The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
Protect the Adirondacks has submitted a lengthy reply brief in its lawsuit against the Adirondack Club and Resort in Tupper Lake. Protect is responding to the claims of the Adirondack Park Agency in its answer to the suit. Among other things, Protect contends the project violates regulations for lands classified as Resource Management, the APA’s…
By Phil Brown
We all need to learn more about the ecological risks posed by invasive species. There is no better time than next week, when the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program will be coordinating a series of activities to raise awareness of the problem. Following is a news release from the organization. Groups across the region are…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation hopes to reconstruct this fall the popular boat launch at Second Pond, which gives boaters access to the Saranac Lakes State Campground. DEC plans to replace the existing boat ramp, build a separate facility for canoes and kayaks, and provide additional parking. It also wants to change the boundaries…
By Phil Brown
A man who built a boathouse on Lake Placid in defiance of the local code-enforcement officer could be forced to tear it down. The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that William Grimditch should have obtained a permit from the town of North Elba before building the boathouse in 2010. Grimditch was…
By Phil Brown
Brian Houseal will step down as executive director of the Adirondack Council when his contract runs out this fall. Houseal told the Explorer he is pursuing other work in conservation but plans to continue to live in Westport. Asked why he was leaving the council, he replied: “I’ve been in this position ten years. It’s…
State tries to curb illegal trade in bear paws and gall bladders. North Country Taxidermy in Keene does a steady business in mounted deer heads, stuffed mammals, skulls, horns, and fur rugs and blankets. Black-bear gall bladders are a lesser-known commodity. Bud Piserchia, who owns the shop, acquires as many as 150 gall bladders during…
Environmentalists and local leaders agree that the privately owned backcountry should be protected—but how? By Phil Brown Nearly forty years have passed since Governor Nelson Rockefeller, while signing a law regulating development in the Adirondack Park, declared to the reporters and conservationists in the room, “The Adirondacks are preserved forever.” He had some reason for…
By Phil Brown
The logging road to Madawaska Flow and Quebec Brook, waterways acquired by the state in 1998, is closed to the public, the Adirondack Explorer has learned. I intended to drive to Madawaska on Sunday to take photos for a paddling guidebook and was surprised to find the gate locked. A sign indicated that the road…
By Phil Brown
For the May/June issue of the Explorer, Brian Mann wrote a piece about the difficulty of getting state funding for smaller land deals in the Adirondacks. That’s because all the attention is on the acquisition of former Finch, Pruyn lands and Follensby Pond–roughly 80,000 acres in all. As a result, Mann reported, the Adirondack Land…
By Phil Brown
Peter Bauer, a longtime environmental activist, has been named executive director of Protect the Adirondacks, an organization formed in 2010 with the merger of two green groups, one of which Bauer ran. In an interview with the Explorer, Bauer said he was drawn to Protect by the strength of its board of directors. “It was…