing on the moss. Their numbers far rivaled the population that I am used to seeing at Ferd’s Bog in the Adirondacks – and I thought Ferd’s numbers were impressive. At Moss Lake, there are literally hundreds of pitcher plants that can be seen from July into early October. You might remember that pitcher plants were the subject of a recent installment of this column.

If you come at the right time of the year, you will encounter 2 other insect-eating plants – sundews and bladderworts. Don’t pick any of these plants – leave them be and just take their picture.

Savor the moments and the views from the boardwalk, because it’s the boggy section that makes Moss Lake unique.

When done on the boardwalk, you can continue walking on the trail all the way around the lake and back to the parking lot.

Just past the boardwalk, the forest becomes more mixed before becoming all deciduous. In that woods, you will see an incredible number of wildflowers, such as partridge berries, mayflowers, wintergreen and ginger. There are a wide variety of ferns to be found there, too, as well as edible wild blueberries and blackberries.

That last half of your hike will have you away from the lakeshore, but it’s still a nice hike nonetheless. You will see plenty of songbirds and, towards the end of the hike, you will find young American chestnut trees, some of the few remnants of a once great and abundant tree that was destroyed by an invasive disease.

The Moss Lake natural area is owned and nicely managed by the Nature Conservancy – all of the trails are in good shape and impact on the environment is minimized. It is open to the public from dawn to dusk daily. Years back, you needed a guide to take you on the hike but in recent years the Conservancy allowed access to the general public and the public, bless them, has done well in maintaining the integrity of this 82-acre gem.

Make it a point to visit this fall; you will see why the National Park Service designated Moss Lake as a registered natural landmark in 1973.  It’s worth an hour of your time…and maybe more.  

+Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.


From the 08 September 2016 All WNY News

Critical care EMTs on the chopping block in WNY

I’ve written before that Western New York is heading into, if not already in, a public safety crisis. There are too few fire and emergency medical services (EMS) volunteers and those that are good enough to give of themselves are spread too thin. Understaffed fire and ambulance crews find it difficult to address emergencies in a timely and effective fashion – and sometimes even at all.  

The solution, especially in rural areas which do not have paid services, is to encourage volunteerism rather than discourage volunteerism. Unfortunately, the organization that oversees EMS in Western New York is heading down the latter path.

The Western Regional Emergency Medical Advisory Council (WREMAC) is a committee of physicians and first responders from the eight-county region who are empowered by law to develop policies and procedures, and triage, treatment, and transportation protocols to be followed by EMS personnel in the territory.

Since at least 2013, WREMAC has pondered eliminating the position of emergency medical technicians at the critical care level (EMT-CC). It is something that the organization has talked much about in recent meetings and plans to address again this month.

EMT-CC is the highest level of EMT coverage afforded in the state. EMT-CCs are fully classified as advanced life support (ALS) providers and are trained in advanced airway management, intubation, IV fluid administration, cardiac monitoring, cardiac pacing, cardioversion, and medication usage/administration. Their skills are comparable to having a MASH unit on wheels.

But, WREMAC doesn’t think that’s enough. EMT-CCs are one level below paramedics and that’s what WREMAC would like to see utilized as a means to take some of the burden off of emergency room doctors.

What they fail to see, though, is that doing away with EMT-CCs and what EMTs can and cannot do will place an even greater workload on physicians – most folks in the EMS field will choose to become the next lowest level of EMT, which is the advanced EMT (AEMT) rather than taking the path of paramedic. That means ER doctors will see significantly more trauma that was unattended too – and, in such cases, the minutes lost due to the inability to provide critical care will be the difference between health and debilitation or life and death.

Why wouldn’t an EMT-CC want to become a paramedic?

There’s not enough time and money.

It’s a huge investment of time to become an EMT-CC, let alone a paramedic. To become a basic EMT, the volunteer has to take 200 hours of training. To become an AEMT, another 200 hours is required. To achieve EMT-CC rank, there is another 600 hours to be taken. That’s 1,000 total hours.

To become a paramedic, an EMT-CC would have to take another 1,300 hours of classroom, technical, and field training; they would have to spend more time in training to go up just one level as they’ve put into their entire EMS career to date. The paramedic course takes 14 months and there is talk of adding more classes to it which would take it to 18 months.

If EMT-CCs do chose to go up in the ranks, those tiring 1,300 hours would take them away from actually doing what volunteers want to do – that is, being out in the field saving lives -- and it will keep them from family, hobbies, and sometimes work for more than a year.

