News from the Executive Director | December 20, 2007
In this issue
1. Stewardship Training Advances our Mission
2. AFPA reports from the Adirondack Park Agency
3. AFPA reports from Energy $mart Park Initiative
4. Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Take Action
5. Article XIV violations at Moreau Lake State Park
6. Update on Adirondack Club and Resort
Stewardship Training Advances our Mission
AFPA’s new Adirondack Park Stewardship Training undertook its second pilot program with students from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh at the University’s beautiful Valcour Educational Conference Center on the shores of Lake Champlain on December 1 and 2. Directed and led by Dan Plumley, in collaboration with our North Country Associate Josh Wilson, this training, like the one this fall with St. Lawrence University students, seeks to prepare and recruit people of all ages to undertake a rigorous, multi-step program of awareness, appreciation, activity and advocacy on behalf of the Adirondack Park, thereby greatly enhancing AFPA’s reach and effectiveness.
Students participating in the Valcour Center Stewardship Training
The two-day training is the first step in that program. Assisting Dan and Josh were Dave Gibson and our Trustee Keith Tait, who directs SUNY Plattsburgh’s Environment, Health and Safety program. Keith provided crucial local assistance for this training. Fourteen students took part in the training in park advocacy, policy, law and conservation campaign case studies and role playing. Meanwhile, a student from St. Lawrence University spent four days this month using AFPA’s Adirondack Research Library. Most of the students are seeking advanced stewardship training in both wilderness advocacy stewardship and community outreach stewardship planned for late winter - spring 2008. Dan, Josh and AFPA will be evaluating the success of these pilot training programs and developing a strategic plan for advancing the program.
Dan at the Valcour Center stewardship training
Valcour Educational Conference Center, SUNY Plattsburgh
Report from the Adirondack Park Agency Meeting: Wireless Communications on the Northway
Each month, Dan Plumley reports about key matters we cover at the Adirondack park Agency monthly meeting: His report from the December meeting includes: New APA Chair Curt Stiles presided over the meeting, with new member Dick Booth also attending. Verizon Wireless sought an APA permit for the first of 13 new towers near I-87 proposed to provide cell phone service for Northway travelers, and a full array of other services. Dan reviewed the project design, met with APA project review officer George Outcalt, Jr., felt that the tower met the APA’s Tall Towers Policy criteria, and wrote a supportive letter, attached. Later, The APA board voted unanimously to approve this project. Valid concerns were raised by several members about the cumulative impact from future competing towers or co-location requests. APA commissioner Dick Booth, Chairman Curtis Stiles raised this concern, supported by Department of State representative Rick Hoffman. No letters of support came from local government or any other parties despite the tremendous public media backlash following last winter's roadway deaths. Our comments urging a comprehensive review of all potential tower locations were noted in the final approved permit draft findings of fact. The Association will need to consider our preferred policies preventing cumulative impacts from such towers along the Northway and interior across the park. This discussion will continue in January 2008 when at least two additional Verizon cell towers for the Northway will be on the agenda.
For a complete report from Dan about the December APA meeting, please contact Dan at
, or 518-576-4430
Energy Smart Park Initiative Hosted by NYS Energy Research and Development Authority - NYSERDA
Early in December, the Adirondack Energy Smart Park Initiative unveiled its full proposal to staff from the NYSERDA in Albany, as well as staff from the State Attorney General’s Office, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, National Grid, Public Service Commission, Adirondack Park Agency, Legislative aides and other current and potential collaborators. 28 people attended the presentations. The purpose of the meeting was to get immediate feedback from energy experts and others who interface with state government on a regular basis and who wish to contribute to this unique regional effort to transform the way Adirondack visitors and residents acquire, use and think about energy. The Initiative aims to make the Adirondack Park a model of sustainable energy production and use that contributes to the well-being of the Park’s natural and human communities. Its long-term aim is to reduce the carbon footprint of the region to zero, with a replicable program. ESPI Steering Committee members made excellent presentations and we received information and feedback that will be extremely valuable as we move forward on several tangible projects, including benchmarking current energy use, targeting municipal and state buildings for energy savings, and increasing local use of bio-energy resources. ESPI is a coalition of more than 20 member organizations working under a six-member Steering Committee. AFPA initiated the effort at its spring, 2007 Adirondack Energy Forum in Lake Placid. For more information, contact Mike DiNunzio at
, or visit our web site or the ESPI website, www.energysmartpark.org
Seeing the Forest for the Trees:
Boreas Ponds, South of the High Peaks, formerly Finch, Pruyn’s – now Nature Conservancy Adirondack holdings
Mike DiNunzio has written a special report about The Adirondack Nature Conservancy’s purchase of all 161,000-acres of Finch, Pruyn and Company holdings in the Adirondacks. This historic acquisition has immense implications for the Park’s future and, as Mike writes, its ultimate disposition will help determine the nature of the Adirondack Park for all time. The special report is featured in AFPA’s current Issues and Actions Journal which will reach members’ mailboxes soon, and be posted our web site soon thereafter.
