To the Editor:

We are in a crisis. As predicted, COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire, people are dying, and there is not enough medical equipment. It is predicted we may sink into a recession like never seen in our lifetimes.

On top of the pandemic crisis, we have Pyramid pressing forward with its goal to develop along the Pine Bush Preserve. The public hearing had to be cancelled due to COVID-19. It appears it will not be rescheduled. The public comment period ends April 10 (changed since this letter was submitted to May 2).

I wrote a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assemblywoman Pat Fahy, and the Albany County Planning Board (copied to [Guilderland supervisor] Peter Barber and [town planner] Ken Kovalchik) to clarify a reported executive order Guilderland leaders were using to press forward; as evidenced by a quote from Supervisor Barber in response to my request to table the development by Pyramid.

Barber wrote, “We’re all mindful of the impact of coronavirus on people’s lives. That’s my primary focus. We’re also aware of the Governor’s Executive Orders which were intended to keep local governments functioning and help with rebuilding the economy. We’re trying to meet both goals and others.” 

One concern I added to my above-referenced letter was a reported possible connection to climate change, deforestation, and disease as humans take over wildlife habit around the globe (see Harvard Center for Health, Climate Change and the Environment: “Coronavirus, Climate Change and the Environment,” March 2020). 

On March 26, one day after the cancelled public hearing, Pyramid clear cut the 14-acre parcel for the proposed Costco site. According to a post on the town website, alerting residents to the start of tree removal, posted hours after the clear cutting started, this “had to be done prior to April 1 to comply with U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NYSDEC regulations related to the Northern Long Eared Bat … a threatened species.”

No permits were (publicly) issued for this clearing and it appears to violate the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation law. Many thanks to Steve Wickham, Save the Pine Bush, and the Guilderland Coalition For Responsible Growth who raced out to try to stop this massacre. 

So as COVID-19 takes lives around the world, with concern for deadly pathogens that may be caused by a zoonotic host, we allow devastation of habitat? Guilderland leaders appear to support corporate welfare over science, rather than a concern for public health, protection of threatened species, climate change, democracy, and transparency in public processes. 

This is tragic and short-sighted. A proverb likely of Cree Indian origin says: “Only when the last tree has died, the last river is poisoned, the last fish is caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”  

Shame on Guilderland town officials. We expect nothing from Pyramid, but the town?

Wendy Dwyer, RN.BS

Guilderland Center