LEWISTON — Plans to allow a group of radio airplane enthusiasts to use a portion of Lewiston’s upper plateau in Artpark are being met with opposition from local birdwatchers who say the move would damage a wildlife refuge years in the making.
During a recent meeting, members of the village’s board of trustees granted temporary use of part of the plateau property to the Niagara Sunday Fliers, a local club that wants to use the site to fly model airplanes while construction continues at their homebase, Reservoir Park in the Town of Niagara.
The move isn’t sitting well with individuals who years ago worked with the Niagara County Environmental Committee to secure funds to create a nesting area for birds on the upper plateau. They fear the noise and motion caused by airborne model airplanes would frighten birds away. They are also concerned about the possible physical destruction of nesting areas by flyers who might have to walk through grassy areas to retrieve downed planes.
“We are very concerned,” said Dr. David Cooper, president and founder of the Niagara Frontier Entomological Society and past president of the Buffalo Ornithological Society, who participated in the refuge’s development. “It will have a definite negative impact on the birds that are nesting there.”
Mayor Terry Collesano doesn’t agree. He said the Sunday Fliers have been granted permission to use only a 20-acre portion of the upper plateau designated as recreational area, not the portion that contains the bird refuge itself. He described the agreement as only temporary, saying the Fliers asked for permission to use the site up until a series of state-funded improvements are completed at Reservoir Park.
“They are not going to be there forever and they are not going to be flying over the protected area anyway,” Collesano said.
Cooper maintains that there’s no guarantee the model airplanes won’t find their way to the protected area of the property. He said the noise and commotion caused by the planes flying nearby will be enough to scare birds away from the nesting area.
“We like the hobby. We think it’s fine, but not there. It will have this terrible result,” Cooper said.
The development of the bird nesting area has taken years and was supported primarily with public money made available through the Niagara County Environmental Fund, Cooper said. He said the project has been successful in attracting four of five species of birds recognized as of “special concern” across North America due to loss of habitat. He said experts also have identified at the site two unusual species of butterflies that had never before been recorded in Niagara County. He believes adding flying model airplanes to the landscape would disrupt the progress that has been made.
“We developed it into a terrific grassland and the birds came,” Cooper said.
Bob Baxter, a representative of the Niagara Frontier Wildlife Habitat Council, agreed. He called the refuge a local “success story” that should be celebrated, not destroyed.
“Establishing that little wildlife refuge took years, with cooperation among environmental groups, county governmental agencies, and the Village of Lewiston and the expenditure of tens of thousands of Niagara County Environmental Funds,” he said. “What is happening now is a perfect storm of ignorance created by Mayor Collesano and the Niagara Sunday Fliers.”
This isn’t the first time the radio airplane enthusiasts and birdwatchers had a disagreement about use of the upper plateau. Years ago, former Lewiston Mayor Richard Soluri entertained the idea of allowing the Niagara Sunday Fliers to use the site. Cooper and other supporters of the sanctuary convinced Soluri to reconsider the idea.
Cooper met recently with Collesano to discuss the current situation. Collesano said during the meeting he suggested to Cooper that people attending free summer concerts pose more of a threat to the bird refuge than radio airplane flyers. Collesano said state officials have told him that several thousand people attending Artpark’s Tuesday in the Park concerts have been using the sanctuary area to move back and forth before and after the shows.
“If people are going to walk there, I fail to see what the harm is from a couple of electric planes that are flying over the recreation area, not this protected area,” Collesano said.
Cooper said supporters of the bird sanctuary have no problem with radio airplane flying as a hobby, but would prefer the Sunday Niagara Fliers stay off the plateau. He has reached out to Western New York Land Conservancy and other groups in hopes of drawing support for a local effort to prevent the group’s flight plan from moving forward.
“We have to do everything in our power to mitigate the adverse impact this will have,” Cooper said.
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