The Adirondack Mountain Club is objecting to the state’s recommendation to allow mountain biking on an old road in a portion of the Moose River Plains that has been proposed to be designated Wilderness.

ADK Executive Director Neil Woodworth said the mountain-bike corridor would set a bad precedent and could open the door for other uses, such as snowmobiling, normally prohibited in Wilderness Areas.

Otter Brook Truck Trail. Photo by Phil Brown.

“The harder it is to get into the Wilderness, the more protected it is,” Woodworth said.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation proposes to establish the biking corridor in the latest version of its draft management plan for the Moose River Plains Wild Forest.

In an earlier draft of the plan, DEC recommended reclassifying fifteen thousand acres of the Moose River Plains as Wilderness and adding it to the adjacent West Canada Lake Wilderness. The updated draft would allow the Otter Brook Truck Trail—which forms the boundary between the existing and proposed Wilderness tracts—to remain classified as Wild Forest. Mountain biking is allowed Wild Forest Areas.

 In a letter to the Adirondack Park Agency, the club contends that this “spot zoning” is tantamount to allowing a prohibited use in a Wilderness Area. “To arbitrarily carve out a ‘Wild Forest’ corridor for mountain bike use in the middle of the proposed West Canada Lake Wilderness Area completely defeats the purpose of the Wilderness designation,” the letter says.

The APA is scheduled to discuss and perhaps vote on the plan at its meeting this week.

Mitch Lee, the assistant director of tourism for Inlet, argues that the hard surface of the truck trail makes it ideal for mountain biking. Using it and existing dirt roads, bikers can pedal in a fourteen-mile loop. Lee added that he often sends mountain bikers to the Moose River Plains.

“Taking away access to the Forest Preserve, especially if the Forest Preserve is not being damaged, is not a good thing for recreation,” he said.

Bill Ingersoll, the publisher of the Discover the Adirondacks series of guidebooks, also objects to the Wild Forest corridor. He said he has walked the Otter Brook Truck Trail several times and seen no evidence of use by bikers.

Lee, however, counters that the town can’t get a DEC permit to maintain the trail for biking until the management plan is approved. “It hasn’t got a lot of mountain-bike use because it hasn’t been available to us,” he said.

The Adirondack Council also is not happy with splitting the Wilderness tract with a biking corridor, but it doesn’t plan to fight it. “We are not taking a strong position against it,” said Scott Lorey, the council’s legislative director.

Lorey said the council is more concerned with a proposal to leave open the Indian Lake Road as far as the Squaw Lake trailhead. In the earlier draft, DEC proposed to close the entire Indian Lake Road, which also forms a boundary between the West Canada Lake Wilderness and the Moose River Plains.

Lorey contends that leaving part of the road open will invite motorized trespass into the Wilderness Area. Lee, however, said it will allow fishermen easy access to Squaw Lake, which he described as a stellar brook-trout water.

The main road in the Moose River Plains. Photo by Phil Brown.

Under pressure from local officials, the state Department of Environmental Conservation announced today that it will open the roads in the Moose River Plains.

 

Earlier this month, DEC angered local officials when it said state budget cuts would keep it from opening the forty-mile system of dirt roads. Local towns rely on the Moose River Plains for tourism.

Following is the full text of DEC’s news release:

Thanks to a creative state-local partnership, the Moose River Plains Road — which provides access to one of the largest blocks of remote lands in the Adirondack Park — will be open to motor vehicles this summer, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Pete Grannis announced today.

DEC worked with local officials from Inlet, Indian Lake and Hamilton County, as well as state legislators, to cover maintenance duties and costs for the season. The Moose River Plains includes more than 40 miles of dirt roads, approximately 170 primitive campsites and 50,000 acres of wild forest in the central and southwestern sections of the park. DEC had previously announced that this road would not be opened in 2010 because the state’s historic fiscal crisis had limited agency maintenance funds. Instead, local communities will assist by providing gasoline, trucks, materials and law-enforcement personnel to help cover operational needs.

State and local crews began clearing the road this week; the road will be open Friday—in time for the Memorial Day weekend. However, roads south of the “Big T” junction (Otter Brook and Indian Lake roads) will remain closed.

