Black Rock Forest:

MONTHS BEFORE the media began their daily coverage of the so-called "energy crisis," Harvard was undergoing one of its own.

No, the lights in Holworthy had not begun to dim, and the heat still coursed through the steam tunnels. Harvard's personal energy crisis came instead from a tract of forest located near Cornwall, N.Y.

The land--3600-acre Black Rock Forest--was bequeathed to the University by Ernest G. Stillman '08, upon his death in 1949, to provide a field center for forestry research. Now, 24 years later, Black Rock has become a variety of things to a variety of people.

Some futurists see the forest as a potential escape for coming generations from the harried life of New York City, only 50 miles away. Others feel it could provide important data on the effects of pollution on natural areas.

But for Consolidated Edison, the New York power utility, at least 240 acres of the forest is seen as another possible stumbling block to the company's construction of the controversial Storm King pumped storage power project, which has been tied up in legal action for over ten years. And for Harvard, Black Rock is potentially another point of contention in the already beleaguered area of responsibility in University holdings.

The Black Rock controversy, which has been building momentum since last year, has focused upon two areas: first, Harvard's responsibility to the environment; and second, its responsibility to its benefactors.

The University remained largely in the background of the controversy as the dispute progressed through its first nine years of litigation. "The general attitude has been 'keep out of it,'" Martin H. Zimmerman, director of the Harvard forests, said last year, "because no matter what they do they'll be blamed for it."

But Harvard lost to some extent its ability to "keep out of it" in February 1972 when, following an unfavorable court decision, environmental groups looked to the University for a commitment not to sell its land to Con Ed and to fight any attempts to take it by eminent domain.

"If Harvard were to announce that it did not intend to give up the land and would fight in court if necessary, it might find itself with enough allies to break the project," Rod Vandivert, an environmental consultant for Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference, said last year.

IN SOME SENSE, the move already had precedent: President emeritus Nathan M. Pusey '28, had already expressed a commitment to both the protection of the environment and the interests of Harvard's benefactors in 1964, two years after the official announcement of the Storm King project.

In a letter to The New York Times, Pusey stated that he and the trustees of Black Rock Forest "are deeply concerned with preserving intact this important scientific area. Unless Consolidated Edison can demonstrate that there is no alternative to this radical proposal for altering the scenic beauty and scientific value of a largely unspoiled section of the Hudson River Valley, we wish to ally ourselves with The Times and with the individuals and organizations who are protesting the plans of the Consolidated Edison Company. It is our hope that an acceptable alternative can be found."

As late as 1970, he reaffirmed this position in a two-sentence letter to a member of Scenic Hudson, which from the beginning has been the Storm King project's most active opposition. "There has been no change in Harvard's attitude about Black Rock Forest," Pusey wrote. "We have no desire to have land under our trusteeship used for the purposes proposed by Con Ed."

It was with the changing of the Administration in 1971 that the University's policy toward Black Rock changed--or, more accurately, ceased to exist. According to one Administration source, "President Bok didn't even know we had a Black Rock Forest until he read about it in The Crimson."

In crisis-handler fashion, Bok quietly appointed a committee in May 1972 to study the controversy. And its report, issued in January, lit a new match under the Black Rock debate, which had been smouldering quietly since the previous Spring.

The report acknowledged the possible environmental dangers that Storm King opponents had been citing for years--the possibility of massive fish kills, potential danger to the Catskill Aqueduct which supplies 40 per cent of New York City's water, damage to scenic beauty.

But its conclusions were not what might have been expected in light of those facts. "The issues for and against the Cornwall project have and are being adequately represented by the City of New York, conservation groups and Con Ed," the report stated. "It is not necessary for Harvard to either endorse or condemn the project."

It went on to recommend specifically that while the University should draw attention to unresolved problems and "should express itself strongly on the matter of additional industry near the Cornwall project," Harvard should take "no active steps to prevent construction...such as refusing to sell to Con Ed the 240 acres of the Black Rock that will be flooded by the storage reservoir or by presenting this land to the Palisades Interstate Park before Con Ed can obtain ownership."

