In the heart of downtown Pine Bush, there sits a parking lot that has been used for a business relating to buses, and before that for other automotive vehicles for as much as 50 years.

Today, the business is owned by Jim and Cara Robertson, who bought it from her parents in 1996.

Since then, they have expanded the business, bought more buses, and hired more drivers. They have performed exactly the way American small business is supposed to, growing, hiring, employing, generating tax revenues, and putting paychecks in peoples' pockets.

But there is a major problem. Close to the site — in fact right next door — lies the DeWitt well, and a little farther on, the Kelly well. Those wells provide the water for 1,400 ratepayers in Pine Bush, as well the high school, Crispell Middle School, and E.J. Russell Elementary School.

The DeWitt well, in the words of Planning Board Chairman Phil Jamison, "is probably a hundred years old. It was the well for the Borden Creamery once upon a time, and it's 640 feet deep."

The Kelly well is much less deep but is situated only a little farther away.

What the Robertsons failed to do, as they expanded their business bit by bit, was to come to the town for planning permission. Recently, they did go to the Zoning Board for a variance, allowing them to park 210 vehicles, including buses and employee cars on the site. However, at the planning board, there are problems with that variance decision.

Indeed, there is another strand to the story. The Town of Crawford realized that to conform to state requirements, it had to own all the land within 100 feet of the DeWitt well. In fact, there are strict regulations governing all land within 200 feet of such a well.

Town Supervisor Charles Carnes and Councilman Dan Flanick of the town board approached Jim Robertson about acquiring a half circle of land to give the town control of the 100 foot area. In return for Robertson's cooperation, the board would do its best to make Robertson's move for a subdivision of his property proceed smoothly. Carnes and Flanick also promised to help Robertson get hooked up to the town water and sewer systems.

Robertson says that everything was going well until the day after Christmas, 2007, when the building he ran the business from on the site caught fire and burned to the ground. The fire was caused by an electrical fault and the building was gutted.

The loss of the building meant that Robertson needed to go through the planning process to replace it. However, that meant that the planning board became aware of the unlicensed growth that had taken place in the Robertsons' business. And that became an issue.

There are a number of points of contention. Jim Robertson believes that there was a zoning change in 2004 that disallowed buses, and therefore his entire business, within the Town of Crawford. Supervisor Charles Carnes disputes that interpretation of the law. "The town board has never changed zoning regarding buses. Buses were never in zoning and we never changed it, to the best of my knowledge."

Then in March, an old underground fuel tank was found on the site and it had to be removed. That took a couple of months to complete and left the planning board feeling nervous about the site and what other unknown problems it might present.

"What I feel the Robertsons don't appreciate is that regulations have changed for all of us," says Phil Jamison. "What was ignored twenty years ago is subject to very close inspection today. Look at Liberty over in Sullivan County, where they have MTBE — a carcinogenic gasoline additive — pollution in their water. Water runs out of the taps, but you can't drink it."

For the members of the planning board, that's the ultimate nightmare. As Jamison puts it, "The potential for an impact is looming over our heads. The task for the planning board is to protect those 1,400 rate payers who get their water from those wells. Plus the schools, of course, who also draw water from the wells."

Which leaves the Robertsons with a problem. Their current application for a new site plan asks to virtually triple the size of their operation. Even though that increase has already taken place, the permit process has yet to catch up. Should they undertake all the appropriate precautions regarding the town wells, such as putting all fuelling operations on special concrete pads with beveled edges to prevent spills leaching into the ground and possibly contaminating the water below, they could probably get over that hurdle.

But another hurdle lies just beyond, because the unlicensed increase in their fleet of vehicles has undoubtedly increased the flow of traffic in the town, especially during the rush hours.

"The big question now is whether or not the DOT [Department of Transportation] takes a look at this," says Phil Jamison. "There has been a substantial change on the site. The change happened a few years ago, so I'll have to talk to the town attorney about that. We'll know about this by the next planning board meeting, or even before that."

Meanwhile, Cara Robertson points out another very important aspect of this situation.

"You need to remember that we are one of the biggest employers in the Town of Crawford," she says. "People need jobs and we provide them. Plus, our employees use all the local vendors, too."

She also notes that the Department of Environmental Conservation performed a compliance inspection of the site in May this year to check their storm water runoff. "They found that under the State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, our facility was found to be operating in a satisfactory manner."

The threat of pollution, the need for jobs, the Route 302 traffic problem, the potential loss of business for the vendors of Main Street — there's no easy answer here, but somehow, between the planning board, the Robertsons, the town board, and the DOT, a solution will be found. Will it please everybody? Anybody? The next Town of Crawford Planning Board Meeting may provide the first answers.

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