As if that’s not enough, the typical cost for paramedic training is more than $2,000. That’s a lot of money to ask of someone who’s already giving their time.

If WREMAC moves ahead with their plan rural counties will be hardest hit. In Allegany County there are 24 EMT-CCs and only 10 paramedics. Of those 10, only 5 of them actively practice and/or work in the county. There’s no way that 5 paramedics can handle the needs of 50,000 residents spread across 1,000 square miles.

Eliminating EMT-CCs won’t do a thing to improve emergency medical care in WNY…it will only magnify the problems were are faced with. People will become crippled, or worse yet, dead when the already hard-hit and understaffed fire and EMS crews are not allowed by law to perform medical tasks to the best of their abilities and knowledge.

 From the 12 September 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers

 

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: Exploring Swallow Hollow

A few weeks back in this column we looked at the Onondaga trail, the most underappreciated trail system of the Iroquois Wildlife Refuge. This week, we’ll look at the other end of the spectrum, the refuge’s most utilized trail – Swallow Hollow.

Although somewhat off the beaten trail, Swallow Hollow has always been a real favorite of families, joggers, and schools due to its flat, dry trails and its totally unique boardwalk.

Those characteristics make nature accessible – and there’s plenty of it there. The 1.3 mile trail traverses through a mixed bag of habitats, all of which offer some fine viewing of plants and wildlife and arguably one of the better warbler migration stops and breeding grounds in all of Western New York.

As you start your hike at the parking lot and head to your left, you will walk on a third of a mile of boardwalk that is raised 3 to 5 feet above the swampy forest floor. It is a real engineering marvel, an outcome of an excellent partnership of government workers and volunteers. You won’t find any rickety planks, the walkway is mostly flat and it is high-quality -- protected on the sides by chain-link fencing and wooden rails. It’s this boardwalk which has delighted thousands of local students through the years as many elementary schools will send field trips there.

The forest underneath the boardwalk typically holds water well into summer, but this year, it was dry as a result of the once-in-a-generation drought that has wreaked havoc on the area. The drought has been so mighty that the creek near the end of the boardwalk was totally dry on my recent visit, something I had never seen in all my years.

That creek parallels the next section of path, which is finely-crushed gravel that heads a third of a mile due west. When that creek is flowing you will be delighted by numerous frogs of various species. It is also home to plenty of snapping turtles which will lay their eggs in that path in the early summer.

The trail then makes a 90-degree turn and allows you to view a large marsh of approximately 80 acres in size. In the spring it affords viewing of -- and listening to – a wide variety of ducks, coots and rails. This summer, though, the marsh was bone dry and it allowed vast tracts of reeds and loosestrife to take root, something that really caught me off guard.

The remaining half-mile of trail skirts this marsh. You will have excellent forests of your left, some of them deciduous featuring large oaks of excellent size, and in other places you will have mixed forests with some nice stands of spruce trees before coming to a few hundred yards of boardwalk that will lead you back to the parking lot.

It’s that variety of habitats – old growth forests mingling with vernal wetlands – that makes for excellent birdwatching, especially in the spring. Thousands of warblers will descend on this site and on any given hike from late-April to early-June you could count a dozen species of the “butterflies of the bird world.” The treetops are also home to pileated woodpeckers (which are the size of crows), hawks, grosbeaks and orioles. It’s really a bird lovers’ paradise in season.

The soil is also rich along Swallow Hollow, meaning wildflower enthusiasts can see a wide range of flowers, from trilliums to lilies to ginseng. May is an especially delightful month.

The good folks at the refuge do well in making sure nature lovers get the most out of that experience. They have eight interpretive signs located throughout the trail, telling stories about the plants and animals. And, there’s a pretty neat audio tour available – bring your cell phone; at various points along the trail you call a special number and be educated about your surroundings.

The trail is truly family friendly – everyone can go: The boardwalk is handicap-accessible; this is one of the few mile-long nature trails in WNY that can be totally navigated by a stroller; and, it’s a trail that’s incredibly popular with dog walkers, too (all dogs have to be on leashes for fear of upsetting nesting birds).

To get there: At the Route 63 and Route 77 junction in Alabama, head north on Route 63. Just over a mile from there on your right will be Roberts Road. Take Roberts all the way to the end and turn left onto East Shelby Road. When you go over Oak Orchard Creek, you will find the Swallow Hollow parking lot a quarter of a mile away on your left. The driveway is somewhat hidden, as forest growth obscures the primary sign, but there will be a small blue sign on your right pointing to Swallow Hollow.

