Your brief letter faxed to the Adirondack Park Agency by March 12, 2008 - Will influence snowmobile policies on the forest preserve!

Adirondack Park Agency to Set Limits On “No Material Increase” Policy for Future Snowmobile Trail Mileage

Such limits must:

• apply Park-wide
• apply to all future land acquisitions for the Forest Preserve
• reduce intensity of snowmobile and other motorized use

Background:

Snowmobiling on the Forest Preserve dates back to the 1950’s and 1960’s and, as a motorized use, has always been highly controversial on the State’s “Forever Wild” Forest Preserve protected by Article XIV of the State Constitution. While the State Land Master Plan bans all public use of motor vehicles on Wilderness portions of the Forest Preserve, it allows very limited snowmobile use on designated trails on Wild Forest. Over the last decade, the level of controversy and threat to the ecological integrity of the Park and to the “Forever Wild” provisions have grown as snowmobile size, power and speed have increased, with attendant demands for wider, flatter, mechanically groomed, two-way trails. All-terrain vehicles may be illegal throughout most of the Forest Preserve, but it is a proven fact that ATVs are illegally driven on snowmobile trails, and prefer wider, flatter trails. Widespread damage to the wild forest environment has resulted.

Beginning in 1972, the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan, in the spirit of Article XIV, sought to tightly constrain and limit the use of snowmobiles and other motor vehicles on the Forest Preserve. The Master Plan states that:

“Public use of motor vehicles will not be encouraged and there will not be any material increase in the mileage of roads and snowmobile trails open to motorized use by the public in wild forest areas that conformed to the master plan at the time of its original adoption in 1972”

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Park Agency have now jointly recognized that in 1972 there were 740 miles of snowmobile trails in the Forest Preserve. The two agencies have also agreed that when all Wild Forest Unit Management Plans are completed, the projected snowmobile trail mileage is expected to reach 766 miles. In February, 2008, APA issued an interpretation of the Master Plan which clearly states that any and all acquisitions for the Adirondack Forest Preserve are subject to the “no material increase” provisions and to a Park-wide limitation or cap on the mileage available for public motorized use. AFPA wholeheartedly agrees with this interpretation.  For many years, DEC and APA have agreed informally on an upper limit to snowmobile trail mileage of 848 miles. APA is now proposing that this figure formally become the mileage ceiling or cap throughout the entire Adirondack Forest Preserve. While this assurance is important, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AFPA) believes that going from a projected 766 miles of trail to 848 miles at some future time would constitute a “material increase.” We will advise APA and DEC that the mileage cap be reduced, and that appropriate limits be placed on the intensity of use, as well as mileage. For instance, trails and bridges across streams and wetlands must be kept narrow, in the character of a wild forest foot trail, with no mechanized tracked grooming machines or heavy machinery allowed for maintenance.

YOUR ACTION IS REQUESTED - LETTERS & FAXES

Can be sent to the APA before or by March 4th preferably (but later faxes and letters will be accepted as well on up to one day prior to their next monthly meeting, March 12th)

ADDRESS, SEND OR FAX YOUR LETTER TO:

Curt Stiles, Chairman
Adirondack Park Agency
P.O. Box 99
Ray Brook, New York 12977
Fax:  (518) 891-3938

Include these talking points in your letter to Chairman Stiles:

• Note at the start of your letter that you are writing in regard to the Adirondack Park Agency’s discussions on “No Material Increase” on snowmobile trail mileage in the Adirondack Park
• Provide an opening statement about your own personal experience in the Adirondack Park and your interest in seeing the Adirondack Park Agency protect our “Forever Wild” Forest Preserve by eliminating or reducing all motorized uses that impact the Park’s wild lands, solitude, wild life and wilderness character and qualities.
• Thank the APA for renewing its commitment to policies required under the Master Plan that place Park-wide limitations on the public use of motor vehicles on the Forest Preserve, including snowmobiling.
• Urge Chairman Stiles to recognize that, in the spirit of Article XIV of the State Constitution, the original premise of “No Material Increase” in 1972 was to keep actual mileage and  use levels of snowmobiles and other public use of motor vehicles at or below 1972 levels and that the Adirondack Park Agency should be focusing their decisions on reducing overall snowmobile and other motor vehicle use and intensity to 1972 levels as a top priority.
• APA’s proposed 848 mileage cap is too high. It should be reduced closer to the projected actual mileage of 766 miles.

Call upon Chairman Stiles and the full park agency membership to:

• Insure that any mileage cap committed to must never be permitted to be broken in the future due to new acquisitions of state lands because the original and optimal goal is to reduce overall use at or below 1972 levels across the existing and future forest preserve
• Call upon the Adirondack Park Agency and the NYS-Department of Environmental Conservation (NYS-DEC) to work together to reduce or eliminate snowmobile mileage and intensity of use on Forest Preserve whenever possible in favor of redirecting snowmobile and other motorized activity on easements or private lands where such use would not be inconsistent with wilderness character

Please send a copy of your letter by email if you can to:

Call or email Dan Plumley, Director of Park Protection, The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AFPA), (518) 576-4430 for more information

Thank you for protecting “Forever Wild” and the Adirondack Park!

Read AFPA's formal letter to the Adirondack Park Agency