Journal News 70th RCCA anniversary

RAMAPO - Seven sprightly girls in billowing red dresses danced in milky light before a backdrop of a mountain lake, calling to mind fairies exercising rites of spring beyond man's infringement.

The local ballet dancers from Steeltoes Dance Company per Community College's cultural arts theater to help celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Rockland County Consternation Association.

The event brought out 150 Supporters, including state Sen. Thomas Morahan, R-New City. Morahan presented longtime RCCA member Zipporah "Zippy" Fleisher of New City with a special commendation from the state Legislature for her decades of environmental advocacy.

Fleisher, 83, strained to reach the podium microphone. But as many politicians, industrialists and developers have discovered throughout her nearly half century of activism, she is a powerhouse for protecting the Rockland environment.

Images of the environment were a centerpiece on stage yesterday while the group honored its members' accomplishments, from saving High Tor Mountain from quarrying to assisting in the establishment of a county park commission.

"I didn't know much about the group before this," said Pierre Batiste of Spring Valley, "but I guess I'm glad (the RCCA) has been around for so long, or how much different would this place look?"

Since its founding in 1930 as a community beautification project, the RCCA has drawn hundreds of outspoken volunteers to the front lines of local environmental defense, said Betty Hedges of Ladentown, the group's president.

"Once a setting for pastoral farmland, Rockland was developed and developed -- and developed. ... We're strung with high tension lines," said Diane Gruskin, an RCCA board member, who later called Rockland . "Kilowatt County."

Keynote speakers like Robert H. Boyle, president of the Hudson River Fishermen's Association, pleaded for continued lobbying to protect the river and its environs from industry.

"Humanity has done such a number on our rivers and estuaries," said Boyle, who is the author of "The Hudson River, a Natural and Unnatural History."

The Feb. 15 leak of radioactive leak at the Indian Point II nuclear power plant in Buchanan has also revived concern for environmental safety group members said.

Fleisher said she intended to receive her honors wearing an Indian Point plant costume, but "the dome got to be a problem."

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"Once a setting far pastoral farmland, Rockland was developed and developed -- and developed.... We're strung with high tension lines."

Diane Gruskin,
RCCA board member

Betty Hedges, president of Rockland Conservation, inspects model of a nuclear plant at the association's 70th year celebration.

Instead, the group presented Fleisher with a 3-foot cardboard scale model of the plant, with a red "X" covering its facade. "The cotton cloud represents the leak," she said with a wry smile.

The celebrants suggested yesterday that 70 years is just the beginning for the RCCA, and maybe even for Fleisher. "The Indian Point thing has gotten very busy again, I'm sorry to say. I was hoping to retire," she said.

70th Years of Conservation Celebrated

RCCA has drawn hundreds of out spoken volunteers to protect the environment