County official protests to governor

Hamilton County’s director of economic development and tourism has written Governor David Paterson to protest the state’s plan to close to vehicles all the roads in the Moose River Plains Recreation Area.

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

In his letter released today, William Osborne asserts that the closures “will have a devastating effect on the Hamilton County business community and a local economy already teetering on the brink.”

He also contends that the state should not purchase any more land for the Adirondack Forest Preserve unless it can guarantee it can pay to maintain the land.

 “Why is the State of New York buying more and more land when it cannot begin to care for, maintain and police the land it already owns?” he asks.

Osborne suggests the state pass legislation tying future land purchases to maintenance funds.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation says budget cuts prohibit it from opening the forty miles of dirt roads in the Moose River Plains. DEC spokesman David Winchell said the department lacks the staff to maintain and patrol the roads and 110 drive-in campsites. The roads usually open in May.

The Hamilton County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution last week demanding that the state open the roads immediately.

Click the link below to read Osborne’s letter in its entirety (in PDF format).

Osborne letter

New deal for hunters

When the state signed a deal a decade ago to protect 139,000 acres owned by Champion International, Adirondack residents complained that it called for the demolition of hunting camps that had been in use for many years.

As a result, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing to modify the deal to allow the 220 camps to remain. In exchange, the current owner, Heartland Forestland Fund III, will donate 2,661 acres to the state. The company supplements its timber revenue by leasing land to hunting clubs.

In 1999, the state bought 29,000 acres outright from Champion and protected the remaining 110,000 acres via conservation easements that prohibit development but permit logging.

The original deal required the camps to be demolished after June 30, 2014. Under DEC’s proposal, released today (Tuesday), they will be allowed to remain indefinitely. Each camp will have a one-acre footprint that will remain off limits to the public. The rest of the land will be open for public recreation.

The land to be given the state includes a 2,146-parcel near the Deer River in the northern Adirondack Park. Most of the Deer River corridor within the Park was purchased from Champion in the 1999 deal and is now called the Deer River Primitive Area. The new parcel will be added to this Forest Preserve tract. Also, a 515-acre parcel will be added to the Deer River State Forest just north of the Park.

Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan said the modified agreement will benefit the Forest Preserve, the hunters, and Heartland. “We’re not thrilled that they reopened an easement that the state settled a decade ago, but we can live with the result,” he said.

The modifications must be approved by the state attorney general and the state comptroller. DEC will be taking public comments on the proposal until December 11. Comments may be e-mailed to Heather Carl at HFF3DEIS@gw.dec.state.ny.us.

 Click the links below for PDF files of DEC’s announcement and details of the proposal.

DEC announcement

DEC proposal

Land swap on ballot

On Tuesday, voters will be asked to approve the construction of a power line that’s already been built—through the forever-wild Forest Preserve in the northwestern Adirondacks.

If Ballot Proposal One is approved, the state will cede to National Grid a two-mile strip, totaling six acres, along Route 56 where the line was built last year. In exchange, National Grid will give the state a forty-three-acre parcel along the South Branch of the Grass River.

National Grid built a power line along Route 56 that traversed the Forest Preserve parcel shown in dark green. The alternative would have been to avoid the parcel by building in an old-growth forest and spruce-grouse habitat. Courtesy of the Adirondack Council.

John Sheehan of the Adirondack Council says it’s a good deal for the state.

If the line were not built along the road, Sheehan said, National Grid would have had to avoid the Forest Preserve parcel by constructing the line through an ancient boreal forest and Seveys Bog, a home of the endangered spruce grouse. The line would have crossed ninety-five streams and wetlands, according to the council.

“That forest has not been disturbed, as far we can tell, since the last ice age,” Sheehan said.

The line is needed to provide a backup source of power to Tupper Lake.

“In a couple of cases they’ve had outages in the winter that lasted more than a day,” Sheehan said. “They’ve had to put people in public shelters to keep them from freezing to death.”

He concedes that building the power line in the Preserve was illegal, but for the sake of the greater good, the council and other environmental groups chose not to sue.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation also agreed not to sue if National Grid pursued the constitutional amendment allowing the land swap. The amendment, now known as Ballot Proposal One, has already been approved by two successive state legislatures—a prerequisite to getting it on the ballot.

DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren said National Grid was under federal orders to build the line by the end of last year, so work could not be delayed under after next week’s referendum.

Sheehan has been talking up the amendment around the state and has encountered virtually no opposition. He is confident it will pass. If for some reason it doesn’t, he added, National Grid will push for another vote in 2011.

The council’s website contains an explanation of the proposal as well as its exact wording. You’ll also find links to numerous editorials in favor of the land swap.

Click the link below to read National Grid’s fact sheet on the project.

National Grid factsheet PDF

Paterson urged to reject Lows proposal

The executive director of the Adirondack Park Local Government Review Board has written Gov. David Paterson to urge him to reject a proposal to classify part of Lows Lake as Wilderness.

At its September meeting, the Adirondack Park Agency voted 6-4 to classify the western part of Lows Lake as Wilderness and the eastern part as Primitive. Adjacent lands also were placed in one or the other of the two categories. To take effect, the proposal must be approved by the governor.

Fred Monroe, director of the Local Government Review Board, argues in a letter to Paterson that the proposal sets several “bad precedents.” He notes that it would be the first time the APA classified as Wilderness a water body with private shoreline.

“If the APA is allowed to classify waters as Wilderness, they will be authorized to vastly expand their jurisdiction over private lands without legislative action,” he says in the letter, dated Sept. 22.

Monroe also argues that Chris Walsh, the state Commerce Department’s designee on the APA board, should not have been allowed to vote, because Walsh had already left the department to work in the governor’s office. Without Walsh’s vote, the proposal would have been defeated, Monroe says, because it needed six votes to pass.

In an e-mail to the Explorer, the APA says the issues raised by Monroe were discussed at the September meeting before the vote. The agency contends that Lows Lake is unusual in that the state owns the lakebed and so that the vote does not represent a precedent for other lakes.  The agency also says Walsh continued to be the formal designee from the Commerce Department at the meeting.

Click the links below to read Monroe’s letter and the APA response.

monroe-letter

apa-response2

Lows Lake proposal OK’d

The Adirondack Park Agency voted 6-4 Friday to classify most of Lows Lake and adjacent lands as Wilderness, despite objections from local politicians.

Under the proposal, which requires approval from the governor, Lows Lake west of Frying Pan Island will be designated Wilderness. The rest of the lake, which is much narrower, will be designated Primitive.

Lows Ridge and Hitchins Pond will be part of the Eastern Five Ponds Access Primitive Area.

The two classifications do not differ much in their management guidelines. Both classifications forbid motorized use by the general public. In this case, the Primitive classification reflects a recognition that the eastern part of Lows Lake abuts private lands, access roads, and a large concrete dam, making it less wild.

The Boy Scouts, the major landowner on the eastern part of the lake, will continue to be allowed to to use motorboats.  They can take their boats on any part of the lake, but they usually stick to the eastern part, shuttling Scouts to and from islands.

Although the full APA board voted Friday, it debated the proposal on Thursday afternoon. One of the biggest objections was that the APA would set a precedent by giving a state-land classification to a lake. In the past, it has classified only land.

APA Chairman Curt Stiles argued that the novelty of the proposal was no reason to vote against it.  “If government never sets a precedent, it never moves forward,” he said.

But Fred Monroe of the Local Government Review Board, which has a non-voting seat on the APA, fears that it could lead to motorized-use restrictions on other lakes that are partially bordered by private land.”It’s not just that it establishes a precedent; it’s that it establishes a bad precedent,” he said.

Environmental activists also differed on the matter.

Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club, favored the classification of the lake. Since the lakebed is owned by the state, he said, it is part of the Forest Preserve and should be treated as such. Dan Plumley of Protect the Adirondacks took a similar position.

But Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, argued that it was premature to classify the lake as Wilderness (even in part), given the adjoining private lands. He also noted that Lows Lake is created by a large dam.

“This is what upsets local governments,” Houseal said. “They see an artificial lake classified as Wilderness.”

Woodworth said he doubted the precedent would affect many other lakes. In many cases, if not most, the state is not the sole owner of the lakebed. He suspects the main reason local governments strenuously opposed the lake’s classification is that it will make it harder for the APA to reconsider its decision to ban floatplanes from landing.

