Nature’s champion

Green developer Ned Sullivan is working hard to ensure that the dramatic vistas and waterfront walks are preserved for the people who live there.
As president of Scenic Hudson, a not-for-profit environmental group based in Poughkeepsie, Sullivan is kept busy fighting against unsightly development in the Hudson Valley.
Growing up in the Hudson Valley, Sullivan quickly developed a sense of public duty.
“My father was involved in city and county politics.” he said. “He served as a U.S. delegate to UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization].”
His father, whose family originated from County Mayo, had a real estate business and was keen that his son would take over. Sullivan, meanwhile, had other plans.
Last week, while sitting under the shade of the leafy trees outside Yonkers train station, the 45-year-old Sullivan explained the route he took.
“I have always loved the outdoors and had a passionate concern for the protection of the beauty of nature,” he said. “At every stage of my professional career, there has been some connection to the environment.”
His first job after college was as a forest ranger in Wyoming. Once he tired of checking hunting and camping permits, he moved to Alaska, where he worked for the Department of Fish and Game. “I lived 200 miles from the nearest road,” Sullivan said. “My food was airlifted and I got a letter every two weeks, if I was lucky.”
Sullivan’s wanderlust struck again and he moved to France. “I wanted to live in another country and learn a new language,” he said.
A year later, he was back in the U.S. and in Washington, working for the Environmental Protection Agency [EPA]. His duties included the development of regulations that encouraged public involvement in decisions about water quality.
“It is so important for citizens to be heard and to have a say in how their community is going to be shaped,” Sullivan said.
It was around this time that Sullivan became aware of Scenic Hudson, an environmental group founded in the early 1960s. The group was at the vanguard of legal cases that ultimately produced the legal principle known as standing.
“Citizens now have standing to intervene in cases if the project will effect publicly owned resources; for example: the quality of air or water,” Sullivan said.
The work at the EPA was followed by a stint at Yale, where Sullivan earned a master’s degree in private and public management and a separate master’s in forest science.
“I wanted to have training in natural sciences, but also needed the tools and skills needed to be a manager of organizations that were going to be protecting the environment,” he said.
Sullivan’s next step was to work for the Bank of Boston as vice president of public finance. “My job was to help towns finance their environmental structure plans and raise money to build treatment plants,” he said.
With so much experience in environmental matters, Sullivan was asked to act as deputy commissioner of environmental conservation for the state of New York.
“Up to 1,000 hazardous sites had been identified in New York,” Sullivan said. “We investigated those sites and cleaned them up.”
After seven years there, Sullivan was promoted to environmental commissioner for the state of Maine.
“It is a beautiful place,” he said. “The people are proud of the beauty but are also aware of the need for jobs. Our job was to promote the economy while protecting Maine’s natural resources.”
It was around this time that Sullivan got married. He now has a 6-year-old daughter and a stepdaughter with his wife, Tara. It was their new family status that encouraged the move back to the Hudson Valley.
“Both my wife and I grew up here, so we wanted to be around family again,” he said. They now live in a little hamlet called Annandale.
Sullivan decided to work for Scenic Hudson, the group he’d heard so much about.
“I was fascinated that they preserve land, create parks and recreational opportunities throughout the Hudson Valley, but are also willing to fight bad projects,” he said.
One such bad project, he argued, is a proposed cement plant in upstate New York. Sullivan described how it would look. “It would be 400 feet high, would have a 6 1/2-mile visible plume, a 1,200-acre mine and would ultimately be an industrial city larger than the city it would be built beside,” he said.
Sullivan believes that the plant could be built on a smaller scale. He mentions the growing commitment on the part of the government and the public in Hudson Valley to prevent the destruction of its natural beauty.
The green group is a force to be reckoned with. Two years ago, the EPA ended a battle that had been raging for two decades with General Electric and ordered the company to clean up pollution caused by its manufacturing operations on the Hudson near Albany.

Pilot development
Sullivan heads a staff of 45 and steers the direction of the organization.
“I identify the crucial projects we should be working on,” he said. “Sometimes I get personally involved in major land purchases.”
One such involvement is the proposed development at the former factory town of Beacon. In what Sullivan calls a pilot initiative, the organization is allowing development on land tit has purchased.
“We originally planned to build a park, but in keeping with the strong tradition of our group, we held public meetings at Beacon to see what the public thought,” Sullivan said.
Residents were vocal. Emphasizing the fact that Scenic Hudson had bought up the last parcel of waterfront property in the area, they decried the town’s lack of hotel and river restaurants.
“We decided to build parks and a fishing pier, with public access along the waterfront,” Sullivan said.
The development will include a 100-room hotel, a conference center, shops, restaurants and hiking trails on 23 acres along the east bank of the Hudson.
Scenic Hudson put out requests for proposals and eventually chose the Foss Group as developers. “They were the most committed to the ethos of green design with recycled materials, minimal use of water and use of solar energy,” Sullivan said.
As well as new ventures like the Beacon development, Scenic Hudson continues with the bread and butter of their organization: opposing environmentally unsound development plans.
During the mid-1980s, a plan was developed to build six high-rise apartment towers along the waterfront in Yonkers. The 37-story buildings would have blocked the view of the Palisades across the water and would have prohibited the public from the waterfront.
Scenic Hudson sued the city. The result was that the high-rise towers were reduced to six-story buildings and the waterfront was made public property.
Last week, the esplanade provided a breezy respite from the hot sun. The public waterfront walkway, which is still under construction, will be a mile long.
It will include two parks and will showcase the large wrought-iron-covered pier. “There will be music recitals here,” Sullivan said, gesturing to the covered pier.
Farther along the waterfront, is the Beczak Environmental Education Center, Inc. Built on land owned by Scenic Hudson, the large, airy center has become a Mecca for schoolchildren.
The president of the board, Ned Kaufmann, stressed the importance of the center.
“It is a local center where we can teach the beauty of the Hudson River to kids and the general public,” he said. “School kids come to scoop stuff from the river in waders, they draw pictures and collect shells.”
Sullivan said he feels it is important that Scenic Hudson remain something more than a group of environmental agitators.
“We work with the city officials,” he said. “Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a talented craftsman to build one.”