While this summer’s drought might have taken away some of the luster of this hike, it’s only temporary. The awesome fall colors will make for a great photo op before the late-winter thaws and spring rains rejuvenate the wetlands at this awesome little trail.  

   

+Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.


From the 01 September 2016 All WNY News

E-cigarettes: They’re not healthy, but they’re a start

Sometimes I come across as flippant when I talk to family members or coworkers about their cigarette smoking. It’s not that I have a holier-than-though bent; it’s just that I don’t want the horrible long-term effects of smoking to hurt them or their children and grandchildren.

It comes from the heart. It comes from experience. Both of my grandfathers passed away prematurely – and painfully – from a lifetime of smoking. One suffered congestive heart failure while the other succumbed to lung cancer. It’s never pretty to have the men who, as you grew up, were the images of masculinity and tough love waste away before your eyes. What I witnessed still bothers me to this day.  

That’s a reason why I’m so accommodating to the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace. I’ve found them to be an effective sort of gateway drug to better health (that was their original intent) and I’ve had many workers quit the “real stuff” because of their use. To encourage my team to break the shackles of addiction associated with tobacco cigarettes, I allow them to smoke e-cigs in the plant as long as those they are closely working with are OK with it.

That wouldn’t fly in many municipalities. Last year, neighboring Erie County put a ban on the use of cigarettes in all places where smoking was already banned. If other upstate counties don’t follow suit (so far only New York City and 8 counties have bans in place), there’s a good chance the state legislature will force their hand – Governor Cuomo has expressed his support for such a measure which was passed by the Assembly but not the Senate.

Proponents of the ban cite health hazards inherent to e-cigarettes, a belief promulgated by another Cuomo no less – the Governor’s sister Margaret Cuomo, a celebrity doctor. She and others have publically claimed that e-cigarettes can cause lung and liver cancer and are as equally harmful as tobacco cigarettes due to the chemicals present in the vapors. A study that hit the press last week claims that e-cigarette use stiffens the aortic artery.

Because of those claims and more studies underway (and not to mention the tax revenue windfall the feds could reap), the federal government is in an ongoing process of reclassifying e-cigarettes as tobacco products, which will make current versions of the devices and their compounds illegal to sell after August of 2018 without considerable modification (existing devices will be grandfathered into use). Because of the new standards, prices on e-cig products will rise significantly – so much so that many of their users will be driven back to honest-to-goodness tobacco cigarettes.

We as a caring society don’t need that to happen. E-cigarettes provide an alternative, even an out, for addicts.

I’ll admit, e-cigarettes aren’t perfect. Any time you purposely ingest or breathe strange chemicals into your body, you put your health at risk. But, are e-cigs any less healthy than all the processed foods that line the store shelves? They contain the same noxious compounds, like glycol, that you’d find in a bottle of salad dressing. 

It’s disingenuous, even risky to public health, to compare e-cigarettes to tobacco cigarettes. Their differences are like night and day. E-cigs don’t possess the cancer-inspiring tar and the cornucopia of death that is the 7,000 chemicals present in cigarette smoke.

Electronic puffers do possess nicotine (which is why people smoke them) which has proven to be detrimental to the development of teen brains (which is why a ban on e-cigarette sales to teenagers is welcome). But, that nicotine can be metered and it offers people the tool they need to cut back on its need so far that they will no longer have to puff on a cigarette – electronic, tobacco or otherwise.

Studies in England have shown a 25 percent success rate for those looking to quit tobacco smoking through the use of e-cigarettes, rivaling nicotine patches and gum, cold turkey, and hypnotherapy. The results have been so good that the UK encourages smokers to use the contraptions. 

While e-cigarettes might not be the healthiest thing in the world, they are far superior to the alternative and they can help put users on the path to better and cleaner health. Let’s not take away or further legislate this critical tool for those who want to do better for themselves or their families. How can they quit – and why would they want to – if the user of these devices is made to stand outside and far away like and with the outcast tobacco smokers they don’t want to be?      

 

From the 05 September 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers  

Only in New York is your home is not a wise investment

Common sentiment is that real estate – specifically the home - is one of the best investments that a family can make. For most of the country that’s true. Not here, though. New York is one of the few states in the Union in which real estate is not a wise investment.

