Hot Air Balloon
By Michelle Vanstrom
Before I die, I want to ride in a crayon-striped, hot air balloon and drift like a milkweed
seed caught in a puff of air. I want to see Niagara’s water fall with an omniscient eye, want
to know the rainbow, the shimmer of water drops, the mist hovering and rising on
temporal currents, spirals of air. I want to float, trace the river’s migration, and glide slowly
towards Lake Ontario.
I promised I wouldn’t let life evolve into a past-life timeline framed by regret, but I’ve since
learned words could remain unsaid, some good deeds won’t be completed and various
personal goals won’t be met.
The dying I’ve witnessed wished different decisions had been made so relationships
weren’t altered or ended.
To live on one’s own terms, to not accommodate people from the heart of a life, caused its
own isolation when I pursued a creative writing course that expanded into an
environmental advocacy to protect the rare botanicals of the Niagara River gorge and rim,
goals that conflicted with home, friends, neighbors, and local politics.
September, 2005
I enrolled in an evening, community college writing course. I walked into the classroom
late, interrupting a lecture. I slid into the chair closest to the door and met a dark gaze—
professor E.R. Baxter, poet, writer, as yet unpublished author, and intense, environmental
activist. Years would pass before I experienced the ramifications from enrolling in his class.
I set a pen and a lined notebook on the desk. He resumed talking, turned his gaze back to
me and asked for the first week’s essay. I raised my hand.
“I called the English department, after I registered. They said there wasn’t any homework.”
“Well, they lied.” He handed me the syllabus. At the top of his no tolerance list: missing
class, tardiness, and turning work in late. Heat filled my neck, my face. I had enrolled two
days before and spent the first fifteen minutes of his second three-hour, evening class lost
on campus.
“May I turn it in next week?”
“You may. Leave it in my mailbox.”
I took both of his creative nonfiction writing classes during his retirement year at Niagara
County Community College. Our friendship grew to include research for his book, Niagara
Digressions, reading drafts of his other novels, typing letters to the editors and state
officials, and a seven year co-activism partnership a stance with a mission to ecologically
restore the Niagara Gorge Rim, which includes a political controversy—removal of a six-
mile section of a redundant road, the Robert Moses Gorge Parkway, between Niagara Falls
and Lewiston, NY.
When I met him, Baxter’s had lobbied for ten years with some success. New York State
closed of two of the four lanes. They called it a compromise. It satisfied nobody, protected
little of the Niagara’s cliff community, a rare botanical landscape in the Niagara Gorge and
along the Rim. It infuriated the the Mayor of Lewiston and Old Fort Niagara, a New York
State Park. Those men, enlisting support the GOP Senator George Maziarz, created the
Parkway Preservation Committee, a group of politically connected ‘leaders’ with a mission
to subvert any discussion or information about total removal or ecological restoration.
Baxter eventually was informed that the default decision about the road would be made by
the newly formed commission, The Niagara River Greenway, a state organization created
when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) told the New York Power Project,
(NYPA) they hadn’t provided enough reclamation compensation for the environmental
damage caused when Robert Moses constructed the hydroelectric dam in the Niagara River
gorge, fifty years earlier. NYPA wanted a new 50-year license, a process started ten years
earlier.
The Greenway Commissioners are appointed by New York State’s governor, the state
senators and the state Assembly and is chaired by lawyer Robert Kresse. The
commissioners are an impotent commission. Their only power? Determine if all projects
submitted to the four Standing Committees for funding were “consistent” with the Niagara
River Greenway Plan.
For Niagara County, the decision makers for the multimillion reclamation dollars that were
to flood the River region for the next 50 years are the seven men of the Host Community
Standing Committee: the City of Niagara Falls, The Towns of Lewiston and Niagara, The
County of Niagara, and three school districts: Niagara Falls, Lewiston Porter, and the Town
of Niagara. NYPA sits on that committee and the three other Standing Committees—The
Ecological Standing Committee, The New York State Parks Standing Committee, and the
Erie County Standing Committee. The majority of these men sit on the Parkway
Preservation Committee.
