PATERSON'S BUDGET: What about the Hemlock-Canadice deal?

January 19, 2010 at 12:36pm

During his budget address this morning, Governor David Paterson laid out a proposal to cut the state's Environmental Protection Fund by $79 million and to impose a moratorium on land acquisition.

Details were in short supply, but the proposal doesn't bode well for City Hall's plans to sell off the Hemlock Lake and Canadice Lake watersheds to the state. (The city owns the land as part of its drinking water system.) City officials and staff from the state Department of Environmental Conservation have negotiated the sale for more than a year, and both have the estimates needed to hash out a price.

But the EPF is the state's usual funding source for these kinds of deals. It's not much of a stretch to say that a moratorium on land acquisition could further delay state acquisition of Hemlock and Canadice.

Gary Walker, a spokesman for Mayor Bob Duffy, says that the plan is still to sell the property by the year's end.

"We have not heard anything to change that expectation and we plan to continue to meet and negotiate this transaction unless and until we hear otherwise from the DEC," he says.

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