“The Moose River Plains Road will be open for 2010, thanks to the willingness of local communities to help and the quick reaction of DEC crews to make it happen,” Commissioner Grannis said. “Together, we’ve forged a solution that will benefit the anglers, birders, hunters, hikers, mountain bikers and others who make the Plains a popular destination – as well as the businesses in Indian Lake and Inlet that depend on tourists.”

“Commissioner Grannis and the DEC staff moved heaven and earth to coordinate this effort and get us to a point where the road can be opened this weekend – which not something we thought could be done,” said Bill Farber, who serves as Morehouse town supervisor and chairman of the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors. “And, of course, the offer of assistance from the towns and the county were indispensable. By collaborating, we’ve come up with a solution that works for everyone.”

“We’re thankful that DEC accepted our offer of help and we’re looking forward to working together in partnership,” said Inlet Town Supervisor John Frey. “Our community and surrounding communities stand ready to assist in any reasonable way possible.”

“This is a great example of local and state officials coming together, working cooperatively and achieving a positive result,” said state Senator Betty Little.  “It’s the kind of teamwork that is so important during this time of fiscal crisis. Commissioner Pete Grannis and his staff understood what was at stake. Losing the economic activity generated by the thousands of hikers, campers, sportsmen, mountain bikers and other tourists who visit the Moose River Plains would have dealt a severe financial blow to our Hamilton County communities.”

“The creative solution Commissioner Grannis and his DEC staff reached with our Adirondack towns to keep the Moose River Plains Road access area open is a fine example of how government should work,” said Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward. “Following DEC’s lead, we could save our parks and save New York taxpayers money.”

“This is a great piece of news for this part of the Adirondacks,” said Assemblyman Marc Butler. “I want to thank Commissioner Grannis and the DEC for listening to our appeal. At a time when we need good things to happen in our region, this is definitely welcomed news. And it’s great that it happened in time for the Memorial Day weekend.”

The Moose River Plains Wild Forest is bounded on the north by the Pigeon Lakes Wilderness Area, Raquette Lake and the Blue Ridge Wilderness; on the east and the south by the West Canada Lakes Wilderness and the private lands of the Adirondack League Club; and on the west by the Fulton Chain Lakes and State Route 28. It includes the Red River, the South Branch of the Moose River and the 675-acre Cedar River Flow.

The Moose River Plains Wild Forest offers many year-round recreational opportunities, including hiking, skiing, mountain biking, snowmobiling, canoeing, hunting, fishing, horseback riding and primitive camping. Miles of marked trails and numerous lakes and ponds make this area an ideal destination for recreationists with varied interests and abilities.

Hurricane Mountain fire tower. Photo by Phil Brown.

In a controversial decision, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is recommending the removal of old fire towers on St. Regis Mountain and Hurricane Mountain.

Environmental groups have argued that the towers should be removed because they are in areas that are managed, by and large, as Wilderness. The guidelines for managing Wilderness Areas require the removal of most man-made structures. Also, environmentalists point out that both summits offer wide-open views without the towers.

Nevertheless, many local residents (and no doubt many visitors as well) want the towers to remain. They see the structures as reminders of the region’s history.

Environmentalists have split over the removal of a fire tower on Wakely Mountain, which has virtually no view otherwise. DEC recommends keeping this tower and the observer’s cabin. It would be used as a radio-repeater station.

DEC will hold a public meeting on the Hurricane tower at Keene Central School on Thursday, Feb. 25, at 6:30 p.m. A public meeting on the St. Regis tower will be held at the Freer Science Building at Paul Smith’s College on the same night, starting at the same time.

More information about the fire-tower study is available here.

Click below to read DEC’s news release (PDF file).

DEC on fire towers PDF

The words "Adirondack Homeland" appear on a boulder at the entrance to the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, a reminder of the battle over Crane Pond Road two decades ago.

In the next issue of the Adirondack Explorer, we plan to publish an article by Adam Federman on the implications of the Old Mountain Road decision on the state Forest Preserve.

Federman notes that probably hundreds of old roads crisscross the Preserve. As a result of the Old Mountain Road case, observers are asking whether towns could reopen these roads to snowmobiles and/or other motor vehicles.

Any attempt to open these roads is sure to put the state Department of Environmental Conservation in the crossfire between local governments and environmental groups.

