SmART (Smallwood Aware Residents Team) is a 501c4 not for profit, volunteer, Smallwood-based citizen's organization formed in 2021. We are committed to advocating for the best interests and sustainability of the Town of Bethel and in particular, the Hamlet of Smallwood. SmART is neither an anti-development nor an anti-business group. Rather, it seeks to ensure that any development in or around Smallwood (or somewhere else in the Town of Bethel that has the potential to impact Smallwood), is carefully considered by the Town’s permitting Boards and departments and built sustainably and responsibly with Smart Growth principles, following all applicable local, state, and federal laws.

 

SmART's central focus in Smallwood is Mountain Lake, its ecosystem, and the surrounding environs. SmART will advocate to ensure that our hamlet and the Bethel community will not be negatively affected by the adverse impacts associated with disregard for Bethel’s Comprehensive Plan, zoning laws, and overdevelopment, including, but not limited to, waterbodies, water systems, aquifers, wetlands, dangerous road conditions, or anything that compromises our collective quality of life. SmART places particular emphasis on maintaining the rural character of Smallwood. 

The Town of Bethel is host to a vast interconnected fragile and sensitive ecosystem of  lakes, streams, waterways, and wetlands. Whether by way of wells or private water system, Smallwood sources its water from the aquifer that is part of a watershed that includes White Lake Brook, Lybolt Brook, and Smallwood’s Mountain Lake. We will advocate for these resources for the sake of Smallwood and all who value clean water. While SmART’s primary focus is on Smallwood, those water bodies downstream from Mountain Lake — inclusive of the reservoir system that feeds the Delaware River and all of the wetlands and waterways that are part of this system — are important to us and we will, when necessary and appropriate, consider advocacy for them and involvement with other environmental issues and development projects beyond Smallwood and Bethel.  

 

SmART will, when necessary and appropriate, consider advocacy involving environmental issues and development projects beyond Smallwood and Bethel.  

 

As part of its focus on the water quality and overall health of Mountain Lake, SmART is focused on mitigating existing problems and preventing future problems related to the town’s sewer treatment plant, local stormwater runoff, and other unregulated discharge into Mountain Lake from Smallwood’s densely populated home septic systems and bungalow colonies in the immediate surrounding area. These threats are compounded by the ongoing and increasing effects of climate change which include flooding and drought. When necessary or appropriate, SmART will retain professional consulting services including but not limited to legal support, environmental engineering, planning, road and traffic engineering, and hydrology.