During my student year, Baxter started an online petition that grew into thousands of
individual supporters and over 80 organization signatures for a combined count of over 1
million petitioners. He founded two nonprofit organizations with websites, The Niagara
Heritage Partnership, the petion caretaker, and The Niagara Frontier Wildlife Habitat
Council. I joined both, but disassociated with them after repeated vicious comments with
Jim Hufnagel.
I formed my own nonprofit, a native plant advocacy chapter of a national nonprofit, Wild
Ones Native Plants, Natural Landscapers, based in Madison, Wisconsin. I was already a
Wild Ones member as a “partner-at-large.”
The national Wild Ones website published, in 2004, a series of articles on the benefits of
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greenways by Sally Elmiger. Elmiger “is trained in both community planning and landscape
architecture, and has focused her 12-year planning practice on sustainable development
and natural area preservation. Her wide-ranging experience includes master planning,
zoning, corridor design, recreation and park planning, environmental/watershed planning,
and wetlands consulting.” “[Her] article, Connecting to the Future...Corridors for a Healthier
Environment, appeared in the March/April, 2004 edition of the Wild Ones Journal. This
[was] the first article in a series that discusses how corridors that connect natural areas can
help sustain our environment, native plants, and local wildlife – and how Wild Ones can
start creating them in their own communities.” Elmiger’s work coupled with National’s
advocacy and mission statement were the genesis for a project that Baxter and I developed
a chapter project titled, Regional Economic Growth Through Ecological Restoration of the
Niagara Gorge Rim.
September 2009
I paid Environmental Design and Research (EDR, Syracuse, NY) two thousand dollars to
develop the proposal to restore the space currently occupied by the Robert Moses
Parkway, the Niagara Gorge Rim. The project went to the Niagara River Greenway
Commission for approval on 15 September.
October, 2009
Working with the Niagara Heritage Partnership, we held a mandated community forum for
public review and comment at the Niagara Falls Library. Senator Maziarz hovered in the
back, rattling the presenter, EDR’s consultant, Bob Gallucci.
December 18, 2009
Former Lewiston Mayor and Former Greenway Commissioner Richard Soluri (R) and
Senator Maziarz (R) in an unprecedented act, attended the Wild Ones Niagara funding
presentation to the Greenway Ecological Standing Committee at the New York Power Vista.
The senator claimed, “we don’t need another study.” Both then spoke at length in
opposition to the study as if it were a proposal for parkway removal. In my opinion and
stated in a letter, “they corrupted what should have been a deliberative decision-making
process for a project that had the mandated Niagara Greenway Commission statement of
consistency, the required municipal sponsorship (City of Niagara Falls), and which had
provided support letters from the City of Niagara Falls, The Town of Lewiston, and the
Office of New York State Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.”
Also in attendance: Bob Gallucci, Bob Baxter, Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster (D), Niagara
Falls author and Historian Paul Gromosiak, the attorney’s for the New York Power Project,
several NYPA representatives, including Rob Daly the relicensing rep for NYPA, and all
members of the Ecological Standing Committee. They tabled the decision to fund until the
next GESC meeting.
January 19, 2010
At the Greenway Standing Committee (GESC) meeting, we overheard Fish and Wildlife
flatly state he would not support funding for the project, even though we provided all the
requested additional information reiterating that the project was an ecological study. We
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asked in a letter if the GESC member had a separate agenda. The decision was tabled for the
second time.
The GESC guidelines stated, at that time, that if “consensus could not be met after three
meetings, a vote would be taken and the majority decision vote would carry.”
February 2010
The Greenway Ecological Standing Committee members attendance: the NYS Department
of Environmental Conservation, US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Tuscarora Nation, The
Tonawanda Seneca Nation, the Seneca Nation of Indians, the Niagara Relicensing
Environmental Coalition (NREC) and the New York Power Authority. The NREC, which
holds one vote on the GESC, is comprised of eleven smaller environmental groups including
Larry Behan, The Sierra Club, Art Klien, the Adirondack Mountain Club, Margaret Wooster,
and others from the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeepers, Bill Hudson, The Buffalo Audubon
Society, and Bob’s organization, The Niagara Frontier Wildlife Habitat Council, a seat I still
held for Bob. The chairperson for the Standing Committee, at that time, was Margaret
Wooster.