Remember Crane Pond Road? The dirt lane penetrates nearly two miles into the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness, ending at Crane Pond. Since motorized use is forbidden in Wilderness Areas, DEC placed boulders across the road in 1989 to blockade it.

The closure enraged local residents and became a cause celebre. In 1990, a group of men wearing masks removed the boulders and vowed to keep the road open. Members of Earth First, a radical environmental group, later pitched tents at the start of road to keep out vehicles.

A truck at the Crane Pond, nearly two miles inside the Pharaoh Lake Wilderness. Photo by Phil Brown.

This set up a confrontation between the Earth Firsters and locals who wanted to keep the road open. Jack LaDuke, who was there as a reporter for WCAX-TV, recalls that Warrensburg Supervisor Maynard Baker was among those who approached the encampment.

“Out of the corner of my eye I saw some commotion,” LaDuke told me today. “Baker and this other fellow were going at it. It was a very short encounter. Baker threw a punch and hit the fellow, it appeared to me on the chin, and he went down.” The Earth Firsters left soon afterward.

LaDuke’s footage later aired on a 60 Minutes piece about violence against environmentalists.

I went to Crane Pond Road on a gray, chilly day a few weeks ago to take photographs for Federman’s story. There is still an American flag hanging from a tree near the boundary of the Wilderness Area. Just where the road crosses into state land I noticed a boulder with spray-painted letters. I scraped off the moss and to reveal what they said: “Adirondack Homeland.”

There were no signs either indicating that this was the boundary of a Wilderness Area or forbidding motor vehicles. In fact, I wasn’t sure this was the boundary when I first drove up the road. I went as far as the trailhead for Goose Pond and hiked the rest of the way to Crane Pond. I saw three pickups parked along the road, including one at Crane Pond.

John Sheehan, a spokesman for the Adirondack Council, argues that DEC is obligated by the Adirondack Park State Land Master Plan to close the road. “It was closed [initially] by a legal action,” he said. “It was reopened by an act of vandalism.”

But the agency has no desire to open this can of worms.

When I asked why the road remains open, DEC spokesman Yancey Roy sent this e-mailed response: “When the controversy became public some years ago, the administration at the time decided to delay any action on the road until some future date. All subsequent administrations have continued to follow that policy.”

You haven’t heard the last of Lows Lake controversy—at least not from me.

Unfortunately, I missed the discussion that preceded last week’s vote by the Adirondack Park Agency on the proposed classification of the lake. (The APA changed its schedule at the last minute, so I arrived after the vote).

Lows Ridge at the foot of Lows Lake overlooks the Bog River valley. Photo by Phil Brown.

As you may recall from my earlier post, the agency commissioners voted 7-4 to reverse a decision in September to classify the lake as Wilderness or Primitive. The reason the classification proposal failed last week is that the three designees representing state agencies—namely, the departments of environmental conservation, economic development, and state—changed their votes.

Since the Department of Environmental Conservation had been one of the authors of the proposal—and it’s the agency responsible for protecting the Park’s natural resources—I was most curious about its change of heart.

After Friday’s meeting, I called DEC’s regional office for an explanation and was referred to the department’s public-relations staff in Albany. I was told by a spokeswoman in Albany that the department would not comment beyond what DEC’s representative, Betsy Lowe, said at the meeting.

Today I got a chance to listen to Lowe’s explanation as the APA has posted a webcast of the meeting.

But first a little background. The proposal would have designated the eastern third of the lake Primitive and the rest Wilderness. Both classifications prohibit the use of motors. The proposal also called for classifying or reclassifying much of the land around Lows, again either Wilderness or Primitive.

The Local Government Review Board, which monitors the APA, had opposed attaching any land classification to Lows Lake. Most of the land around Lows is in the public Forest Preserve, but there are private holdings along the shore as well. The board argued that classifying Lows would set a precedent that would give the APA jurisdiction over other lakes with private land. The board did not object to classifying the state lands abutting the lake.

At Friday’s meeting, William Thomas, a former Johnsburg supervisor, introduced an amendment to remove the lake classification from the proposal.

APA Chairman Curt Stiles told me later that he had not known that Thomas planned to introduce this amendment. In contrast, it seems likely that Lowe did know that the amendment was coming, because she supported it without hesitation—notwithstanding that it contradicted DEC’s earlier position.