THE RECOMMENDATIONS brought immediate reaction from Scenic Hudson's Vandivert, who charged that the University is "ignoring its responsibility as a landowner."

"Harvard did acknowledge the existence of problems," Vandivert said. "It went further than anyone else so far in describing the potential for damage. Yet the report suggests that Harvard do nothing."

This, he continued, was a "1920s Ivy League view--standing on the sidelines and cheering" while the action goes on elsewhere.

"The forest was given to the University for research," Vandivert said. "If it is to be divested, the property should be sold to the most compatible recipient--certainly not to an industry."

Most of the descendents of Ernest Stillman also reportedly opposed the committee recommendations, and four met with Bok and Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, shortly after the release of the report to express their opinions.

Steiner said at that time that the opinions of the descendents "is obviously something we take into account," but added that other factors must also be considered. He further stated that not all the members of the Stillman family are opposed to the Storm King project.

The only vocal proponent of the project in the family, Calvin W. Stillman '39, wrote in a 1966 Black Rock Forest Report that he felt "the plant as planned constitutes no significant blight upon the natural beauty of Storm King and the Hudson River shorelines," and saw no reason why it should not be built.

But the opposition remained far more prominent. Along with the majority of the Stillman family, several student organizations voiced disagreement with the committee recommendations. Harvard Ecology Action, after distributing leaflets on the Storm King project, collected over 2000 signatures on petitions asking President Bok not to sell the land--in only two days of activity.

The Law School's Environmental Law Society also came out strongly against the report. In a letter to Bok, the group found the position of the report "to be not only a contradiction, but seriously in derogation of the University's duties in regard to its stewardship of the forest."

Adding that the Storm King project battle was significant in determining the country's handling of future energy needs and its attitudes toward protecting the land from harmful development, the Law School group stated that "this fact alone justifies the University in taking a firm stand in a situation where it is of necessity involved."

The Environmental Law Society brought forward, in addition, the issue of responsibility to trustees. "The long-time residence of the family on the slopes of Storm King Mountain and Dr. Stillman's own use of the forest make clear that his broad intention was to preserve the area in its condition of natural beauty," its letter said. "The proper role of Harvard is to oppose with full vigor the construction of a pumped storage generating plant on Storm King Mountain."

This same view was one expressed by environmentalists when they first began seeking a Harvard commitment to protect the land. At that time, Vandivert noted: "If I were a donor to Harvard and saw that they provided good stewardship and protection for my gift, I might do something more for them. But if I were to give them something in good faith only to have them dispose of it, I would question giving them the next Spiro Agnew watch."

ERNEST STILLMAN apparently had faith that Harvard would take care of his gift as he had intended. In a gift to Palisades Interstate Park System, he included a reversion clause--that if the land were ever sold it would revert to the Stillman heirs. No such restriction was placed on the Harvard forest.

When the University refused to accept Black Rock without a maintenance endowment, he provided one--the Black Rock Forest Trust Fund, which now totals approximately $1.8 million. Interest from the fund was intended to finance maintenance and research at Black Rock, with the remainder contributed to Harvard's other forest, at Petersham. But today, about 75 per cent of the interest goes to Petersham, leaving a bare-bones budget at Black Rock.

President Bok silenced the most recent outbreak of controversy over Black Rock by stating, without explanation, that there had been no change in the status of Harvard's attitude toward the forest. Environmentalists have returned to the Federal Power Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers in an attempt to reopen hearings on the project. And Con Ed, while maintaining that the pumped storage plant is still needed, has begun to move toward alternatives and has removed Storm King from its ten year plan, scheduling it now for its 20 year forecast.

For the present time, environmentalists apparently will be on their own in fighting the project. But eventually it may come back to the University, and at that point someone will have to decide whether to put forth the final battle or accede to what John Stillman, another descendent, has called a "creeping breech of trust."