T IMES
NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION FIRST-PLACE AWARD FOR GENERAL EXCELLENCE, 2016
MID
HUDSON
Vol. 29, No 16
3
APRIL 19 - 25, 2017
3
ONE DOLLAR
Golfers try
to recapture Winning
the magic photo
Page 20
Page 39
SERVING NEWBURGH AND NEW WINDSOR
Redemption
St. Patrick’s Church recreates Stations of the Cross
S pecial R eport :
N ewburgh ’ s T ainted W ater
The cleanup
is underway
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
A
Jesus (Jose Guadalupe Perez) is led through the streets of Newburgh as volunteers re-enact the Stations of the Cross on Friday.
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
B
lood streamed down his face
as he stumbled through the
streets, exhausted and broken, a
large wooden cross laying across his
shoulders. The people jeered and Roman
soldiers took turns hitting him with
long whips.
The volunteers reenacted the Stations
of the Cross in the streets of the City of
Newburgh on Friday. From St. Patrick
and St. Mary’s Church, the procession
moved slowly south along Liberty Street
and then along Benkard Avenue.
More than 300 people accompanied
the procession through the city streets
that morning. “Mary’s gaze gathers
up the tears of every mother,” church
volunteer Michelle Amstrong said
through a loud speaker, including
mothers of those “who fall into the
abyss of drugs, gangs or alcohol.” A
woman wrapped in blue robes held a
bloodied Jesus in her arms.
The street scene depicted the fourth
station of the cross, when Jesus
encounters his mother Mary as he drags
the cross through Jerusalem on his way
to his crucifixion in Golgotha.
The fourteen stations were narrated
in English and Spanish, describing the
final hours in which Jesus was nailed
to the cross, died and was finally placed
in a tomb.
“The Stations of the Cross is a
reenactment of the life of Christ once
he is handed over to the Romans,” said
St. Patrick’s Fr. Fernando Hernandez.
“We relive the last moments when he is
carrying the cross.”
The Stations of the Cross has been
held by St. Patrick’s Parish for about 20
years. The event takes place each year
on Good Friday, the day when Jesus is
believed to have been crucified. “He died
that day,” Hernandez said. “They took
him down and put him in the tomb. On
Easter Sunday, he rose from the dead.”
“Jesus died on the cross for us,”
Hernandez added. “That was beginning
of our redemption.”
WWW.MIDHUDSONTIMES.COM
group of workers wore hard hats
at a huge
The City of
construction
Newburgh
is slowly
site at the City
recovering
from PFOS
of Newburgh
contamination of its
Water Filtration
Plant. Excavators drinking-water supply
at Washington Lake.
lumbered over
Manufactured in the
large mounds of
U.S. until 2000, the
soil as workers
laid down footings chemical was used in
of a foundation for Scotchgard products
a state-of-the-art, and non-stick cookware.
It was also a key
granular-activated
ingredient
in fire foam
carbon filtration
used at Stewart Air
(GAC) system.
National Guard Base,
The filtration
where the chemical
system will be
seeped into water
accompanied by
and soil. Pooling in a
new pumps, a
stormwater retention
backwash tank
pond near the air base,
and 1.2-million-
the chemical flowed
gallon storage
downhill to pollute the
tank. Once
city’s drinking water.
built, the system
In this series, the
will filter out a
Mid Hudson Times
host of water
investigates the water
contaminants,
crisis, the ongoing
including
cleanup and the source
volatile organic
of the pollution at
compounds,
perfluorooctanoic Stewart Air National
Guard Base.
acid and
perfluorooctane
sulfonate, better known as PFOS.
The system is one of a slew of
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