TAKE ACTION:Help leverage our efforts to promote exemplary conservation on the former Finch, Pruyn land and elsewhere in the Adirondacks. Write Governor Spitzer and Commissioner Grannis to urge that the State of New York make protection of this landscape a top priority for 2008 and to provide critical staff and financial resources to purchase and protect key tracts, working closely with The Nature Conservancy. Write to Governor Eliot Spitzer, State Capitol, Albany, NY 12224 and Commissioner of Environmental Conservation Pete Grannis, DEC, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233. Thank you.
Article XIV Violations Must be Remedied
AFPA has organized a coalition to write to State Parks (OPRHP) Commissioner about violations of the “forever wild” clause of the State Constitution at Moreau Lake State Park in Saratoga County just outside the blue line boundary of the Adirondack Park. The letter states, in part, “we are writing to you on a matter of the utmost urgency to request a meeting with your and your staff as soon as possible. OPRHP has authorized and facilitated an apparent and ongoing violation of Article XIV of the New York State Constitution. With the consent of OPRHP, the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors through the Saratoga County Water Authority has laid an underground pipeline on state park lands both in Moreau Lake and Saratoga Spa State Parks, excavated and removed soils and destroyed hundreds of trees. Our organizations are in agreement that the lands disturbed for this project within Moreau Lake State Park, and under the Hudson River adjacent to Moreau Lake State Park are Forest Preserve lands, protected as wild forest lands by Article XIV, the “forever wild” clause of the New York State Constitution. As such, your Agency was without authority to allow the taking, destruction or disruption of these lands by any corporation, public or private.” The letter goes on to state that the agency must remediate the site, and to take action to ensure that further violations of the State Constitution will not occur in Moreau Lake State Park or on any similarly situated lands under its jurisdiction in Saratoga County or any other Forest Preserve County listed in law. Joining AFPA on the letter are the Adirondack Council, Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks and the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter’s Adirondack Committee. The Adirondack Mountain Club has written its own strong letter to Parks. Left unaddressed, this damage to Forest Preserve at Moreau could set a very bad precedent for Forest Preserve anywhere in the Adirondacks or Catskills.
Pit created on Forest Preserve land for Saratoga County water filtration plant, Hudson River in background, Town of Moreau, Moreau Lake State Park
Road creation for water line on Forest Preserve, Moreau Lake State Park
Update, Adirondack Club and Resort
AFPA counsel John Caffry has written to the ALJ Daniel O’Connell agreeing with his recommendations that the applicant must file applications for on-site sewage treatment, stormwater discharge, define the location of the Orvis Shooting School, and submit revised site plans, visual impact simulations and viewshed maps before moving forward with the hearing or any formal mediation between the applicant, project opponents and proponents. In short, AFPA believes the applicant has for six months obfuscated on final project design, which must be understood in order to begin the hearing. AFPA reaffirmed its position that all issues and potential issues must be on the table in a mediation process, and that the process must not be limited to the ten issues identified for adjudication by the APA last winter. The applicant clearly opposes such open-ness, preferring to sharply limit issues and participants. ALJ O’Connell has called all potential parties back to another pre-hearing conference in Tupper Lake on January 25, 2008. This will be the third pre-hearing conference since April. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks announced its opposition to the club and resort proposal in 2005, citing the proposed 699 condominiums, townhouses, second homes great camps and hotel units as the largest land development project ever reviewed by the APA. The Association describes the proposed club and resort as out of place in the Adirondacks’ wild, rural character, sprawled across the landscape, wasteful of land and water resources, and risky for area taxpayers and service providers.
Warm seasons greetings, peace, to all our Trustees, Members, Donors, Friends, and Colleagues. Thank you for all you have done for our common cause in 2007. When we are fatigued or discouraged, let us think upon Paul Schaefer and the freshness and continued relevance of these words he used in 1945: “A citizen may not have the title to his home, but he does have an undivided deed to this Adirondack land of solitude, and peace and tranquility.”
That’s all for now.
Dave Gibson
Executive Director
The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks
www.protectadks.org
897 St. Davids La, Niskayuna, NY 12309
518-377-1452, Ext. 301
About PROTECT 
1. Stewardship Training Advances our Mission