That’s because, simply put, our property taxes are too high.

The onerous amalgamation of local, county, and school taxes strip real estate of any future returns it might have because your payment of these taxes must be considered a part of the investment in your home.

In Niagara County the median home value is $105,200 and the property tax burden on said home is $3,209. Suppose someone buys that median home as a starter home and hopes to sell it off in a decade or two. To come out even, based on taxes-paid alone, he would have to sell that home for $137,290 after 10 years or $169,380 after 20. That’s nearly impossible in the Buffalo-Niagara region.

Making matters worse, that basic analysis makes two major assumptions. One, taxes won’t rise in every one of those years. As we’ve recently seen, even the tax cap can’t stop them. And, two, the property owner will put absolutely no money into that home for remodeling or repairs. Those unaccounted-for factors – 100% guaranteed to happen – have the lack of a payback on housing set in stone.

This is a uniquely-NY problem.

Depending on what metric some real estate and good government groups use, property taxes in the Empire State are anywhere from 57% to 85% higher than the national average.

I’ll stick with the more reasonable – and realistic – 57%. For every $100 other Americans pay, we pay $157. That’s the average; let’s look at one of the extremes. I know someone from Tennessee who pays a paltry $660 per year in property taxes for his 2,800-square-foot suburban new-build. In comparison, my coworker who lives in North Tonawanda has a similar home for which he pays $6,800 in taxes annually. Another coworker pays $5,480 on his like-sized abode in Amherst.

Think about it: they will have paid $68,000 and $54,800 in property taxes, respectively, after just 10 years. They will never make that up in resale value. Never. But, the man from Tennessee will for sure; what he pays in taxes over 1 decade is even less than what the North Tonawanda resident pays in 1 year. For him, and many other Americans, it makes complete sense to invest in real estate, be it housing or land, because their taxes are so low.

It’s depressing for New Yorkers, because for most our homes are the single largest investment that we will ever make in our lifetimes; and it’s something that many bank on as the key to their personal wealth. This has taken on greater meaning since we’ve all lost faith in the stock market because of the Great Recession and the continued fiscal woes globally which are having a significant negative impact on the ag and manufacturing sectors here. As 401(k)s have ridden roller coasters and pensions ride a fine line of sustainability, we’ve all looked for other options to save for our retirements and our heirs, things like hard assets such as gold or real estate. Only in New York State is the latter an even poorer investment than down markets and low-yielding bonds and CDs.

Let’s put all this into historical perspective. A tea tax - but a pittance - was the straw that broke our colonial backs and jumpstarted the American Revolution. Our property taxes are far more extravagant. Will that someday ignite that same fire of change in New Yorkers? Let’s hope so, and soon. We’ll never be a rich people and a booming economy as long as the status quo is maintained in state leadership.

 

From the 29 August 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers

 

 

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: The pitcher plant -- Western New York’s carnivorous plant

Nearly everyone is familiar with the Venus flytrap, the famed carnivorous plant of the southeast that snaps shut on insects that might end up within its mouth-like leaves.

Many folks don’t know that its equally-carnivorous but much less dramatic cousin, the pitcher plant, can be found in Western New York.

It just so happens that now is a great time to find this rare plant. Its large, brick-red nodding flower is in full bloom in August, alerting you to the pitcher below.

Those bladder-like leaves that give the plant its name are a vessel which collects water, and ultimately, insects on which it feeds.

It’s an evolutionary tool made out of necessity; pitcher plants grow in bogs, mossy acidic wetlands of which we have very few on the Niagara Frontier. Two bogs that immediately come to mind are Hanging Bog and Moss Lake, both being located in Allegany County and both being places we will explore in future installments of this column.

In a bog, decay happens at incredibly slow rates. As an example, some happy archeologists have found human bodies that were essentially mummified in European bogs, well-preserved hundreds of years after their death. Because of that slow rot, there is very little nitrogen available for flowering plants, hence bogs being home to mostly mosses. Flowering plants that do remain need to find nitrogen by alternative methods.

This is where the pitcher plant’s strange-looking anatomy comes into play. Whereas the Venus flytrap appears to be a quick eater, the pitcher plant takes its sweet time through an elaborate process.

