Photos: Nature thwarted but not defied in the Hilltowns
The Enterprise — Marcello Iaia
A virtual biosphere, the high ceilings of the passive greenhouses at Eight Mile Creek Farm extend the growing season into the months of cold weather, retaining moisture and heat from the sun’s rays. On a sunny day in January, the farm’s owner, Pamela Schreiber, said Tuesday, the temperature inside can reach 80 degrees Fahrenheit. At the foot of the vegetable rows stand officials from Albany County and the Natural Resources Conservation Service, agencies through which farmers consult and obtain funding for such infrastructure. Through the United States Department of Agriculture, Schreiber’s contract is part of the Environmental Quality Incentive Program.
The Enterprise — Marcello Iaia
Pamela Schreiber, owner and operator of the organic Eight Mile Creek Farm in Westerlo, laughs with John Santacrose, chairman of the board of directors for the Albany County Soil and Water Conservation District. They were on a tour of projects related to the conservation district Tuesday morning. With Schreiber, county officials designed a rotational grazing system, which moved her animals away from water sources on her land, constructed large “high-tunnel” greenhouses that extend the season of growing her produce, and wrote a comprehensive nutrient management plan for the farm.
The Enterprise — Marcello Iaia
The bank was bare along Route 143 heading into Westerlo’s central hamlet, eroded by tropical storms Irene and Lee in August 2011 and repaired this past October with a $196,000 project that installed nine feet of large rocks on the far right bank, packed soil folded with fabric to restore the bank, and laid large rocks to slow and divert the stream away from the weakened bank. Like a streambank stabilization project in Preston Hollow on Route 145 in 2013, three quarters of the funds came from the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service and the rest came from the state’s flood mitigation program. The project on Route 143, meant to protect safety and property, was eligible because the bank is along a state route, a county bridge is downstream, and the water is considered a Class A stream for trout spawning and feeds into the Basic Creek Reservoir, according to state and county officials.