Regional Power And Water Issues Focus Of Friday Event

Friday night’s “Driving Without a License, Indian Point at the Crossroads" event has been expanded to include a water themed silent auction for the benefit of The Rockland Water Coalition. The program hosted by Alec Baldwin at Rockland Community College begins at 5:30 p.m. with cocktails; followed by a panel discussion, benefit dinner and silent auction.

Rockland Water Coalition members donated most of the auction items, which include:

• A fly-over Rockland with pilot Lee Ross
• An outing on the Riverkeeper boat with Captain John Lipscomb
• A Sunset Cruise with cocktails
• A kayak or canoe paddle from Paradise Canoe and Kayak
• An Art & Science water workshop “Hidden Secrets of Water” with Strawtown Studio artists Laurie Seeman and Joanna Dickey
• A river beach seining class with fish identification with river ecologist Margie Turrin
• A Hudson River painting by artist Frances Wells
• And gift certificates for massage, meditation and from local restaurants.

The silent auction will raise funds for the Rockland Water Coalition to help defray its costs of hiring experts to testify at this week’s Public Service Commission Public Hearings on United Water’s proposed Hudson River Water Treatment Plant. Auction items can be bid on by e-mail and will be posted Thursday on the Rockland Water Coalition website.

The coalition is also the beneficiary of a fundraiser that ended Monday and involved Rockland restaurants which donated a portion of their proceeds. The coalition is raising money to cover the costs for testimony at future hearings and educational outreach on desalination and smart water use.

The Rockland Water Coalition, whose more than 30 members include Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Clearwater, and Sierra Club, formed in 2007 in opposition to United Water’s proposal for a desalination plant to provide Rockland’s drinking water.