Her first argument in favor of the amendment was that DEC would have a tougher time managing the lake if it were classified Wilderness or Primitive. “The staff would not be able to use small boats to do the administrative work they need to do to take care of the campsites,” she said.

Think about this. DEC has prohibited the public from using motorboats on Lows Lake and will ban floatplanes from the lake after 2011. But it wants its staff to continue to use motorboats on what is supposed to be a wilderness canoe route.

Stiles seized on this point during the APA meeting. “The notion of classifying the water where the underlying bed is owned by the state is appropriate,” he said, “notwithstanding the hardship it may intrude on DEC personnel in terms of having to row instead of taking a motorboat. But when you classify Wilderness, that’s part of the deal, so I don’t consider that to be a legitimate objection.” Nor was this ob jection raised in the many months leading up to Friday’s vote.

In an interview today, Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), was a bit harsher in his criticism. “To throw the whole concept of a wilderness canoe route in jeopardy because DEC wants to use motorboats is a real shock,” he said.

Lowe, who is DEC’s regional director, gave another reason for changing her vote: The community was not comfortable with classifying the lake. “It sounds like there’s a concern that the classification of the bed is somehow precedent-setting,” she said.

Woodworth said he has little doubt that the state-agency designees discussed their move before the meeting and intentionally left Stiles out of the loop. “I think it was an organized effort by the three state agencies to sandbag Curt Stiles,” he said. He added: “As far as the three state agencies that flipped their vote, I think they did so in concert, and I think they did so with the blessing of the governor’s office.”

Lowe’s office referred all questions to Albany. I left a bunch of questions with DEC’s spokesman in Albany but have yet to hear back. I’ll give an update if I do.

Some people wonder what it matters if the lake is classified or not. After all, DEC has already adopted regulations to ban powerboats and planes. Woodworth, however, said regulations can be changed without much trouble. “If the water were classified as Wilderness [or Primitive] it would be much harder for any subsequent political administration to reverse the decision to phase out motorboats and floatplanes,” he said.

Since Lows Lake is part of the Forest Preserve, Woodworth contends that the APA is obligated to give it some kind of land classification. He said DEC’s vote on Friday was a betrayal of previous commitments to support classifying the lake. Asked if ADK will sue the APA, he replied, “I think it’s likely at this point. I’m not saying we’re definitely going to do it.”

Incidentally, the APA voted 6-4 back in September to classify the lake. However, the vote of the designee from the Department of Economic Development (DED) was later deemed invalid because he had already left the department for another state job. Since the proposal required six votes to pass, the APA took up the matter again this month.

Commissioner Cecil Wray, who was absent in September due to illness, voted for the measure last week and noted that if he had been present at the first meeting, the proposal would have mustered six votes even without the DED designee’s support. “I’m feeling very apologetic, because I’m the cause of all these problems,” he said. “I apologize that I was not here in September.”

Jim McCulley takes a stroll on the Old Mountain Road in Keene with Cherokee, his golden Labrador retriever. Photo by Susan Bibeau.

Environmentalists worry that a snowmobiler’s victory in the Old Mountain Road case could lead to the opening of roads throughout the Forest Preserve to motorized use. So worried is the Adirondack Council that it has asked for permission to intervene in the case.

In May, Pete Grannis, the chief of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, dismissed a ticket issued to Jim McCulley, a Lake Placid resident who drove a snowmobile and then a truck on the Old Mountain Road in the Sentinel Range Wilderness. Grannis agreed with McCulley that the old road had never been legally abandoned by the local towns and therefore DEC had no right to ban motorized use. (The decision is attached below.)

John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council, said the decision could affect hundreds of miles of old roads in the Forest Preserve. The council has asked permission to join a motion by DEC’s staff to clarify the decision.

“Our entire object is not to go after McCulley but to prevent problems from arising in other parts of the Preserve,” Sheehan said.

Sheehan said the council wants Grannis to overturn his own decision or modify it “to remove some of the erroneous interpretations of the law.” He argues that state law and legal precedents suggest that a road is legally abandoned if it has not been used as a road for a number of years.