The leathery, green sometimes burgundy leaves, with deep-red veins, which make it look like a bodily organ, have pools of water within them. The stench of that stagnant water and the death within draws flies and other carrion-eating insects into the bladder. The downward facing hairs within the pitcher do not allow the insects to fly or crawl out. Those hairs are said to issue a narcotic, which stuns the insects that then fall into the water. Bacteria in the water break down the drowned insects and the pitcher plant emits an enzyme that converts the insect mush into nitrogen that the plant consumes through the walls of the leaves.

It sounds like a lot of work, and it takes a lot of time, that is if the plant is lucky enough to catch some insects. All of that, in conjunction with the rarity of bogs, makes the pitcher plant one of the least common plants on the Niagara Frontier. It has a precarious diet while living in a precarious habitat.

That has led New York State environmental officials to count the pitcher plant as an exploitably vulnerable native plant, a classification teetering on threatened. So, if you see one, do not pick it, even if you count yourself as a skilled terrarium gardener. Not only is their harvest strictly prohibited on public land, but doing so also compromises the long-term population of one of our more interesting plants.



Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.


From the 18 August 2016 All WNY News

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: The wood turtle – Western New York’s interesting rarity

Earlier this year, while driving on County Route 38 in Allegany County, I saw a turtle crossing the road. Like any nature lover worth his salt, I got out of the truck and picked him up to put him in a safe spot.

I expected the slow-moving pedestrian to be a painted turtle which is, without a doubt, the most common turtle in Western New York. So, I was startled – and incredibly happy -- when I discovered it was a wood turtle!

After excitedly admiring the turtle for a good 15 minutes, I finally put him in Alma Pond.

It was especially rewarding to have my initial good deed magnified by protecting such a rare specimen.

Yes, rare.

I count myself as a good herpetologist. For years, I traipsed around Allegany and Niagara Counties in an effort to help the state with its reptile and amphibian atlas. I found many an interesting creature but never expected to ever see a wood turtle. They are incredibly uncommon in Western New York and the Department of Environmental Conservation counts them as a species of special concern.

Their numbers are down in most every state and province because of predation (mostly by the overpopulated raccoons), habitat loss, illegal collection (they allegedly make great pets) and vehicular turtleslaughter.

That’s sad, because the wood turtle is one of the more interesting reptiles out there.

It got its name for two reasons: One, it’s deeply grooved shell looks like hardwood and, two, it can be found in the woods.

For a good portion of the year, the wood turtle will venture a considerable distance from water (up to a half mile). In the late-spring and summer they can be found in wet meadows, fields, and forests, foraging on insects, slugs and fungi. While hunting, it even does something one might consider a magical power: It stomps its front feet which mimics the sound of rain; those vibrations bring earthworms to the surface, making a good meal for the turtle.

They are excellent walkers and relative speedsters for the notoriously-slow turtle clan. In one study of wood turtles, it was found they averaged 354 feet of travel a day, pretty darn good for a small reptile no longer than 8 inches in length. When I released our friend to Alma Pond, my family and I were in stitches because he seemed to be in a full run and was actually moving quickly.

That ability to cover territory in a hurry aligns well with the turtle’s unique homing abilities. It was discovered in scientific experiments using mazes that the wood turtles had homing abilities comparable to those of rats, which is pretty extraordinary for a reptile. A follow-up to that had a biologist move specimens a mile and a half from home --- they made it back in less than 5 weeks!

Wood turtles are also attractive little buggers, which might account for their popularity with reptile collectors. Besides the woody shell, they have a bright orange neck and legs and their underbelly is yellow with black blotches. They are active, too; the one we played with kept his head out most of the time, was inquisitive and even roared at us in his own way (it sounded like a whisper).

When not gallivanting in the wild during the warm months, wood turtles can be found underwater in the winter. They will go to the bottom of a river, stream or pond and bury themselves in brush or mud and stay there all season. Sometimes, that can account for their demise as it makes them susceptible to being really buried during flash flooding, a regular occurrence of springtime thaws in Allegany and Cattaraugus Counties where they can be found.  

That’s yet another thing makes them a marked animal – they are rare for a reason (actually, quite a few reasons), and they are creatures better left in the wild and not put in an aquarium.

If you see one in the wild appreciate it and take some pictures; never take it home.

And, if you see a turtle crossing the road, help it out --- you never know just what you might be saving.



Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.


From the 25 August 2016 All WNY News

New York State legislators do not deserve raises

When working in the private sector, pay raises are contingent on one or a combination of 3 things: The merit and successes of the individual, the current and projected health of the organization, and the health of the overall economy. Because of the final factor (and its contributions to the second), annual raises of any measurable size have become something of a rarity since the start of the Great Recession. Nationally, wages will have risen 2.7% this year.

