A Tree Preservation Committee will be formed to come up with guidelines on appropriate plants for the town’s parks and rights-of-way along roads, which may also be used as a guide by residents.

The DEC directive became controversial in Guilderland in 2020 when Pyramid, owner of Crossgates Mall, cut trees to make way for a Costco, citing the need to do so to beat the deadline meant to protect the northern long-eared bats while advocates from Save the Pine Bush said the land had not been properly surveyed for the bats.

The Enterprise spoke with Cornell researcher David Kay, who is currently studying this very topic, and Knox resident David Whipple, who lives on a farm that became home to the Hilltowns’ first commercial solar array, for their perspectives on the relationship between farmers, agriculture, and solar companies.

The Knox Conservation Advisory Council has tapped a local group of nature walkers, the Thursday Naturalists, to develop a species list for the wetland area where the town had once installed a public boardwalk that has since fallen into disrepair. The chairman of the council has said that he hopes to rehabilitate the boardwalk. 

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. 

Shouldn’t we move to a new aesthetic? In the short term, we could stop fertilizing with harmful chemicals; we could stop watering with a resource that could best be used elsewhere; and we could mow less, letting the natural plants return to our yards. And we could leave our grass clippings where they fall to help stem climate change.

BETHLEHEM — This rapidly developing suburban town, next to the state’s capital, plans to protect 300 acres of farmland from two farms that have been operating since the Revolutionary War.

Developer Armand Quadrini recently submitted an application to the town of Guilderland proposing a Planned Unit Development on five parcels from 2298 to 2314 Western Ave., including the site of the former Master Cleaners, currently designated a brownfield by the state’s Department of Conservation.

Neil Gifford, the conservation director for the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, got his first job at the preserve literally setting fires, controlled burns.