On Thursday, March 25 Hillsdale’s Conservation Advisory Council will present more than two years worth of research to town residents in the final version of their Natural Resource Inventory report. The extensive 203-page document has already been made available on the Town’s website and provides descriptions, maps, photographs, and explanations of Hillsdale’s natural features – forests, farms, fields, streams, wetlands, and their animal and plant inhabitants. In late 2017 Hillsdale’s CAC received funding from the Hudson River Estuary Program of New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation and hired experts in land-use planning as well as Geographic Information Systems in order to launch the ambitious project. Over the next two years they, alongside members of the Town’s CAC, worked in collaboration with Hillsdale residents collecting information in order to produce the final Natural Resource Inventory (NRI) that describes the town’s many natural resources and their significance to the community at large. According to the Town’s website the NRI will “include descriptions of the Town’s topography, bedrock and surficial geology, soils, water resources (streams, lakes, ponds, groundwater), biological resources (plants, animals, and habitats such as forest, meadow, and swamp), scenic areas, and outdoor places for public recreation.” Attendees of the March meeting at 7pm will have “an opportunity to learn more about the wealth of information contained in the document” according to the Town’s newsletter.

 

There will be a small number of print copies of the NRI available for purchase by anyone attending the meeting – first come, first served. (The copies will be available at cost, approximately $22.)

 

Creation of the Hillsdale NRI was made possible by funding from the New York State Environmental Fund through a grant to the Town from the Hudson River Estuary Program of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

 

For more information on the CAC’s Natural Resource Inventory report visit the Town’s website at https://hillsdaleny.com/committees/conservation-advisory-council/