FALLING LEAVES: OK, maybe it’s not great for your health, but it’s always been an autumn tradition. Until now. Scent the neighborhood air with the smell of burning leaves this year, and you could be sniffed out by the police.

As of Oct. 14, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation, burning leaves will be illegal everywhere in the state, instead of just in municipalities with more than 20,000 people. That goes for burning waste in barrels, trash and plastic bale wrap in backyard fire pits, too —all good prohibitions. But leaves?Awwww.

We’re just hoping the Sabres can still burn the Maple Leafs, without running afoul of the DEC.

FALLING HOPES: A reader wants to know why The Buffalo News isn’t on the cutting edge of reporting, with frequent update stories, on the progress of an obscure bill for a statewide referendum to divide New York into two separate states.

Well, largely because there is no progress. And don’t hold your breath.

But we will devote some ink to speculating on boundaries. How’bout an Upstate New York that includes the Yankees, and a Downstate New York that gets the Mets?

After what the Mets did to their Buffalo Bisons farm team this year, it would serve downstate right.

LIBERTY LOST: So the closest living relative of Emma Lazarus, she of the “Give me your tired, your poor” poem gracing the Statue of Liberty, lives in Derby. Who knew?

Well, we all do, thanks to this week’s story about cousin Emily Doumaux Newell representing Lazarus soon at her induction into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Fittingly, the article included a photo of Newell and her daughter in front of the Liberty replica in a Route 5 veterans park near the entrance to Derby.

Trouble is, that Lady Liberty soon may have to emigrate, herself. The Town of Evans reportedly is considering selling the tiny veterans park, championed by local businessman-activist Charles Militello, in hopes of economic development. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the huddled masses.

GOOD FOR THE GOV: Say what you will about Gov. David A. Paterson—and many of you have—you have to admire his puckish sense of humor.

Confronted during this week’s state Democratic Party meetings here by a TV reporter asking the tough questions —well, OK, it was the same question everyone’s been asking for days, but with a twist—Paterson didn’t miss a beat. Asked if he could envision any scenario in which he wouldn’t run for governor next year, the governor quickly answered, “my untimely demise?”

We hope not.