The four-mile stretch of the Old Mountain Road in question–which runs from Keene to North Elba–has not been maintained for motorized use for many years (click to see  its history). It is part of the Jackrabbit Ski Trail.

Soon after Grannis issued his decision, DEC’s own staff filed a motion asking for clarification (see attachment below). DEC attorney Randall Young says the staff believes the decision “misapprehended or misapplied” the law and needs to be clarified “to ensure proper care, custody, and control of the lands under the administration of the Department.”

McCulley’s attorney, Matthew Norfolk of Lake Placid, opposes both DEC’s motion and the council’s request to support the motion. In legal papers filed with the agency, Norfolk contends that “DEC staff are simply attempting to reargue points of law that were argued (over and over again) in the administrative proceeding.”

DEC spokesman Yancey Roy said Grannis probably will decide within a month or two whether to consider the request to clarify his ruling. If he does agree to reconsider it, the two sides would be asked to present arguments for and against modifying the decision.

Grannis decision PDF

DEC staff motion PDF

The King Phillip's Spring before the pipe was removed. Photo by Phil Gallos.

Phil Gallos has a thing for springs. He has visited more than sixty of them in the Adirondacks, often taking photographs and recording his observations. In ancient times, he says, springs were sacred places–they sustained life.

“There’s an aesthetic and spiritual quality to going to the spring to get your water,” he says. “It is a connection to the natural pattern of our species. It is what we have been doing for millennia.”

Gallos, who lives in Saranac Lake, was upset when the state Department of Environmental Conservation closed King Phillip’s Spring on Route 73, just off Northway Exit 30. King Phillip’s was one of the most visible and most popular springs in the Adirondacks. Driving past on a hot summer day, a motorist often could see people lined up to fill bottles from a pipe sticking out of a chain-link fence. The water seeps naturally to the surface in the woods, where it had been captured in a spring box and piped downhill to the fence.

DEC decided to remove the pipe in late April after detecting high levels of coliform bacteria in water samples taken over six months. Generally, coliform bacteria are not harmful in themselves, but they can indicate the presence of pathogens. People who drink contaminated water may experience diarrhea, cramps, nausea, jaundice, or fatigue.

Given the risk to public health, DEC felt it had no choice. The spring is on the Forest Preserve. In a news release, the agency said building a permanent structure to protect the spring and disinfect the water would violate Article 14, the clause in the state constitution that mandates that the Preserve shall remain forever wild.

Gallos contends the state overreacted, saying that people have been drinking water from King Phillip’s Spring for generations without any apparent ill effects. It’s possible that the bacteria were growing in the pipe or the spring box. If DEC replaced the pipe and disinfected the spring box, he says, the problem might have gone away.

DEC spokesman David Winchell counters that even if the state followed Gallos’s suggestion, the pipe and/or spring box could become contaminated again. In fact, he said DEC did disinfect the pipe and box on several occasions, but tests continued to show high levels of coliform.

Gallos also thinks DEC should have done more testing. Many forms of coliform bacteria occur naturally and do not indicate a threat. The general coliform test, unlike more specific tests, fails to determine whether the bacteria found indicate the presence of harmful pathogens. “If any of these bacteria are present, then they consider the water is not safe to drink, and to me that is a crude approach,” he said.

Winchell confirmed that DEC performed the general coliform test, but in doing so the agency was following the requirements of the state Department of Health.

The origin of the bacteria is uncertain. The fence was erected years ago to keep people from defecating near the spring, but Winchell said DEC continues to find evidence of human waste. “We closed the spring because we can not ensure the quality of the water and the safety of the public that drinks it,” he said.

Gallos sees the closure as part of a wider state campaign. The state also has closed roadside springs in the southern Adirondacks, he says, and posted warning signs at others, including Lumberjack Springs outside Tupper Lake and another along Route 3 near the hamlet of Gale. At the Gale spring, Gallos says, “I met a guy in his eighties who said he had been drinking this water all his life, and yet there’s a sign right there: ‘Unfit for human consumption.’”

Do you think the state was right to close King Phillip’s Spring? Before deciding, you might want to read the attached documents: DEC’s news release, a state leaflet on coliform bacteria, and Phil Gallos’s essay (it’s 8,000 words) on Adirondack springs.

DEC news release pdf

DOH leaflet PDF

Phil Gallos essay PDF