What is FLOW?
Morton Memorial Library sits on a major watershed divide between the Hudson and Delaware river tributaries. Water flowing from this area will end up in the Ashokan or the Schoharie reservoirs, and eventually in the taps of NYC residents. This makes us the First Library of the Watershed (FLOW).
This project, which is made possible by funds from the Catskill Watershed Corporation, aims to sustain, amplify and deepen awareness, appreciation and commitment to the precious Catskill fresh water resources located in our midst. Join us for a four part series of talks by acclaimed experts on climate in the northeastern United States.
Schedule of Events:
Saturday, October 10, 2026, at 3 p.m.
Join Richard Seager, Palisades Geophysical Institute/Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University for Nothing Permanent Except Change: a long-term perspective on ongoing climate and environmental change in the Catskills and northeastern United States. The Catskills and northeastern U.S. are a well-forested landscape in a humid continental climate, in contrast to the semi-arid, desert, and Mediterranean climates of the West. Dr. Seager will discuss how oceans, continents, mountains, and winds set up this arid-humid divide, how the East has gotten wetter while the West gets drier, and how the divide is now at its most extreme in the last millennium. The wetting in the East is beyond what we would expect from human-driven climate change. Due to the clearance and fire following European settlement and subsequent fire suppression and reforestation, we now have an unprecedented forest with unprecedented warmth, wetness, and CO2, making it hard to see what the future holds.
Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 3 p.m.
Join Jennifer Kabat, Author of Nightshining, for The Rainmakers Flood: War and Weather Come to Pine Hill. In 1950, the Rainmakers Flood decimated Pine Hill and Margaretville. It was caused by a Cold War weapon created by Bernard Vonnegut, the writer Kurt Vonnegut’s brother, and Vincent Schaefer, a colleague who had never finished high school. Developed in General Electric’s so-called “House of Magic,” the technology, and its story, spiral up through Vietnam, the banning of leaded fuel,Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars project, into geoengineering and the climate crisis today. Jennifer Kabat reads from her book Nightshining on these histories of war and weather and shares the research behind it, from local oral histories with community elders to Defense Department records and news stories.
Saturday, October 24, 2026, at 3 p.m.
Join Kiyoko Yokota, Ph.D., CLM, Associate Professor of Biology State University of New York at Oneonta for Clean but Green. Professor Yokota will explain the paradox of oligotrophic cyanobacterial blooms—large outbreaks of blue-green algae that can occur in nutrient-poor waters, even though such blooms are usually associated with nutrient-rich conditions—and how climate change is affecting our lakes. Some cyanobacteria are remarkably well adapted to these conditions, finding ways to obtain scarce nutrients, control their position in the water, and thrive where other organisms cannot.
Saturday, November 7, 2026, at 3 p.m.
Join Amanda Stevens, Senior Project Manager New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), for Too Rain or Not Too Rain. As the global climate changes, its impacts are being seen and felt across New York State, including in the Catskills. Amanda Stevens will examine shifting conditions across the state and in our region, including changes in precipitation that contribute to flooding and drought, and how these trends are affecting our communities now and may affect them in the future.