The GESC committee members requested, on 11 February 2010, “a clear statement that the
focus of the Wild Ones Niagara study [was] on the historical, current, and potential
ecological values of the gorge and gore rim and not the removal of the Robert Moses
Parkway and consistent with [their] mandate.”
The project, a study viewpoint that had never been done about the Niagara Gorge and Rim
had always been framed by the economic values of restoring native species in the space
currently occupied by the Robert Moses Parkway. The “focus [was] the economic benefits,
of the restoration of native plants. On 18 February 2010 we submitted a statement on
letterhead that stated it was not a proposal to remove the parkway. We also stated, “we
fully intend to follow the guidelines provided in the August, 2008 New York Power
Authority’s (NYPA) “Land Management Plan” as submitted to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) as it pertains to Project Number 2216-066:
“to protect and enhance environmental, historic, aesthetic resources and
[to] recognize and address specific resource values, public access requirements, and
the interests of adjoining landowners.”
“We also anticipate[d] following, once it [was] available, the “Historic Properties
Management Plan” required by FERC of the New York Power Project.
“Based on the above clarifications, we respectfully maintain[ed] that Wild Ones Niagara’s
proposal [was] consistent with your mandate and cannot be modified to “exclude any tasks
or portions of tasks” since to do so would make the study incomplete and inconsistent with
the above requirements. …We strongly believe[d] in the legitimacy of our study, in its
compliance with all established guidelines, requirements, and mandates. We also believe[d]
that the denial of funding, all or in part, should not and [could] not be merely arbitrary.
There [were] simply no provisions for this in the funding process. Therefore, if the GESC
fail[ed] to fund, we fully expect[ed] that decision to be accompanied, at that time, with
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detailed written rationales from those member who voted against the funding.”
March 2010
We were awarded $140,000.00 in funding from the Greenway Ecological Standing
Committee on 5 March. The award notice stated, “Enclosed is a check made payable to Wild
Ones in the amount of $92,000.00, which represents 80% of the total award. The
remainder will be released by The Committee after completion of a satisfactory progress
report.” They did not fund task 4 or 5 or provide any explanation.
May 2010
EDR and the Village and Town of Lewiston tried to state the Robert Moses Parkway wasn’t
in the boundary area. A position they retracted when I hired a contracts attorney, Bob
Michalak , Michalak and Dobson.
June, 2010
I received a letter from the Niagara River Greenway executive director, Rob Beleu, stating
EDR claimed that the site of an upcoming Greenway Project, a proposed Dog Park at the
Lewiston Plateau Wildlife Refuge created by Baxter and others, was not in the boundary
area of the Wild Ones Niagara project. On 16 June, I wrote to EDR’s president, JoAnne
Gagliano, at their Syracuse, New York office, and attached documentation created by them
that listed in the project narrative a clearly delineated the boundary area. It included the
Robert Moses Parkway and the Lewiston Plateau with narrative and a map in Attachment A
under General Study Area.
The Niagara River Greenway Plan states on page 35, under “Criteria for Project Submission
Chapter 4, Action Plan: (9) Consideration of other planning efforts. There has been a great
deal of effort and thought put into various plans for each of the municipalities along the
Niagara River Greenway corridor, as well as many planning efforts that cross municipal
boundaries…Topic specific studies, including those dealing with storm water management,
remedial action plans, brownfield studies, heritage tourism, and other plans should also be
taken into consideration….” The Town of Lewiston ignored the Greenway Plan Guidelines,
and the in progress Wild Ones Niagara study. The incomplete Dog Park proposal was
pushed through and built.
EDR’s contract included this assumptions statement: “(6) Failure to meet agreed upon
project milestones will result in non-payment for each applicable line item. Continued
failure to meet agreed upon project milestones will result in contract
cancellation.”
December 2010.
The project, due to be complete by March 2011, stalled for over four months once Bob
Gallucci left EDR’s employment. Jane Rice, an attorney, replaced him. She demanded
payment, but would not provide a project narrative, or show what actual work was
completed supporting the amount they billed or any other requested documentation
reflecting work in progress, including any field notes I requested. They refused to work
without payment. I refused to pay without the support documentation included.