Despite the working class facing such tumultuous times, the political class thinks they are free of such encumbrances. It has been the buzz in Albany, yet again, that state legislators are looking for a raise this year. They currently make a base salary of $79,500 and want to take it up to $116,900, an increase of more than 47% -- never mind that their real wage is already near mark after taking into consideration committee bonuses and the $172 per diem benefit for when they are in Albany.

When you consider the 3 factors behind raises, our senators and assemblyman aren’t deserving of a $37,400 raise, let alone one of $2,147 (which is what it would be were they to see just 2.7% like their constituents).

Let’s first consider the merits of in the individual. $79,500 is a rather exorbitant sum to be paying a part-timer. These positions were devised to offer regular people a chance to contribute to the development of the Empire State by having sessions for 6 calendar months per year and during those sessions mandating 0 to 4 days per week in the state capital (the legislative calendar typically shows only 55 in-session/budget days for the period of January through June). When the 6 months were up or when the legislature wasn’t in session during the week, the legislators could go back to their “real jobs” on the farm, in their offices and plants, or at home raising their families.

Sadly, the system been mutilated so much that people are led to believe that being a legislator is a full-time, year-round job equipped with regional offices and full-time staffs. Realistically, under such circumstances, one could look at the second half of the year as being nothing more than politics, rather than policy, a means to perpetuate incumbency through alleged necessity and importance. Really, what does attendance at parades and dinners contribute to the overall welfare of our state?

So, we need to look at the seats for what they are and what they should be – part-time, supplementary gigs - and realize that we cannot permit their income growth.

Now, let’s look at the organization through which they are employed.

At $5 billion, last year marked the state’s largest surplus since the 1940s. That was all smoke and mirrors, because it was created by windfalls from a variety of bank settlements.

Recent history shows are more horrifying picture. The state government had a budget gap of $2 billion in 2013, which followed deficits of $10.4 billion in 2012, $8.5 billion in 2011, and $21 billion in 2010.

If the fiscal health of the state is directly attributable to their budgets, the laws that they introduce, and the tough-but-necessary cuts they are afraid to make, then how, just by looking at those years alone, do the legislators deem themselves worthy of reward? If anyone ran a company like they run a state, that individual would be among the ranks of the unemployed, either through termination or the total collapse of their firm.

And, it’s that factor that leads to the last: the overall health of the economy. Every bill among the hundreds passed every year by the legislature (a whopping 718 bills in 2015) either steals rights and freedoms or adds to the cost of living and doing business in New York State. Because of that, existing businesses (not the new ones which are granted special favor and public charity like SolarCity) face incomprehensible government-created financial burdens when compared against their competitors from other states. That has forced businesses to stagnate/downsize/close/leave, which in turn has caused the same to happen to our residents, young and old alike. In the period from 2010 to 2014, 38 of the 50 Upstate counties lost population. Upstate is dying.

It’s that final factor of assessing job performance that is the most damning to our legislators. They are complicit in the destruction of the once accurately-named “Empire State”. They’ve driven our government to ruin, which has done the same to our economy and each and every one of us in it.

Only a politician would think they deserve a bigger paycheck for that.

 

 

From the 22 August 2016 Greater Niagara Newspapers

 

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: Fall colors will be muted this year

Battling through one of the most oppressively hot summers in memory, many Western New Yorkers are pining for the more temperate days and cooler nights of the fall. With the natural autumn (not the one based on man’s calendar) less than a month away, there is hope in sight.

But, that sight will be duller than years past.

With this year being one of the driest on record, this fall promises to have some of the worst colors on record. This will prove to a real downer to the leaf peepers who look forward to driving across our wonderful region every fall, and it will put a really effect the Southern Tier’s tourism economy, one that already had a setback earlier this year with dismal skiing and snowmobiling conditions.

At press time, Buffalo was looking at year-to- date precipitation deficit of 8”. This has had a major effect on plant life, even including the largest of trees that have stood the test of time and have seen similar droughts. They just aren’t getting the nutrition they need.

Here’s what we can expect this fall:

The leaves will drop earlier and quicker

Last year was a very healthy year for WNY trees and we got to experience a late and sustained coloring of our forests. Colors started appearing in earnest during the third week of September and many places still could brag of good color well into the last week of October. Portions of Niagara County had good color up to Veteran’s Day.

