Our Natural Beauty
Rockland County is a beautiful place. From the shore of the Hudson River in the east to the peaks of the Ramapo Mountains in the west, this county has a little bit of everything. Last week I had the pleasure of presenting the 25th annual Rockland County Outstanding Environmental Volunteer Award.
The County Executive’s Outstanding Environmental Volunteer Award recognizes exceptional volunteers who care for our parks, champion our watershed programs, encourage recycling and work every day to enhance the natural beauty of our county‘s open spaces.
Thankfully Rockland has an incredibly powerful advocate working hard to make sure our parks and natural environment remain preserved and pristine, and that advocate is Harriet Cornell. Cornell has been a hero and champion for the environment for years and, without question, is extremely deserving of this award.
While Cornell’s main involvement and advocacy has been through the County Legislature where she serves as Chair of the Environmental Committee, she has also volunteered as a member of the Hudson Valley Greenway Conservancy, is a board member of the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, and worked with my office to re-establish Rockland’s Open Space Preservation and Acquisition program which allowed for 31 individual properties amounting to 1,204 acres of land to be acquired and preserved.
Legislator Cornell also worked with my office to create and then chair the Rockland County Task Force on Water Resources Management. The Task Force studied local data, performed outreach to regional stakeholders and ultimately created a Comprehensive Water Conservation and Implementation Plan. In Legislator Cornell worked extensively to stop a proposed desalination plant from being built along the Hudson River.
Her work also enabled the involvement of dozens of volunteer organizations and hundreds of local volunteers, most recently hosting a virtual meeting about PFOA and PFOS.
It is only through the efforts of people like Harriet that Rockland County remains the beautiful place that we all cherish.
Harriet consistently goes above and beyond her duties as the Chair of the Environmental and so, on behalf of the people of Rockland, and the future generations of Rocklanders to come, I thank you for your dedication and hard work preserving and protecting this County.
For all her efforts, we named Harriet Cornell the 2022 Rockland County Outstanding Environmental Volunteer. A Pink Dogwood tree was planted in Kennedy Dells County Park in New City in her honor. I encourage you all to take the time to visit the park and experience our natural beauty for yourselves.
