By Kathleen Yasas
Correspondent
SHERBURNE – Unlike many residents of Chenango County, Cindy Carter and Kit Enscoe were not born and raised here. Cindy grew up in communities in Massachusetts and New York, and Kit is originally from Lancaster, Pa., and southern New Jersey.
However, it was the Chenango Valley that the couple chose as home 18 years ago because of its rural beauty and because of what living in a small community in central New York could offer them as a family.
The American Dream, right?
Well, yes and no.
If New York Regional Interconnect (NYRI) has its way, the Enscoes will not be staying. You see, their home is between Sherburne and Earlville along the Susquehanna and Western railroad line, just one hundred feet from the tracks.
“Our home is an old post and beam farm house built around 1790, and was renovated to a Victorian style in the 1900s,” Cindy says. “We have 13 acres, a barn, a carriage house, and a chicken coop.” They also have children: Adrian, 17, a junior at Sherburne-Earlville High School, and Zoe, 11, a sixth-grader at S-E Middle School. Add to the mix three cats, one dog and a chinchilla, and what you have is one of the many families in upstate New York whose lives will be forever changed if NYRI’s proposed power line project goes through.
“Our old farm house and property are precious to us. We’ve worked hard on renovation projects inside our home and on our property. We feel living here has enriched our lives and it has been a wonderful place to raise our family. We love our community and don’t want to leave. But if the power line comes through, we will definitely leave as we don’t feel it would be safe to live that close to a high voltage line.”
Carter is an M.D., and works as a psychiatrist at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse. Kit is a software engineer and works from home for a Massachusetts-based company. They discovered the Chenango Valley because Cindy worked here in the 1980s as part of the National Health Service Corps program for psychiatrical under-served areas.
“We came here, loved it, and decided to stay,” Cindy said.
Should their home fall victim to construction of the power lines, it will not only be the Enscoes who are lost to the community. The farm itself is historic property, being some 200-plus years old.
“We found relics of the past as we stripped away the old wallpaper and horsehair plaster,” she says. “We’ve found hidden flasks, old newspapers, and even a pair of letters from secret lovers.”
Like the inhabitants before them, the Enscoes have left their mark on the property, and have lived a life urban dwellers can only dream about. They have a vegetable garden and laying hens. They’ve watched the seasons change for nearly twenty years, canoed and kayaked in the Chenango River, and have taken advantage of the valley’s famous snow fall cross country skiing and snow shoeing with their children. The property is a haven, a peaceful respite far from cities allegedly in need of electric power where birds chatter, ground animals burrow, and children call to each other as they learn the importance of living with the land instead of raping it. Hardly what thinking people would consider an “abandoned” area.
Like others along the line, Cindy and Kit have fears about the project.
“We’re afraid of the potential health and environmental hazards no one is paying attention to,” Carter’s husband says. “And we’re afraid this project will have a tremendously negative impact on our entire community, causing residents to lose their homes.” The flight of tax payers out of the area along the entire length of the line may well put local farms and other firms out of business because of the increase in electric rates, adding further economic depression to an already fragile economy.
When asked what they would say to NYRI if they had the chance, they were succinct:
“Do not proceed with this project. It is poorly planned, unfairly located, and, in contrast to your oft-made public statements, does nothing to address downstate infrastructure problems that are due to aging and outdated equipment. Your project will decrease our property values and cause people to want to move away. It will contribute to economic depression, increase poverty in our area, and destroy one of the few precious resources we have left: a pristine rural environment. This rural unspoiled beauty is rare in this day and age and is why many residents in our area have moved here. It is one of the reasons we have chosen to raise our children here. There is already a flight of young people from upstate New York and this project will drive droves of New York citizens to move out of our state.”
Their sentiments to politicians were equally to the point:
“Big corporations should not have the power to earmark either state or federal legislation in order to profit private industry while disregarding the overall public good. Please, do everything in your power to stop this project and other projects like it.”
There has been much talk about view sheds and the environment, economic devastation and disruption of wildlife. However, in the end, the cloaked faces behind the NYRI project are the perpetrators of a much more sinister plan: they are destroying the lives and the lifestyle of the people in upstate New York, a lifestyle not achieved by accident, but by design. An American dream, for many like the Enscoes, turned nightmare.
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This is the second in a series of articles about the citizens along the power line path. If you live or have a business along the path and would like to be interviewed, e-mail kyasas@aol.com.