Barbara Heinzen, of the Albany County Clean Air Coalition, maintains that the Port of Coeymans expansion plan, which was approved by the state, will have serious effects on the region’s environmental quality because, she says, Coeymans’ air quality laws are less stringent than those of the county.

RIC Energy has tentatively agreed to the Knox Town Board’s request for $30,000 annually as a payment in lieu of taxes. Construction of the company’s 5-megawatt solar farm will begin once the agreement is formalized. Meanwhile, Supervisor Russell Pokorny says he hopes another array — an 80 kilowatt array being built by the town with grant money, on Street Road — will be finished later this year. 

Rising energy costs and scheduled surcharge increases will increase the typical National Grid customer’s winter utility costs 39 percent for gas and 22 percent for electricity, according to the company’s projections. 

While the details of expanding Albany County’s pilot ACCORD program are yet unclear, officials said that every municipality in the county has agreed to hand over its 911 data for review, beginning the process of potential implementation.

Following a June inspection, Nolan Engineering determined that the Knox transfer station is in poor condition and cannot be renovated, meaning the town has to figure out whether it will build a new transfer station or figure out some alternative.

The childcare crisis is hitting home as the Capital District YMCA struggles to find workers in big suburbs like Guilderland and Clifton Park amid a national labor shortage that has hurt the childcare industry. 

East Berne resident Brittni Abriel, a former teacher, and her husband run educational programs for kids from ages 3 to 12 at Henrieka Farm Center on Beaver Dam Road in the hamlet, teaching them the value of farm work and a life spent outdoors.

The Albany County Soil and Water Conservation District will spend approximately two weeks analyzing the trees at Rensselaerville’s two town parks and issuing each tree a rating based on its condition and the impact it might have on structures and passersby. 

Amid possible changes to zoning laws, the town’s agricultural advisory committee is expected to deliver a report later this year to the Knox Planning Board on the topic of farmland abandonment — a mechanism by which farms that have been grandfathered into a non-agricultural district are stripped of that privilege five years after farming operations have ceased there. 

The fair had higher attendance than previous years, said a fair organizer, who chalked it up to good weather throughout the week.