AFPA and allies reach important agreement with NYS: Recently, the NYS Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) signed an agreement with the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks (AFPA), as well as the Residents’ Committee (RCPA) and the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) that will require the agency to study a number of State Parks within Forest Preserve counties to determine if any or any parts of them qualify as Forest Preserve, and thus could come under the protective aegis of Article XIV – the forever wild provisions - of the NYS Constitution. The study is an important element in an overall settlement reached recently between OPRHP, the Saratoga County Water Authority and AFPA and the other Adirondack organizations over alleged violations of Article XIV at Moreau Lake State Park in Saratoga County caused by the 2007 construction of a water supply line through wild forest portions of that State Park. While the organizations were unable to block the water line, we have achieved important measures which will make repeat violations less likely in the future, and which have raised the consciousness of the NYS OPRHP about their responsibilities to safeguard wilder portions of the State Park system. For more, please see the organizations’ news release – attached.

Adirondack Club and Resort: DEC and Attorney General weigh in on rezoning of the land:

Background: In 2006, the Town of Tupper Lake, against the advice of the Adirondack Park Agency and its own Planning Board, prematurely passed local legislation to rezone more than 6,200 acres of land proposed for the Adirondack Club and Resort on the flanks of Mt. Morris above Tupper Lake and Lake Simond. The Town said it was not necessary to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of rezoning for intensive development. AFPA, RCPA and dozens of local citizens disagreed, and reluctantly took the Town to court for its failure to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQR). The lower court sided with the Town, saying that the Adirondack Park Agency was solely responsible for environmental review in the Park. Earlier in 2008, AFPA, RCPA and citizens appealed that ruling.

This week: NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, the agency which administers SEQR, pointedly disagreed with the lower court and the Town. In a brief to the Appellate Court in Albany, the Attorney General concluded that local governments like Tupper Lake are not exempt from SEQR responsibilities to weigh likely environmental impacts of its decisions, regardless of whether the APA has overall jurisdiction over new land use and development in the Park. AFPA et. al. is delighted with this opinion. Our day in the Appellate Court comes in December.

News Release, Settlement, NOV 2008