For more information:
David H. Gibson
Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks
518-377-1452 (office)
Brian L. Houseal
Adirondack Council
518-873-2240 (office)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Wednesday, August 10, 2005
ADIRONDACK ENVIRONMENTALISTS URGE PARK AGENCY TO CALL A PUBLIC HEARING FOR PROPOSED SARATOGA COUNTY MOUNTAINTOP TOWERS
BALLSTON SPA, NY — Two advocacy organizations for the Adirondacks today joined forces to call on the Adirondack Park Agency to hold a formal public hearing on the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors' plan to erect three mountaintop emergency radio towers around the Great Sacandaga Lake.
"We believe there are sufficient questions and concerns surrounding the impact of this project on the environment and the local economy to merit a very thorough review by the Adirondack Park Agency," said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal. "The only way to ensure that these questions and concerns are addressed is through an adjudicatory public hearing that allows both sides to present evidence and call witnesses."
"The APA needs to schedule a public hearing to give full airing of the issues surrounding this controversial and complex development proposal," said the Association's Executive Director Dave Gibson. "The proposed tower infrastructure and mountaintop roads pose potential undue adverse impacts to the Park and contravene the Agency Tower Policy. Furthermore, the emergency communication alternatives are complex, the public interest is high and the information that would come from a hearing is potentially very helpful to the APA in reaching a permit decision. All of the criteria in the APA legislation for holding a public hearing have been met or exceeded."
Among the concerns that must be addressed in a public hearing, the groups listed:
- All of the towers would require clearing land on mountaintops and ridgelines, denuding forests and wiping out rare and fragile wildlife habitat. Two of the three sites (Fraker Mountain and Mt. Anthony) are owned by unwilling sellers and the county has announced its intention to seize them through eminent domain.
- The county appears to be duplicating an emergency radio system that the State already intends to build, using less visible technology, as part of the Statewide Wireless Network.
- Two or more of the towers (at least Mt. Anthony and Fraker Mountain) would be very visible from public roadways and/or the lake. Mt. Anthony is visible from I-87 (the Northway), including the Clifton Park rest area.
- Two or more of the sites (at least Mt. Anthony and Fraker Mountain) would require extensive tree-cutting and road construction through wetlands.
- Development of the third site, at the summit of Lakeview Mountain, would facilitate a major mountaintop subdivision by providing a roadway and electric lines to a currently undeveloped site; the deed to the property was amended after the county announced it wanted to buy it, adding paper streets and lots to what is now a forest on Horse Hill Road.
- The county's three proposed towers will only increase coverage from about 30 percent of the valley to less than 60 percent; it won't reach the 95 percent coverage (population or geographic area) the county claims it wants to achieve.
- The county's towers are linked to one another but they don't form a loop; if one fails, they all do.
- John Bergeron, owner of Mt. Anthony and retired scientist for the General Electric Global Research Lab, has designed a radio system for the Sacandaga Valley that uses lower, roadside poles to host equipment rather than mountaintop sites; his system may be more reliable (it's a loop that can re-route calls around a damaged tower) and may provide better coverage than the county's plan (up to 100 percent). This is one reason why a public hearing is so important and necessary.
- Any tower on Mount Anthony may be especially vulnerable to lightning strikes; its rock contains iron ore (magnetite) in high enough concentrations to register as metal when scanned with a metal detector.
- Mount Anthony has a surveyor's triangle cut into the stone at the summit; the reports of State Surveyor Verplanck Colvin to the Legislature indicate this was his mark, made to indicate the site of the survey connecting the first official maps of the Adirondack Mountains to the official Hudson Valley survey; thus, the site is of historic significance to the state. Prior to Colvin's survey, officials believed the Catskills to be the state's tallest mountains; when state money ran out, Colvin completed the survey at his own expense; his reports helped persuade the Legislature to create the Adirondack Forest Preserve (1885) and the Adirondack Park (1892).
In March, the Park Agency was on the verge of calling for a formal public hearing on the project, when the county voluntarily withdrew the plan to stop the review before the deadline. The motion was tabled, but can be reconsidered at the August meeting.
"Building roads up undeveloped mountains to achieve emergency communication goals that may not require such a massive intrusion on the Adirondack environment is unacceptable," Gibson stated. "The State's own technology experts have shown that less damaging alternative configurations are possible, but these alternatives to the county's proposed tower installations have been inadequately presented. A public hearing is clearly needed to bring all of this information to light."
"We urge the Park Agency to do all it can to reduce the visibility and ecological damage of any new radio tower system it approves for the Great Sacandaga Lake," said Houseal. "People come here to enjoy the peace and beauty of this valley. There is very little commercial development. Most residential development is concealed below the treetops. The valley's ridges and mountaintops are pristine. Mountaintops are the last places we ought to be encouraging development in the Park."
The Adirondack Council's mission is to ensure the ecological integrity and wild character of the Adirondack Park. Founded in 1975, the Council is privately funded not-for-profit organization with 18,000 members. The Council carries out its mission through research, education, advocacy and legal action. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks is a non-profit, member supported organization founded in 1901 and dedicated to sustaining the ecological integrity and mutual well being of natural and human communities of the Adirondack Park. The Association's Center for the Forest Preserve in Niskayuna serves as an Adirondack library and learning center.