This year, though, because the leaves haven’t been able to become as robust, they will fall earlier. You can expect to see leaves coming down by September 15 th and I would be surprised if the Southern Tier had colors worth sightseeing later than Columbus Day. This will put a damper on some fall events like Wellsville’s famous Ridgewalk and Run, the success of which is determined by the fall colors.

This drought is a color killer

2015’s colors were exceptional, a picture-perfect collage of really intense reds, yellows, and oranges. I thought it was one of the top two or three autumns this century. This year’s will be the worst, hands down.

A wet spring and dry fall always produce the best hues. But this year, we’ve been dry through the entirety of the growing season.

Many of those unhealthy leaves will fall even before changing color while others, especially the yellows and orange will be show more of a brown hue. If it’s any consolation, some of the reds might be bright this year.

Farmlands will produce better views

Many leaf peepers migrate to the Southern Tier to see the Allegheny Plateau and foothills sporting color, depth and a greater, wider view. This might be the year to not do that.

Those old growth forests tend to be less diverse than those of northern Western New York where the forests, woodlots and hedgerows are much younger. As Mother Nature tries to reclaim an environment, there is a far greater number of species trying to stake a claim. So, you will have a greater variety of trees and colors, and those variations will be able to, in some cases, overcome the dullness of the trees that have typically afforded us the best views. That means that the best views this year could be in the flatlands of the lake plains in Niagara and Orleans Counties.

While the leaf forecast might seem dismal, you should always get out and see them when you can. If we have a decent weekend weather-wise in late-September and colors have changed, go out on the road with a camera and some friends. If you don’t take advantage of that good weekend, it might be too late when next you have time available. The window for fall colors will be that brief this year.



Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.

From the 11 August 2016 All WNY News

EXPLORING THE NIAGARA FRONTIER: Perseids meteor shower to put on a show this year

Western New York sky watchers have had a relatively eventless 2016 – no eclipses, a brief and disappointing look at Comet Catalina, and almost no northern lights.

Many of us are hopeful that next week’s annual Perseids meteor shower will more than make up for all of that.

That shower, which peaks this year on Aug. 12, is usually the most prolific of such shows every year, producing 60 shooting stars per hour.

This year’s looks to be a multiple of that, an “outburst year” or “peak year," because of how the debris field, which is remnants of Comet Swift-Tuttle, is positioned by the gravitational pull of the giant planets Jupiter and Saturn. Some scientists think that will increase the rate to as many as 200 meteors per hour!

The last time an outburst occurred was 2009 and astronomers were entertained with 140 per hour when watched from the darkest skies.

Dark skies are critical to enjoy this show at its best. You have to get away from the lights of the cities and villages. The best places to watch in the north of our reading area would be from the Lake Ontario shore, while those in the south are encouraged to get as close to the Pennsylvania border as they can, where some of the darkest skies in the entire northeast can be found. For city folk, it would be an excellent time to book a getaway to Allegany State Park.

The shower peaks on Aug. 12 (which is really the night of Aug. 11), but you will see a high volume of meteors from now until then. After that, we’ve passed the debris field and numbers drop off dramatically, so much so that next Friday night could be a dud.

If you look for them prior to midnight on a given night, you will be disappointed and wonder what the hype is all about. You have to go outdoors after midnight and hang there until dawn to really appreciate it. That’s because it is those hours that have our viewing area positioned towards the incoming dust (and, yes, most of these brilliant streakers and fireballs are nothing more than dust).

Because of the way we are tilted into the incoming particles, all of these meteors will appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, hence the name, which after midnight you will be able to find at due northeast about halfway up the sky.

This year, the moon won’t dampen the display because it will be only at a quarter of full, so its light will be low and it will have set by 1 a.m.

Give yourself plenty of time to enjoy the show – maybe an hour or two, because the shooting stars can come in waves. Also, to get the best effect, it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness (sometimes as much as 20 minutes), so don’t fiddle with your flashlight and don’t go onto your smartphone tweeting about every fireball you see. Keep it dark!

The overnights of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will be the best next week (with Thursday being a must-see) so if you don’t mind screwing up your sleep cycle and being a little groggy at work, get up (or stay up) and see these Perseids shower. It will be worth the torture and grogginess this year. You can count on that.




Bob Confer is a Gasport resident. His column, Exploring the Niagara Frontier, is published every Thursday on All WNY News.

From the 04 August 2016 All WNY News