PROTECT supports passage of amendment to Article XIV to permit power line along highway in Forest Preserve

Saranac Lake , NY – Protect the Adirondacks ! encourages voters to vote YES for a “land exchange” proposal that will appear on their Election Day ballots on Tuesday, November 3, 2009.  This proposal would amend Article 14 of the Constitution to allow six acres of State Land to be used for the construction of a power line, in exchange for ten acres of private lands that would be added to the “forever wild,” publicly-owned Forest Preserve.

A newly constructed 46kV power line along State Route 56 in the Town of Colton now runs through a two-mile section of state-owned Forest Preserve. The amendment would officially authorize this power line along the highway on the Preserve, where such uses are otherwise illegal. The highway route avoids having to construct a six-mile-long power line through a natural forest on private land, damaging thousands of trees, wetlands, and important wildlife habitat in the process.

Like all constitutional amendments, this land exchange proposal was passed by two separately elected legislatures, and now requires an affirmative vote at the polls. PROTECT encourages voters to support the land exchange on election day 2009.

“We believe the amendment and land exchange make sense because this is an important electric reliability project, it saves many acres of working forests owned by private landowners adjoining the highway, and protects sensitive Adirondack plants, animals, and wetland systems. It is also a net gain for the Adirondack Forest Preserve,” says Executive Director David Gibson. The group estimates that the highway route would be approximately four miles shorter, hundreds of thousands of dollars less expensive, and far less environmentally damaging than an alternative route permitted in 2006 by the Adirondack Park Agency.

"As a result of the project along Routes 56 and 3, Tupper Lake and Tri-Lakes regional residents have better power reliability with far less potential impact to the Adirondack Park's boreal habitat, forests and wetlands," states Dan Plumley, PROTECT’s Director of Conservation Programs. “We are working with the NYS DEC to ensure that the public receives ten-acres of important lands for the Forest Preserve in exchange for these six-acres here in Colton .”

“We argued that it would do far more damage to the Park’s environment to carve a six-mile-long swath through unbroken forest to the west of Route 56, than it would to utilize a two-mile stretch of Forest Preserve along the highway for the new power line,” says PROTECT’s Director of Special Projects, Mike DiNunzio. A new right-of-way on private land would have required the permanent clearing of 55 acres of timber, damage to 22 important wetlands, and the likelihood that the land would have to be taken by eminent domain. 

Protect the Adirondacks! is dedicated to the protection and stewardship of the public and private lands of the Adirondack Park , and to building the health and diversity of its human communities and economies for the benefit of current and future generations. PROTECT operates out of an Adirondack Park office in Saranac Lake and its Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna . It has a membership of 5000, eight staff and more than 30 directors. More than one-third of its directors and over one-half of its members are permanent residents of the Adirondack Park . PROTECT results from the 2009 consolidation of the Residents’ Committee to Protect the Adirondacks and the Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks