Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan Balancing Development and Environmental Stewardship in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed Metropolitan Conservation Alliance a program of the MCA Technical Paper Series: No. 13 Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan Balancing Development and Environmental Stewardship in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed by Danielle T. LaBruna, M.A. and Michael W. Klemens, Ph.D. Metropolitan Conservation Alliance Wildlife Conservation Society Bronx, New York Front cover photograph: Farm, New Paltz, New York ©WCS/James W. Vellozzi Back cover photograph: Black Creek, Lloyd, New York ©WCS/Kevin J. Ryan Suggested citation: LaBruna, D. T. and M. W. Klemens. 2007. Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan: Balancing Development and Environmental Stewardship in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed. MCA Technical Paper No. 13, Metropolitan Conservation Alliance, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York. Additional copies of this document can be obtained from: www.wcs.org/mca ISBN 978-0-9792418-3-3 ISSN 1542-8133 ii Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the collaboration and support of our key partners: the staff and volunteers of the Town of Lloyd, the Town of New Paltz, and the Village of New Paltz; the private landowners of New Paltz and Lloyd; and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Program, which also provided generous financial and technical support. We extend our appreciation and thanks for their contributions to this project. The field data collected by WCS/MCA staff was augmented by spatial datasets provided by Dongming Tang of the GIS team at Ulster County Information Services, John Thompson of Mohonk Preserve, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Natural Heritage Program and Amphibian and Reptile Atlas Project, Cornell University’s Geospatial Information Repository, the New York State GIS Clearinghouse, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wetlands Inventory. We thank them for their contributions. Thanks also to Tim Bean of WCS’s Landscape Ecology and Geographic Analysis Program for his assistance in preparing geographic data for analysis. We would also like to thank the dedicated WCS/MCA staff members who have contributed to this project over the last several years, including: Julian Avery, Brian Houser, Nick Miller, Brandon Ruhe, Jennifer Schmitz, Karen Schneller-McDonald, Kevin Ryan, Chris Valligny, and James Vellozzi. In addition to conducting fieldwork, Julian Avery and Kevin Ryan both contributed to the analysis of this report, and for that we offer special thanks. Portions of this report draw heavily on a previous WCS/MCA report by Miller, et al. (2005), which focused on the headwaters of the Wallkill River. We acknowledge those authors’ efforts which provided a template for the current report. iii iv Table of Contents Introduction Project Background 1 Northern Wallkill Region Overview 1 Concepts and Issues Biodiversity in the Northern Wallkill Region 3 Importance of Biodiversity to the Northern Wallkill Region 4 Biodiversity and Local Land Use Planning 5 Project Premises and Goals 6 Land Use Changes and Biodiversity 7 Changing Patterns of Land Use 7 Landscape Configuration: Planning at the Landscape Level 8 Agriculture and Biodiversity 9 Methods Site Selection and Access 11 Field Data Collection 11 The Focal Species Approach 12 Data Management 13 Data Analysis 13 Results & Discussion Overview 16 Biodiversity Areas 16 Opportunities in Gardiner 22 Recommendations for Implementation Important Considerations and Caveats 24 Recommendations for Future Development and Economic Growth 24 Recommendations for Land Preservation 25 Recommendations for Local Land Use Planning 26 Complementary Partnerships 32 Literature Cited 33 Appendix A: Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Areas Map 35 Appendix B: Focal Species of the Northern Wallkill Region 36 Appendix C: Glossary of Terms 41 Appendix D: WCS/MCA Technical Paper Series 42 v vi Introduction Project Background The Wildlife Conservation Society’s Metropolitan Conservation Alliance (WCS/MCA) initiated the Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan (NWBP) project with the goal of establishing a regional approach to land use planning to promote conservation of wildlife and wildlife habitat. The region at the northern stretches of the Wallkill River was chosen due to the richness of wildlife and unfragmented habitat found there, characteristics that are increasingly rare in more southern portions of New York State due to sprawling development. A project with a regional scope such as this necessitates the participation of multiple municipalities. To this end, WCS/MCA formed a partnership with the Town of