[caption id="attachment_12431" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Anonymous photo contribution purported to be the same area May 25 and June 23 this year."][/caption]
Hudson environmentalists sent out internet alarms Thursday as the path used by O&G across Hudson's South Bay became a compacted gravel roadway the entire length of the former rail-bed from 9G to the eastern side of the mainline tracks on the causeway. An anonymous listener contributed the two photos shown on the WGXC Newsroom blog, one from May 25 this year, and one from yesterday, where work was clearly done. On Carole Osterink's The Gossips of Rivertown blog there is a photo of the paving in action. Several emails confirm that these Hudson-based environmentalists have alerted the Department of Environmental Conservation about the paving, which they believe exceeds the scope of O&G's permit. Osterink's blog notes that, "At the Common Council meeting on Tuesday night, amidst the agonizing about gravel trucks on city streets, mayor's aide Cappy Pierro asked rhetorically, 'Why don't we just ask O&G to use the causeway?'" Last year, Mike McCagg in ccScoop reported, "Although the Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a permit for the "maintenance and repair of [the] existing gravel and stone roadway," Scenic Hudson has appealed that permit, maintaining the use of a former railroad bed as a roadway for heavy truck traffic will harm the South Bay and the wetlands east of Route 9G."