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January 2011
January, 2011
EDR sent an FTP file. It included Microsoft Word document files with important text
deleted from the narrative, but shown in the margins in blue, and other errors indicating
that the project, called the Gorge Trail in the files, wasn’t what they were hired to perform.
Based on the language used it clearly wasn’t our project, but a retrofit of something else.
Despite being told not to use a specific traffic consultant, they used them anyway. They left
out obvious resources, given to them. They interviewed people that had no ecological or
environmental expertise.
Per Michalak, a seventeen-page letter was sent outlining the project and the consultant’s
failures with backup documenation that I had collected for over five years. It included at
ten step process for an ecological restoration by an expert, Neil Dibold, a Wild Ones
national director. We intended to fire EDR.
May, 2011
On 20 May 2011, the national board met to discuss the ongoing dispute with EDR. The
national board special meeting minutes state, “The expense of a NY attorney to defend Wild
Ones would greatly exceed $10,000. A motion was made and seconded that EDR be paid for
tasks one and two. The check was sent.
The consultant wasn’t performing. The work schedule they created stated they would
compete the project in one year, by March 2011. A deadline to submit the project to the
New York State Department of Transportation for inclusion in their scoping of the
alternative uses for the Robert Moses Parkway loomed. Parkway preservation supporters
were submitting letters to the newspapers, the DOT, and lobbying heavily in Albany to keep
the road. EDR admitted in a phone conversation that the Town of Lewiston supervisor,
Steve Reiter, despite providing me with a letter of support for the project, called EDR close
to 100 times in an effort to stop the project. EDR was paid close to half of the received
funds.
2012
Some have claimed Baxter used me. If he did, it was mutual. My writing improved by
reading his draft manuscripts and his essays, by typing his letters and literary submissions,
and when I probed his thought process on writing and ecological restorations. We spoke
often on the phone. We discussed books, essays, poems, other writers, family, and we
strategized for the Niagara Gorge Rim’s restoration with non motorized trails, active
transportation, hiking and bicycling.
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I was a nature advocate before I met him. My childhood dreams were to plant and protect
the land for the birds, for wildlife. I was the conservation chair for the Youngstown Garden
Club for years.
Before I took his class, I was already a five-year member of a national organization, Wild
Ones Native Plants, Natural Landscapers. I built my nonprofit, the Niagara Falls and River
Region Chapter of Wild Ones (Wild Ones Niagara) with his support, his help, and his
friendship. Becoming the founder and president a New York State chapter, and then
becoming a national lifetime member and a national director for Wild Ones simply built on
my backstory, the foundation and infrastructure I already possessed.
My attempts to find meaning, a life purpose and to live true to my inner, political, activist
self turned my life into a personal hurricane. Gales burst. Anger and lies electrocuted my
career, my character, my integrity, and ended a close friendship. I can’t comprehend how
Christ did it, how he walked, lived, among those who plotted and strived to eliminate his
existence. Surely, he wailed against the elements. I did.
Maybe that’s the epiphany. We’re all nailed for acting on one belief or another. The renewal,
a growth in spirit, starts inward curled like a fetus, then it spirals out in a natural Fibonacci
sequence, a golden section, a curve.
Maybe when viewed from above life is water, a flowing, undulating passage, a journey
which includes whirlpools in purgatory—isolation—an experience necessary before
there’s any meaningful comprehension. Maybe every obstacle’s a hot air soar, a rise
coupled with falling, a fiery gas juxtaposed against utter stillness, while peace carries a
basket of humans towards one finite transformation.
This is what I’d say if God allowed fifteen minutes to leave a moment, a story, a scene
framed by a canvas balloon, with words that heat and climb, cool and descend without
providing any sensation of movement.
I want to see the sky through the lens of a thousand summer warblers as they skim the
cascade rushing past the famous city with its crumbling infrastructure. Except for the
expulsive propane, the upward lift is a tranquil belief it will be filled with a silence known
only from dreams. A stilled life captured in the lens of a bird.
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