STOP DEVELOPMENT AT AMAWALK RESERVOIR’S GRANITE POINTE!
“Water is the MOST critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our water is the principal measure of how we live on the land.”
-Luna Leopold
Who We Are
We are a group of Westchester County residents from communities surrounding Amawalk Reservoir in the Towns of Somers, Yorktown, and beyond. We are fighting to save 28.8 beautiful forested acres that are situated on a promontory called Granite Pointe, adjacent to the reservoir.
Over 30 years ago, the Somers Planning Board granted the developer final approval to build homes on this land. Local activists at the time stated that the Planning Board did not conduct a thorough environmental review process, nor did they actively involve the public or provide accessible information.
A future high-density housing development of 23 one-acre homes (with septic tanks) introduces multiple new sources of contamination- threatening both the health of the ecosystem and the safety of our municipal drinking water, private well water, and bedrock aquifers.
This continuous threat to the reservoir and Granite Pointe in particular, will only leave a legacy of environmental devastation given the site’s history of past activity as a former skeet shooting range with serious lead, antimony, and arsenic contamination. Add to this the fact that salinity levels in Amawalk Reservoir have tripled in just 30 years, primarily due to road salt runoff and other human activities. Destroying this forest and wildlife habitat will add insult to injury and contribute to increased temperatures, heat waves, droughts and flooding. This land must be protected and safeguarded!
We care about this place where we live and love. We care about the creatures living in and around the reservoir: the eagles, egrets, varieties of fish, pollinators, deer…the list goes on and on. We need to work together and inspire each other to ensure a solution that secures a safe future for Amawalk Reservoir and Granite Pointe- and all of its inhabitants.
“An ode to the remarkable variety of life in the Hudson River estuary watershed, The Nature of Nature: Biodiversity in the Hudson Valley celebrates the living fabric of the region’s unique landscape. From high elevation forests to the globally rare tidal marshes along the Hudson estuary,
[this documentary] captures the beautiful, the complex, the familiar, and the unknown…guided by the plants, animals, and people that call the Hudson Valley home.” -NYSDEC & Cornell University
Our very own Fred Higham was recently featured in an article in The Examiner. Fred was onhand to discuss the far-reaching impact of any kind of residential development at Granite Pointe. Read the entire piece HERE.
Contact us
If you’d like to support our mission to protect Granite Pointe, with its mature hardwood trees, wildlife habitat, and scenic views, please take a look at our petition. Your signature could help us make a huge difference!
You can also help by filling out the contact form to the right and staying informed! Spread the word…to all our neighbors in Yorktown, Somers, and surrounding communities so they know what’s going on, the more who speak up, the louder our voices become.
THANK YOU for your time!