Earlier this year, the agency voted to ban floatplanes from Lows Lake after 2011. The Wilderness and Primitive classifications reinforce this decision.

The proposal approved Friday was a revision of an earlier proposal to designate 12,700 acres, including the bed of Lows Lake, as Wilderness. The revised proposal, besides splitting the lake between Wilderness and Primitive, creates an Eastern Five Ponds Access Primitive Area that encompasses the region around the Lows Lake dam, including Hitchins Pond and the access roads. As its name indicates, this area will be classified as Primitive. The remaining land will be classified as Wilderness.

Woodworth said the vote will protect two wilderness canoe routes that include Lows Lake. One starts on the Bog River and ends on the Oswegatchie River. The other is a multiday loop that includes Little Tupper Lake, Lake Lila, Lows Lake, the Bog River, and Round Lake.

The proposal is expected to be approved by Gov. David Paterson. All three state officials on the APA voted for it. Joining them were Curt Stiles, Dick Booth, and James Townsend. Dissenting were Frank Mezzano, Leilani Ulrich, Arthur Lussi, and William Thomas–all residents of the Park. Stiles is the only other full-time Park resident on the board.

McCulley wants Grannis off case

State Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis may have ruled in Jim McCulley’s favor in the Old Mountain Road dispute, but McCulley still wants him off the case.

McCulley’s lawyer, Matthew Norfolk of Lake Placid, filed a motion Tuesday asking Grannis to recuse himself for engaging in in “ex-parte” communications about the case with the Adirondack Council and Adirondack Park Agency, both of which are seeking permission to intervene in the legal controversy. They want Grannis to reconsider the decision.

This spring, Grannis ruled that the state never legally closed the Old Mountain Road, which runs between Keene and North Elba in the Sentinel Range Wilderness. He dismissed a ticket issued to McCulley for driving a pickup truck on part of the road.

After the decision, Brian Houseal, executive director of the Adirondack Council, and Curt Stiles, chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency, wrote letters to Grannis expressing concern that the ruling calls into question the status of other old roads in the public Forest Preserve.

Norfolk contends that he should have received copies of these letters. State law forbids communications between parties in a legal matter unless all parties are privy to them. Communications that violate this rule are referred to as “ex-parte” communications.

McCulley’s lawyer not only wants Grannis to recuse himself, but he also is demanding that the requests from the council and APA to join the proceeding be denied.

Grannis spokesman Yancey Roy declined to comment on the motion. APA spokesman Keith McKeever also said he could not comment immediately.

Marc Gerstman, the council’s lawyer, pointed out that the council was not a party to the case when Brian Houseal wrote his letter to Grannis. “There is no ex-parte issue here,” he said.

McCulley argues that DEC and the council have “an incestuous relationship” and that Houseal’s letter “planted a seed” in Grannis’s mind shortly before the council filed its request to intervene.

Paddling scenic Fall Stream

Paddling the weedy end of Fall Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

A few years ago, the Explorer published a story by Mark Bowie about a canoe trip on Fall Stream, a tributary of Piseco Lake. Mark did the trip with some volunteers from the Adirondack Mountain Club who were investigating the possibility of adding Fall Stream to the state’s Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System.

Mark concluded that all or most of Fall Stream should be classified as Scenic. After paddling the river to Fall Lake and Vly Lake last weekend, I heartily agree.

Most of the river lies within the state Forest Preserve, but the put-in and some of the land upstream are owned by the Irondequoit Club. You paddle upstream to Fall Lake and then Vly Lake, winding through beautiful marshes decorated with pickerelweed, cardinal flower, turtlehead, and other flowers. We saw lots of ducks and a few great blue herons.

I can think of three reasons for adding the stream to the Wild, Scenic, and Recreational Rivers System:

1. To give this lovely stream the cachet it deserves.

2. To provide some extra protection against development.

3. To give the state more reason to ban motors from at least part of the stream.

The last would be controversial. Despite beaver dams above Fall Lake, anglers take small motorboats all the way to Vly Lake. On Saturday, we saw three motorboats on the lake. Given the dams and the smallness of the stream, I was rather surprised that they made it that far.

As a compromise, motors could be allowed as far as Fall Lake, which is located about a mile from the put-in. Most of the property in this stretch is private, and the stream is broader. Above Fall Lake, the stream narrows and becomes wilder as it penetrates the interior of the Jessup River Wild Forest.

