Paul Shaefer, Adirondack Champion of Conservation And Renowned Wilderness Coalition Leader of the 20th Century
Throughout 2008, the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks celebrates the 100th anniversary of Paul Schaefer’s birth (1908-2008). On a regular basis, we plan to post important milestones, chapters or stories in the conservation career of this remarkable man who for 65 years spearheaded countless battles to protect Adirondack wild river valleys and wilderness. The Association is so fortunate to have preserved Paul Schaefer’s home as conservation heritage site, and to have built onto his home a permanent Center for the Forest Preserve to extend his work and that of his generation of conservationists far into the future.
Introduction: Paul Schaefer (1908-1996) was a foremost wilderness conservationist for New York's Adirondacks during the 20th cenutyr, and a master builder and restorer of fine American homes and Adirondack camps. Schaefer was an Adirondack guide, hunter, photographer, film-maker, author and premier conservationist, with a national reputation for protecting the Adirondacks’ wild river valleys and wilderness areas and defending New York’s unique “forever wild” Forest Preserve. Schaefer was recognized after his death as one of the 100 top conservationists of the century by Audubon magazine. Recipient of dozens of awards, director of two documentary films, and author of three books about the Adirondacks, the name Paul Schaefer is synonymous with Adirondack conservation as well as with rustic homes that blend into their environments.
Of Paul Schaefer’s many accomplishments, his most dramatic and challenging were to organize large coalitions of citizens and organizations to successfully block new, large reservoirs and impoundments of wild, free-flowing river valleys of the Adirondacks. This leads to our first story: Dams in the Upper Hudson River, as written by Paul Schaefer during the Adirondack Park Centennial year of 1992:
"In the early 1960s there were four major dams being discussed for construction on the Upper Hudson River. One, at Luzerne would inundate 16 miles of the river. A second one at The Glen would be 6 miles long. A third at Blue Ledge in the Hudson Gorge would be 20 miles in length. And lastly, and the one on which serious work had started, was near the junction of the Indian River with the Hudson. The U.S. Army Engineers who were working on the project named it Gooley Dam. This one would inundate 35 miles, cause the cutting of 16,000 acres of forest, flood out the Indian River, the Cedar River, the Chain Lakes, Goodnow Flow, the hamlet of Newcomb, Lakes Harris and Rich and much of the Huntington Wildlife Forest.
Being near the geographical center of the Adirondack Park, it would have been the most devastating of all the thirty-some reservoirs listed on the books of the State Water Power and control Commission. At a meeting of reporters from The New York Times, Newsweek and other papers at Lake Harris in the summer of 1968, they expressed amazement that such a devastating project could be seriously considered near the center of this world famous Park. But we showed them the high flow markings and evidence of engineering activity and they not only believed it, but were ready to help us (editors note: the City of New York and its interests were behind the dams, in large part to provide huge volumes of freshwater into the Hudson River and thereby drive out the wedge of brackish water that was heading upriver during years of drought. That brackish water threatened New York City’s water-intake pipes)
The Adirondack Hudson River Association was organized along the lines of the Adirondack Moose River Committee that successfully blocked dams on the Moose, the Salmon and other rivers. The key to the organization was the powerful New York State Conservation Council with its more than a thousand sportsmen clubs. Most of the contacts we had made in the ten year battle that began in 1945 joined us again, together with the new officers and regional leaders of the Council. Once again it gave us the annual conventions of the Council to present our agendas and enlist new support for the preservation of the wildlife abundant lowlands of the Park.
Three large conferences were held. The first at the Northwoods Club, the access to which would be flooded out, was held in 1968. This was followed by a larger one at Newcomb Central School, at which Arthur Crocker, President of the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks, presided. Seven hundred attended that one. A third one was held at Lake George and it attracted the most notable conservationists of any to date. At this one, the key members of the Temporary Study Commission on the Future of the Adirondacks including Harold Jerry, Peter Paine, George Davis and Senator Pomeroy attended. Most of the officers and key members of the sportsmens’ councils were also on hand, as was the Adirondack Mountain Club, Oneida County Forest Preserve Council, and others.
These conferences spawned legislation introduced by Senator Bernard Smith and Assemblyman Larry Lane. It languished in the legislature for months, until finally both the Senate and Assembly passed it unanimously and it was signed by the Governor, Nelson Rockefeller in 1969 (editors note: the legislation bans all dams on the Upper Hudson River and its tributaries north of the Town of Luzerne). With that action, a new commission was created by the Governor to study the needs of water supply for Southeastern New York. Chairman of that commission was E. Virgil Conway, a Wall Street banker. Head of its staff was Robert D. Hannigan of Syracuse College of Environmental Science and Forestry. A key member of the Commission was Herman Forster, a former water commissioner for the city of New York, a past President of the New York State Conservation Council and Chairman of its Board of Directors.
This commission was very active for five years. It held many public hearings across the state and produced a score of documents prepared by a staff of water supply experts.
The final result of the Commission’s work verified the position held by conservationists (editor’s note: the conclusion that dams in the Adirondacks would not solve the city of New York’s water woes). Included in the recommendations was a pumping station at Chelsea in the Hudson River which could provide hundreds of millions of gallons of water that might be needed to supplant the Catskill reservoir system and the metering of all waters used in the city of New York. The commission dismissed the need for reservoirs on the Upper Hudson and provided the engineering reasons for such a recommendation. The conclusions reached were accepted in principle by the United States Army Corps of Engineers.”
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