DEC sticks by tower decision

The Hurricane Mountain fire tower. Photo by Phil Brown.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation is standing by its decision that the fire tower on Hurricane Mountain should be torn down to comply with the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan.

DEC’s recommendation apparently is at odds with the wishes of the Adirondack Park Agency board, whose members indicated last month that they’d like the tower to stay. The APA commissioners directed the agency’s staff to explore the legal and fiscal ramifications of keeping the fire towers on both Hurricane and St. Regis mountains.

The APA will discuss the towers again at next Thursday’s meeting. In keeping with the board’s request, the staff is seeking authorization to reclassify land or amend the State Land Master Plan to allow the structures to remain.

The towers are located in the Hurricane Mountain Primitive Area and the St. Regis Canoe Area. Both tracts are managed essentially as Wilderness, where fire towers are not allowed.

In its proposed final management plan for the Hurricane tract, posted on the APA website today, DEC proposes removing the Hurricane tower and reclassifying the land as Wilderness.

DEC acknowledges that most people who have voiced an opinion have supported keeping the tower, but the department insists that would violate the State Land Master Plan.

Late Friday afternoon, DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino said she didn’t know if the department has finalized its stance on the St. Regis tower. However, the department initially made a similar argument against that tower as well.

One alternative proposed by the APA is to reclassify the land under both towers as Historic. Under another alternative, the State Land Master Plan would be amended to permit towers in Primitive and/or Canoe Areas.

 You can read the Hurricane  management plan and the APA alternatives on the APA’s website.

Officials angry over road closures

DEC plans to close 40 miles of dirt roads in the Moose River Plains. Phil Brown.

Hamilton County officials are livid over the state’s plan to close the Moose River Plains Recreation Area to motor vehicles, saying it will hurt the region’s economy, intensify political tensions, and harden stances against land acquisitions by the state.

“It’s one of the worst ideas I’ve seen in recent times,” said Bill Farber, the chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors.

Farber said the county plans to press Governor David Paterson, the state legislature, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation to open the roads before Memorial Day weekend.

“It’s going to be a fight like none we’ve seen since the Forest Preserve tax cap,” he added, referring to Paterson’s proposal in 2008 to limit the taxes the state pays on Preserve lands.

Located between the hamlets of Inlet and Indian Lake, the Moose River Recreation Area boasts forty miles of dirt roads, 140 primitive campsites, and numerous trails. It’s dotted with ponds and crossed by many rivers and streams. The region is popular with car campers, hikers, birders, bikers, hunters, and fishermen.

Bill Osborne, the tourism director for Hamilton County, said the closure of the roads to vehicles will have a huge impact on the local economy. “It will be absolutely devastating to us,” he said.

Farber said the decision is likely to sour local officials even more against state land acquisition.

“If the argument [for state land] is that it helps the economy and brings people into the region, why would you close a recreation area?” he asked. “It’s counterintuitive.”

Although Paterson has called for a moratorium on state-land purchases, the state plans to buy from the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, perhaps within a few years, nearly sixty thousand acres formerly owned by Finch, Pruyn & Co. Local towns signed off on that deal, but Farber thinks some may take a second look at it.

Farber said local officials and residents already were angry over the state’s management of the Park. “This is just throwing gasoline on the fire and heating up the political rhetoric,” he said.

DEC spokesman David Winchell told the Explorer on Thursday (see yesterday’s post) that the department is forced to make cuts. “It’s not a decision we wanted to make,” he said of the road closures. “It comes down to money, plain and simple. We can’t continue to provide the same services we have in the past under the current fiscal conditions.”

Winchell said DEC will save money by not having to maintain the roads, repair culverts, or patrol the campsites.

Farber, however, contends that it makes more economic sense to maintain the roads rather than let them deteriorate. He also argues that the closure of the roads will hit the state’s pocketbook: fewer tourists mean less sales-tax revenue.

In another controversial step, DEC plans to discontinue hiring assistant forest rangers. The Adirondack Daily Enterprise published a detailed story today on this issue.

Falcons nesting on rock-climbing cliffs

State biologists have confirmed that peregrine falcons are nesting on two popular rock-climbing cliffs, Upper Washbowl and Poke-o-Moonshine.

The discovery of the nest on Upper Washbowl means that cliff will remain closed to climbers, but the routes on Lower Washbowl are now open. Upper Washbowl boasts twenty-one routes, including some of the best moderate multipitch routes in Chapel Pond Pass, according to the guidebook Adirondack Rock.

Falcons also are nesting on the Main Face of Poke-O, probably in the vicinity of the Nose, according to Joe Racette, a biologist with the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The department won’t open any new routes on the Main Face until scientists ascertain exactly where the nest is.

Poke-O is one the Adirondacks’ premier rock-climbing venues. The Main Face alone has 167 routes. Only twenty-four of those are open. You can find a list of the open routes in an earlier post.