Examiner: Opposition to a plan by the United States Coast Guard to have commercial barges anchor off the shores of the Hudson River continued to expand throughout Westchester last week.

Last Monday at Yonkers City Hall, a new organization of municipal officials called the Hudson River Waterfront Alliance was announced. The alliance includes the towns of Cortlandt and Ossining, the villages of Ossining, Buchanan and Briarcliff Manor and the City of Peekskill. An online petition on www.change.org was also launched by the alliance.

“The Town of Cortlandt has invested millions of dollars to acquire land on the river and to construct lovely parks and docks for our rowing association and for kayaks,” Cortlandt Supervisor Linda Puglisi and the Town Board said in a recent statement. “We do not want our vistas destroyed or our investments affected by the ill-conceived plan of the Coast Guard.”

Two of the 10 sites being considered by the Coast Guard are located within the borders of the Town of Cortlandt: approximately 127 acres in the Montrose region that would accommodate as many as three vessels, and approximately 98 acres between Tomkins Cove in Rockland County and Verplanck that would also handle up to three vessels. The Coast Guard is proposing to use more than 2,000 acres of the Hudson for barges.

The Cortlandt Town Board unanimously passed a resolution last month opposing the project, stressing the town already is burdened with such environmental threats as the Indian Point nuclear power plants, the Spectra natural gas pipeline and the former burned garbage ash pit.  Read more.