Environmental Reports + Planning, Zoning & Development Documents: Home
Introduction
Our local cities and towns manage their land and property resources in a variety of ways according to various local, state and federal laws. Planning departments and boards develop and implement comprehensive long term plans for their communities' desirable development. Zoning boards determine what kind of development can take place in specific areas of their community.
Federal and state programs help communities with issues such as improving substandard housing and cleaning and redeveloping polluted sites.
A number of different types of documents are produced by the processes that are followed in implementing these programs. Newburgh Free Library makes the most recent seven years of many of these documents available to the public (the library keeps some older documents pertaining to projects that are of particular historical interest to our community). The library keeps paper hard copies that are sent to us by various local and state agencies. Generally we keep the printed materials for seven years. If you'd like to see a paper copy, ask a librarian to retrieve it from storage.
The majority of documents pertaining to environmental concerns in our area are available on government websites and not as paper copies. Links to searchable databases from the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the NYS Department of Public Service and the US Environmental Protection Agency are given below and on the specific locality pages. The City of Newburgh also has many documents on their site (see City of Newburgh tab for links).
NYS Agencies
Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) - promotes and regulates safe brownfield redevelopment for which the state provide tax incentives.
DEC Info Locator - access DEC documents and public data about the environmental quality of specific sites in New York State
Environmental Site Remediation Database - access to DEC cleanup site and spill data. search by site location, program (e.g. brownfield cleanup,state superfund program), city, street or keywords, (e.g. Scobie Drive, Stewart ANG, DuPont-Stauffer)
FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) Request
NYS Brownfields brochure for an overview
NYS DEC page on the Brownfield Cleanup Program for more information about the program.
Department of Public Service (Public Service Commission) - regulates gas, electric, water, telecommunications utilities (regulated companies)
Search DPS files - search by case number or keywords, (e.g. Central Hudson, Danskammer). DPS search help
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Enforcement and Compliance Data - Search by Region (New York State is Region 2), City (e.g. Newburgh), Zip Code, Facility Name, etc.
Site Specific National Cleanup Databases - links to many EPA databases. search by address, zip code, facility, etc.
Document Availability and Arrangement
printed documented are in storage (Rock Room) - a librarian can retrieve them for you for in-library use
How to read Call #s
Documents are arranged by category and year
example: NbC-4
2018
vol. 2
NbC-4 - City of Newburgh document number 4 pertaining to the year 2018; volume 2 of a multi volume publication
Prefixes
NbC - City of Newburgh
NbT - Town of Newburgh
NW - Town of New Windsor
Dsk - Danskammer
CH - Central Hudson
Stw - Stewart Airport/Air Force Base
OC - Orange County