The saga of Winston Farm, the 840-acre property best known for hosting Woodstock ’94, entered a new phase this week as the Town Board heard dueling studies on whether a proposed $274 million to $539 million mixed-use development would imperil local water supplies.
The proposal, originally submitted in 2021, calls for rezoning the site as a planned development district, enabling a mix of residential, commercial and light-industrial uses. The owners — Saugerties businessmen John Mullen, Anthony Montano and Randy Richers, who bought the property in 2020 for $4 million — are seeking to rezone it as a planned development district. Their plan, first submitted in 2021, calls for a sprawling combination of single-family homes, townhouses, apartments, a hotel, campground, conference center, performing arts venue, and research labs.
But as the project advances through the town’s approval process, critics have raised concerns that extracting enough groundwater to sustain the development could deplete neighboring wells and stress the aquifer that feeds the community. The latest round of debate focused squarely on water rights and the state’s “Reasonable Use Doctrine,” which limits how much groundwater can be dedicated to a single landowner.
At Wednesday’s Town Board meeting, hydrogeologist Russell Urban-Mead of LaBella Associates, representing the owners, presented findings from 35 days of testing on the site. He said the aquifer beneath Winston Farm could supply the estimated minimum demand of 270 gallons per minute without harming nearby water sources.
“Originally, I had concerns,” Urban-Mead told the board, but after testing he said he “saw a lot that I liked.”
The study concluded that the aquifer is replenished through rainfall and runoff from surrounding hills and that neighboring wells and waterways, including Beaverkill Creek, would not be affected.
Paul Rubin, a Tivoli-based hydrogeologist, disputed that assessment. Submitting his own report, he argued that the development would represent a 56 percent increase in the Village of Saugerties’ daily water use and could jeopardize both town and village supplies during droughts.
“There is X-amount of water on the site and there is a pretty high degree of certainty that they won’t have enough water in drought conditions,” Rubin said in an interview. “It would be prudent for the town to use aquifer protections laws instead of dedicating [water rights] forever to one land owner.”
In his report, Rubin stressed that groundwater “does not belong to the owners of [a property], but is a natural resource entrusted to the state by and for its citizens.” He also warned that during major droughts, the aquifer beneath Winston Farm could be needed to supplement the Blue Mountain Reservoir, the town’s main water source.
The Town of Saugerties’ 2010 Open Space Plan and its earlier 2005 Ground Water Protection Plan already lay out regulatory tools to safeguard aquifers, including land use restrictions and conservation easements in sensitive areas.
Board member Zach Horton said the town would take its time in reviewing the application.
“We don’t want this rushed,” Horton told The Overlook, adding that the consequences of the board’s decision “could be irredeemable.”
Jim Rich is a reporter for The Overlook. You can reach him at jim@theoverlooknews.com.
