GUILDERLAND — This rapidly developing suburban town has taken another significant step to protect the Normans Kill watershed.

At its Sept. 17 meeting, the town board agreed to have 20.48 acres of land next to the Nott Road Park remain open. 

“It will be added to the Nott Road Park after this dedication process,” said Supervisor Peter Barber before the board’s unanimous vote.

The transfer of the property to the town was a requirement for the developer of a four-lot cluster subdivision on State Farm Road.

As the town’s planner, Kenneth Kovalchick, explained in a memo to Barber and the board, the Guilderland Planning Board, in July, stipulated that, before a building permit would be issued, 20.48 acres were to be conveyed to the town, and another 9.35 acres were to remain open space.

“The acreage being conveyed is an important piece of land,” Kovalchik wrote, “as it contains federal wetlands and the Hunger Kill.”

The Hunger Kill, he noted, is designated by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation as being able to support trout habitat.

The two parcels together conserving nearly 30 acres of land “continues a history of strong conservation practices the town has undertaken within the Normans Kill watershed, from the dam at the Watervliet Reservoir to NYS Route 155,” Kovalchik wrote.

A watershed is the land area that drains to a stream, lake, or river and affects the water quality in the water body that it surrounds; according the the federal Environmental Protection Agency, healthy watersheds not only help protect water quality, but also provide greater benefits than degraded watersheds to the people and wildlife that live there.

Over the last half-century, according to the EPA, coastal and freshwater wetlands have declined and surface water and groundwater withdrawals have increased by 46 percent.

A water-quality survey of the nation's rivers and streams showed that 55 percent of the nation’s flowing waters are in poor biological condition and 23 percent are in fair biological condition, the EPA reports.

Nearly 40 percent of fish in North American freshwater streams, rivers, and lakes were found to be vulnerable, threatened, or endangered, the EPA reports, which is nearly twice as many as were included on the imperiled list from a similar survey conducted in 1989.

Kovalchik mapped out for the board lands that have been conserved as part of the town’s conservation easement program.

Altogether, nearly 412 acres have been preserved within the mapped section of the Normans Kill watershed. In addition, 231 acres of state lands have been preserved, making a total of 642 preserved acres.

Kovalchik went on to note that the total of land preserved within the watershed rises to 842 acres if the land from the Albany Country Club Hamlet application is added.

“I think we’ve come a long way towards further protecting these key water resources,” said Barber.

Minding history

The board unanimously appointed two of its own along with five other Guilderland residents to serve on a committee to observe Guilderland’s role in the United States Semiquincentennial — that is the 250th anniversary of the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, and events leading up to it.

In addition to Councilman Gus Santos and Deputy Supervisor Christine Napierski, the board appointed:

— Bruce Dearstyne, an historian and author who spent the bulk of his career as the program director of the New York State Archives;

— Gardner Gurney, president of the Guilderland Historical Society;

— John Haluska who took it upon himself to paint and repair all the historical markers in Guilderland and has worked to add several more;

— Mary Ellen Johnson, Guilderland’s town historian; and

— Aaron Mair, who is raising funds to erect a statue honoring the 1st Rhode Island regiment, which included Black and Native American soldiers as well as white soldiers, and was victorious at the Battle of the Normanskill, the only battle of the Revolutionary War fought in Albany County.

“I’m looking forward to it,” said Napierski. “It’s going to be very interesting.”

Councilman Jacob Crawford asked, “Will this committee work in concert with the county committee that’s also going on? And obviously, it’s happening at the national level, the state level, the county level — now at the town level.”

“I think they’ll be some working with those groups,” said Barber. “I know Aaron had some ideas in terms of what he would like to see happen in terms of commemorating the battle of the Normanskill. But I also know from talking to Mary Ellen Johnson, there are a lot of other things that happened in the town during the American Revolution than just that battle …

“We had slavery taking place in our town. So we want to make sure we commemorate what was happening in our town at that time.”

Other business

In other business at its Sept. 17 meeting, the Guilderland Town Board:

— Heard a request from Robyn Gray, who chairs the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth, that the time period for residents to comment on the updated comprehensive plan be extended because some residents had problems submitting lengthy comments.

Barber responded that the committee working on the update wanted “to have time to synthesize” the comments but he added, “I don’t see why having an additional week or so for comments would cause any problem.”

Towards the end of the meeting, Barber said that the Comprehensive Plan Update Committee will hold its next meeting on Oct. 10 at 7 p.m.

“There’s a chance it could be adopted that evening by the committee,” he said of the updated plan. “And then it’ll be switched over to us to start doing the final review, which will include a SEQR review,” Barber said of the State Environmental Quality Review;

— Heard from a resident who said flooding “totally ruined” the first story of her house and complained that the town hadn’t fixed drainage problems earlier as promised.

Barber said he would look into it and get back to her;

— Scheduled two public hearings for Oct. 15 — one at 7 p.m. and the other at 7:05 p.m. — on the assessment roll for the Guilderland Sewer Improvement Area; one deals with improvements and the other with maintenance costs;

— Appointed Octavia Turner as a telecommunicator in the police department and also appointed David O’Hehir III as a paramedic in the Department of Emergency Medical Services.

“David is the son of one of our paramedics,” said Barber, calling him “a fine gentleman and fine addition to our department”;

— Waived the building fee for the house at 40 Providence St., which suffered “water damage caused by flooding,” Barber said. He said several houses at the end of the street where impacted by two major storms that put a “tremendous amount of water into the stream that runs behind Providence Street”;

— Authorized the town court to submit a grant application for improvements including a microphone, cabinets, and a large display for evidence in court; and

— Heard from Barber that the town is holding a Household Hazardous Waste Day on Saturday, Oct. 12, from 8 a.m to 2 p.m. at the highway garage in Guilderland Center.

During the pandemic, he said, people cleared out their houses and garages. “They did a great job,” he said, “so we’re not getting in nearly as much household hazardous waste.”