Directions: From the intersection of NY 8 and NY 30 in Speculator, drive west on NY 8 for nine miles to Old Piseco Road (County 24) on the right. Turn and drive 1.6 miles to the bridge over Fall Stream. The put-in is on the right on the far side of the bridge. Park along the road, being sure not to block the entrance to the put-in.

The road to Pine Pond

Canoeing on Oseetah Lake. Photo by Phil Brown.

Last Sunday, two friends and I paddled from Second Pond on the Saranac River to Oseetah Lake and then walked to the beach at Pine Pond for a swim. Although the weather was iffy throughout the afternoon (we got rained on twice, albeit briefly), the sun came out just as we returned to our canoes on Oseetah.

Pine Pond is a beautiful body of water that lies just inside the High Peaks Wilderness, where motorized recreation is forbidden. We were somewhat surprised to find an all-terrain vehicle and a golf cart at the pond.

But only somewhat surprised. The High Peaks Wilderness boundary is an old dirt road that runs for several miles from Averyville outside Lake Placid to Oseetah Lake. The road may be impassable to the family sedan, but not to ATVs. Just before the lake, there is a short spur that leads to Pine Pond. People can reach the spur by riding from Averyville or from camps on Oseetah.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has posted signs against vehicle use on the spur to the pond. The main road, though, lies within the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest, and it’s uncertain whether it’s owned by the state or local towns, according to DEC spokesman David Winchell. In winter, the road is used as a snowmobile trail.

There has been talk of closing the road to vehicles, but Winchell says DEC will not decide what to do until it writes a management plan for the Saranac Lakes Wild Forest. The plan has been in the works for years, so it’s anybody’s guess when it will be completed.

Jim McCulley, who won a legal fight with DEC over the ownership of another old road, predicts a firestorm if DEC tries to ban ATVs and other vehicles from the Oseetah Lake road. ”You want a fight?” he says. “Try closing that. All the local boys hunt in there.”

McCulley contends that the road is owned by the towns of North Elba and Harrietstown. In recent years, he adds, North Elba has used crushed tarmac to harden the surface. “They do some work on it nearly every year, just so there’s no question who owns it,” he said.

Winchell says DEC’s lawyers are researching the ownership issue.

Given the implications of the McCulley case, DEC lawyers may find themselves looking into the history of a lot of roads in the Adirondacks.

APA loses court fight

A state appellate court has ruled against the Adirondack  Park Agency in its battle with an Essex farmer who constructed worker homes on his property without an APA permit.

The APA had levied a $50,000 fine against Lewis Family Farm, owned by Salim “Sandy” and Barbara Lewis. The Lewises contend that farmworker houses are exempt from APA regulations that apply to other single-family homes.

On Thursday, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court ruled 5-0 in the farm’s favor. The court noted that the state constitution and various state laws reflect an intent to encourage agriculture. “Nothing in any of these provisions suggests, as the APA argues, that New York’s strong pro-farming policy should apply differently to farms within the Adirondack Park than to farms elsewhere in the state,” wrote Justice Elizabeth Garry.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever could not be reached Friday. In an Associated Press story, however, he said the agency was reviewing the decision. The APA could ask the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, to take the case.

Click on the hypertext below to read the full decision.

lewis-decision

Lows Lake proposal meets opposition

On Monday, the Adirondack Park Agency held the first two hearings on classifying Lows Lake as Wilderness, and as expected, there was a lot of local opposition.

Both hearings took place inside the Park: at the town hall in Long Lake and at the state Ranger School in Wanakena. The opposition was stronger in Long Lake.

APA spokesman Keith McKeever said only eight people attended the Wanakena hearing, and their views were “split down the middle.” Eighteen showed up at Long Lake, where “there more people opposed to the classification than were for it,” McKeever said.

Following are newspaper accounts of the two hearings:

• Wanakena (from Watertown Daily Times).
• Long Lake (from Adirondack Daily Enterprise).

A third hearing will be held in Albany at noon Monday at the headquarters of the state Department of Environmental Conservation, 625 Broadway, Room PA 129B.

The APA is expected to make a decision in the fall.

See my earlier blog for more information about the proposal.