The Town of Montgomery is updating its Natural Resources Inventory  which includes all three villages- Walden, Maybrook and Montgomery- originally compiled and written in 2008 by Karen Schneller-McDonald and in cooperation with the adjoining Town of Wallkill. One major improvement needed was to digitized the maps in order to make them more useful in reviewing projects. This project was initiated with the considerable help of Gretchen Stevens from Hudsonia and Laura Heady from NYSDEC's Hudson River Estuary Program and Cornell University as well as the Orange County Planning Department and Orange County Water Authority. As a result, County staff have created the below series of maps that will be included in the updated NRI, which will be comprised of the maps and corresponding narrative written by CAC volunteers with assistance from Laura Heady that describe local natural resources in detail. The full updated NRI document will be available by early 2019.

As described in the publication Creating a Natural Resources Inventory: A Guide for Communities in the Hudson River Estuary Watershed (Haeckel, I. and L. Heady, 2014): A natural resources inventory (NRI) compiles and describes important, naturally occurring resources within a given locality (e.g., municipality, watershed, or region). Cultural resources, such as historic, scenic and recreational resources, are often included in an NRI as well. The inventory has two basic purposes: 1) to provide the building blocks for comprehensive land-use and conservation planning, and 2) to allow natural resource information to be included in local planning and zoning. The scope of the NRI is determined by the community. At its simplest form, an NRI is the compilation and description of existing natural resources data. At its most complex, it includes detailed analysis of resources or new data collected specifically for the inventory.

Once finalized, the TOM CAC hopes to have the updated NRI used as a more efficient tool that will support and enhance large and small-scale planning and conservation decisions.

To learn more or get involved, please contact the Town of Montgomery Conservation Advisory Council

at TOMCAC5@gmail.com