The only independent, nonprofit news organization solely dedicated to reporting on the Adirondack Park.
By Phil Brown
David Gibson and Dan Plumley, both of whom resigned this month from Protect the Adirondacks, are thinking about forming a new environmental organization. “We’re talking a lot about the possibility. Nothing’s crystallized,” said Gibson, who once served as Protect’s executive director. Meanwhile, Charles Clusen, the chairman of the Protect board, said Protect expects to hire…
By Phil Brown
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has two interesting proposals for the Moose River Plains. One should make local officials happy. The other should make environmentalists happy. The Moose River Plains is now classified as Wild Forest. DEC wants to reclassify twenty miles of dirt road as an “Intensive Use Area,” a designation usually reserved…
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…
By Phil Brown
Over the past four years, the number of endangered Indiana bats in New York State has plummeted about 50 percent. And that’s the good news. The populations of other bat species in the state have fallen as much as 90 percent. State biologist Al Hicks told the Adirondack Park Agency on Thursday that three species—the…
By Phil Brown
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. In his letter released today, William Osborne asserts that the closures “will have a devastating effect on the Hamilton County business community and…
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…
By 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…
By Phil Brown
Because of the state’s fiscal crisis, the Department of Environmental Conservation doesn’t plan to open the roads in the popular Moose River Plains Recreation Area this year. The large tract of state land, located between the hamlets of Inlet and Indian Lake, has forty miles of dirt roads and 140 primitive campsites. The sites are…
By Phil Brown
In this age of climate change, it’s nice to know that April showers still bring May flowers. This afternoon, I took my customary jaunt up Baker Mountain and found many wildflowers in bloom, including spring beauty, trout lily, red trillium, saxifrage, yellow violets, and Dutchman’s breeches. I am always amused by the last flower—both its…
How logging, fish stocking, acid rain, and other man-made calamities nearly wiped out an Adirondack icon: the wild brookie. By George Earl In early May, vernal patches of birch stood out among the darker evergreens lining the remote kettle-hole pond. As we put our canoe into the icy water, a welcome breeze dispersed the cloud…