Middletown, NY (OCLT): The Orange County Land Trust’s Executive Director Jim Delaune applauds State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli’s recently released March 2010 study on the economic benefits of open space preservation.
In the study, DiNapoli states that “Rather than conflicting with other goals, open space preservation can provide significant economic benefits. Not only does open space indirectly support industries - such as forestry, forest based manufacturing, agriculture, outdoor industries and tourism - that generate billions of dollars in the economy, it directly produces critical ecosystem services.”
In his report, the NYS Comptroller explained further how open space can produce critical ecosystem services. In one example, he stated that open space can provide natural drainage which can translate into substantial cost savings for a municipality if a municipality can forgo building an engineered replacement. Public infrastructure costs and therefore, local taxes, can be reduced by utilizing the ecosystem services of open space.
Delaune said this report “confirms what we and our partners in the conservation community have been saying for years - that open space is another tool to strengthen and diversify a community.” He applauded open space protection initiatives that Hudson Valley communities like Warwick, Montgomery, Gardiner and New Paltz have put into action to preserve their agricultural and rural character, as well as Orange County’s Open Space Plan, which the Land Trust partners with the county to implement.
The full report of New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli can be found at: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/environmental/openspacepreserv10.pdf
