OVERVIEW:

Protect the Adirondacks! (PROTECT), a 5,000 member, grassroots organization dedicated to the protection of the public and private lands of the Adirondack Park, is alarmed by a pattern of State policy decisions which are negatively impacting the Adirondack Park. We are urging that Governor David Paterson immediately take concerted actions to build on a 120 year record of popular will to protect the Park. We are asking him to send clear signals that he can be an environmental leader.

Wild and Remote Lows Lake

• Classified as Wilderness September 2009
• Wilderness votes reversed, and no lake classification in November 2009 - WHY?

Turnabout and Retreat from Wilderness at Lows Lake

Reneging on nearly 25 years of intent to classify Lows Lake as Wilderness, in November the NYS Adirondack Park Agency (“APA”) retracted an earlier vote and failed to so classify the lake. Just 2 months prior, APA commissioners voted to designated nearly all of 2,571 acre Lows Lake as classified Wilderness – critical to its future protection from the intrusion and damages of motorized uses and impacts. The decision to reverse the vote of the Governor’s three state agency representatives from NYS-DEC, Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Empire State Development (DED), came directly from the Governor’s office. To our knowledge, a vote reversal on a Wilderness classification and on a directive from the Governor’s office is unprecedented in the history of the APA.

After public hearings and strong APA staff documentation calling for Wilderness classification that precludes motorized uses, in September all three of the Governor’s state agency representatives voted for Wilderness designation of Lows Lake and surrounding waterbodies. This action fulfilled the state’s intent since the lands surrounding Lows Lake had been acquired with the express purpose of creating nationally unique wilderness water back in 1985 – a leading action heralded by the People of New York State under then Governor Mario Cuomo. Without explanation in November, 2009, just two months later, all 3 state designees reversed their vote and Lows Lake’s 2,751 acres were suddenly left without any classification. No explanation was given except a weak statement by NYS DEC staff that State management of the lake’s Primitive campgrounds would be impossible without the continued use of State-operated motor boats. A week later, the DEC Commissioner wrote a letter stating that, irrespective of the lake’s classification, the lake would be managed as Wilderness, which appeared to contradict DEC staff.. Classifying the lake would resolve this inconsistency once and for all, but this Governor seems unable and unwilling to take that step for reasons he has yet to explain. This is the first time in recent history of the Park that a Governor has reneged on a Wilderness classification recommended by APA staff. Rarely has the State backtracked so obviously and shamefully on its mission under the Constitution and the State Land Master Plan. PROTECT believes that this is an affront to a long and worthy record of state and gubernatorial actions to safeguard the Adirondack wilderness beginning in 1885.

The Alarming Trend against Park Protection - Lack of Transparency and Public Process

Lows Lake is only the latest in a pattern of decisions which call the Governor’s commitments to the Park into question. Too many APA votes have been cast which favor local parochial interests, and not the statewide interests of all New Yorkers for a Park of such state, national and international importance. The APA itself reported in October that 2900 projects in the Park have been permitted by APA over the past decade. Yet, in all that time, only one project permit has been denied, and only one adjudicatory public hearing held. Numerous controversial and problematic development projects received no public hearing whatsoever. Thousands of concerned citizens have been denied early scoping opportunities or any public comment opportunity on major development projects such as:

• Woodhull Lake and Union Falls Pond: subdivision and development of several miles of wild shoreline and fragmenting the Park’s lands classified Rural Use, Resource Management and Low-Intensity Use (these permits preceded the Paterson administration)
• Brandreth Park: this year, new permitted development in the backcountry allows as many as 120 potential single family dwellings on Brandreth Lake and on wholly undeveloped East Pond
• Town of Ephrata: this year, without public scoping or hearings, a major expansion and change of use for a massive rock mining and blasting operation was permitted, despite the call by hundreds of concerned citizens and our organization for a public hearing on the impacts and alternatives.

A Growing List of Decisions That Degrade Wilderness and the Adirondack Park

Other recent actions in the Park under Governor Paterson’s administration:

• Snowmobiles expanding into Wild Forest areas – Snowmobile trail guidelines were adopted by APA this fall which, while laudable in part, sanction motorized tracked groomer vehicles on Wild Forest trails in the Adirondacks, vehicles which impair forever wild character of these lands and improperly facilitate snowmobile highways through the Forest Preserve. Only State Land Master Plan amendments can authorize such vehicles.
• Proposed backtracking on a major conservation easement in the Park- Concerted efforts are being made now by the NYS- DEC to weaken and amend an important conservation easement in the Park which would enable 220 hunting camps and ATV motorized access to those camps to remain permanently, despite the easement’s original intent to remove these uses for the benefit of the public.
• Failure to close a road to motorized traffic in a Wilderness area – DEC Commissioner Grannis ruled that he lacked legal authority to close a prominent cross country ski trail through a Wilderness area to motorized traffic. Others on his staff hotly dispute this, and say he has ample legal authority. The solitude of this area and the motorized status of other old roads through Wilderness are in jeopardy.
• Land & Easement Acquisition Commitments under Threat - Delays in acquiring Forest Preserve and conservation easements on the Finch Pruyn properties threaten the integrity of the Park. Investments from the Environmental Protection Fund in protecting these resources are needed in 2010.
• Staff Cuts and Freezes Impacting Park Resources - Ongoing declines in the staffing at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation from historical levels pose threats to the Park and forest preserve monitoring, environmental quality, wildlife, project review, resource protection and enforcement.