Transparency Update: Good news for the ospreys!
The root message of the petition was always primarily based around fighting against developers' dishonesty and cutting of corners in their environmental impact assessment. We still firmly believe that the way they've gone about trying to push forward the fourteen homes they've looked to develop deserves strong skepticism and pushback. However, in the spirit of transparency, we thought it was best to share some good news about the osprey nesting site...
A few days ago, we sent an update to you all explaining how while we were expecting a new nest to be built soon after observing a single osprey sitting towards the top of the radio tower being met by an additional osprey, which was most likely its counterpart. Hours after sending the update, however, we learned that the ospreys may have actually built their new nest on one of the utility towers in the PSEG parking lot further down Lake Rd.
While we feel silly about the timing of our update, (perhaps we got ahead of ourselves,) this is ultimately a good thing! The ospreys have a nest. A possible removal of the radio tower in the eight acres of land that we're fighting for "may" not in fact mean anything negative for those beautiful birds after all.
Once again, we wanted to share this update to help prevent anyone from feeling that they were lead on by some of the details laid out in the petition and subsequent social media posts/discussions. Additionally, as mentioned at the beginning of this post, it was never all just about "the ospreys," because we pointed out how many other species, including possible endangered species, were neglected and threatened by the project.
It's still just as important to keep in mind is that the developers DID perform an inherently flawed, blatantly falsified, and recklessly oversimplified environmental impact assessment. The three-part study was dated between January and February, so the timing alone leaves much to be suspicious about. Residents of the surrounding area knew very well that there WAS a nest on the radio tower during that time, and that it was there all the way through March 6, yet the developers presented a photo of an empty, nest-less radio tower to the Town Board when proposing to rezone the property on March 20th. If they weren't intentionally misleading us all, then they need to pay more attention to details.
Attention to detail matters, and we can be better at that too. We are genuinely glad to discover this detail, as we are relieved for the ospreys! Please read the petition if you haven't already, and if you still believe the it's worth signing and sharing, then thank you! For those of you who have already shown your support, thank you as well!
Onward! 🙏❤️