Lloyd, the Town of New Paltz, and the Village of New Paltz to guide and facilitate this project, including biodiversity field surveys, data analysis, report production, and implementation of recommendations. This report, the Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan, contains the summarized results and analysis of biodiversity field surveys and provides recommendations on how to best conserve these biodiverse areas through both land preservation and biodiversity-friendly land use planning. This project builds upon a regional, inter-municipal conservation model created by MCA in other regions and states; this report is the fifth such intermunicipal biodiversity strategy published by MCA. This project began as a four-municipality initiative which included the Town of Esopus. However, the Esopus Town Board was unable to commit to assist in requesting site access for biodiversity surveys. MCA was, therefore, not able to survey sufficient land area to warrant the inclusion of Esopus in this report. Due to Esopus’ rich biological resources, future cooperation with Esopus would enhance the Northern Wallkill Biodiversity Plan and should remain an option. The NWBP project commenced in 2002 when MCA began to conduct biodiversity field surveys. In early 2003, as field studies continued, MCA attended meetings and conducted workshops with town staff and citizens to communicate the purpose of the project and engender support. In early 2004, MCA met with Lloyd and New Paltz representatives to assess progress and chose to put biodiversity surveys on hold until 2005 due to staff capacity issues. In 2005, field surveys resumed and were completed. In 2006, MCA again met with Lloyd and New Paltz representatives to discuss progress and form a timetable for report publication. Northern Wallkill Region Overview The portion of the Northern Wallkill region included in this biodiversity plan includes the Town of Lloyd, the Town of New Paltz, and the Village of New Paltz in Ulster County. It lies between the Shawangunk Mountains to the west and the Hudson River to the east. The Wallkill River is the largest of several water bodies that run through these two towns; from east to west are the Kleine Kill, Wallkill River, Swarte Kill (the dividing line between New Paltz and Lloyd), Black Creek, and Twaalfskill Creek. These water bodies are part of a hydrologic system that provides habitat in the form of streams, rivers, ponds (including beaver ponds), lakes, vernal pools and freshwater 1 wetlands (both marsh and swamp). The region’s diverse topography further contributes to the array of habitat types which also include mixed secondary forest (both young and mature), shrubland, rocky outcrops, rocky ridgelines, and surrogate grasslands in the form of agricultural fields. This region, once containing a pastoral mix of forest, agriculture, hamlets, and villages, is experiencing rapid change. A wave of sprawl is pulsing through the region, altering historic landscapes and putting its natural resources at risk. But vibrant habitats and diverse assemblages of wildlife are still found in the region. There is still time to minimize and contain the effects of sprawl, but this can only be achieved by finding alternative development patterns that can strike a better balance between economic growth and environmental integrity. This balance is necessary, not only to maintain biodiversity, but to retain the diverse and scenic landscapes that are at the very core of the “sense of place” characterizing each town. 2 Concepts and Issues Biodiversity in the Northern Wallkill Region The rich tapestry of genes, species, ecosystems, and their interactions are collectively referred to as “biological diversity,” often shortened to “biodiversity.” Northern Wallkill towns are home to significant habitats and rich assemblages of wildlife due to a unique convergence of factors: 1. The diverse geological variation within these towns serves as a foundation for a wide variety of habitats. Features such as limestone outcroppings, glacial till, and granite escarpments all give rise to distinctive habitat types, which in turn support many unique and rare species. 2. The geographic position of the Northern Wallkill region is at an ecological crossroads, which contributes to the diversity of plants and animals found here. At the close of the Wisconsin glaciation (ca. 15,000 years ago) plants and animals moved into and repopulated southern New York from a variety of routes, including the Wallkill Valley, the Atlantic Coastal Plain, and from the Midwest via the Mohawk Valley. These routes converged in southeastern New York’s lower Hudson Valley. 3. The historic development pattern of small rural villages with intervening open space has fostered both the scenic and biodiversity values of the area. This type of development – intensive but